Текст книги "Better Off Friends"

Автор книги: Elizabeth Eulberg

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

I heard his phone go off, and he silenced it. I closed my eyes again, grateful to be back with him. Back home. Happy that the awkwardness we’d had when I left had been erased. I reached for his hand and entwined his fingers with mine. I was debating telling him everything right there and then, but the last thing I wanted was for my dad and uncle to drive up during that conversation, especially if it ended in a kiss. I was pretty sure my dad would be making up new rules about when and where we could be together if he saw that.

Levi’s phone went off again. He reached to silence it again, and I noticed an unfamiliar name on the screen.

“Who’s Stacey?” I asked before I had a chance to stop myself.

Levi pulled away from me. “Oh, yeah, that.” He shuffled uncomfortably. “I wanted to wait for you to be settled in before I told you that you and Stacey would not be allowed to be at parties together.” He laughed lightly.

Why would this girl and I not be allowed to go to …

No.

It hit me like a wall of bricks.

“You have a girlfriend.”

“Well, we’ve been hanging out – I’m not sure I’d say girlfriend yet. But she’s cool. Stacey Hobbs – she’s our year and on the cheerleading squad.”

“Oh.” I knew who he was talking about, but I was trying to figure out how this had happened and why Levi had conveniently neglected to mention anything to me about it. I found myself stepping away from him a bit, needing some distance to try to make sense of it all.

“But enough about me. Tonight is all about you.” Levi stepped forward. “I should warn you that Mom’s obsessed with making shepherd’s pie for you tonight to ease you back into the Midwest. And you know how paranoid she gets cooking for you, so throw in some brilliants and all will be good.”

I gave him a weak smile.

“Come here. I missed you so much.” He put his arms around me again. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to let go. Having your best friend leave you for the summer blows.” He kissed me on the forehead. “But I promise to stop being jealous and want to hear every detail of your trip. I want to be inundated with photos and stories that will make me green with envy. I mean it. You have to tell me everything.”

But I really couldn’t tell him everything, since there was one thing I had to keep to myself.

Awk-ward!

Dude, do you realize if you’d said something right then, everything would’ve been different?

Like you would no longer call me dude?

Whatever, dude. But don’t pretend that I’m the one into drama when you yourself led us into more drama.

You got me there.

So you’re admitting that I’m totally right?

No. Because you have to admit life is more interesting with a little drama.

Are you serious? Life is more of a pain in the rear with drama.

Oh, wait, you’re totally right on that one. My bad.

I was so stoked to have Macallan back. Summer wasn’t the same without her around. It wasn’t until she was truly gone, thousands of miles away, that I realized how much time we spent together each summer. And yeah, even though I had my guys, it was different. It didn’t feel the same. Nothing was the same without her.

At first I was mad at her for going away, but then I got it. We probably needed a break to reassess things.

I truly loved Macallan, I did. But I realized that she didn’t feel the same, so if the only way I could have her in my life was as a friend, that’s what we’d be.

I admit, she looked so cute when she got out of customs at the airport. She had that sleepy look she got when she was either super tired or under a lot of pressure. She was pretty quiet on the drive home and at dinner that evening. But I felt a lot better just having her near me.

I probably should’ve told her about Stacey while she was in Ireland, but it never had felt like the right time. Stacey was great and really cool, but truthfully I thought I should have a girlfriend by the time Macallan got back solely to avoid any more awkwardness. I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable or to think I was still pining over her. I had to put that aside if I wanted things to go back to normal.

I wish I could say that things went quickly back to how they’d been before all our problems. But Macallan started acting almost uncomfortable around me. At first I brushed it off as jet lag, I mean, she nearly cut off her finger one day in the kitchen when I asked her advice about Stacey, and Macallan was always very careful when she was cooking. So that I got. But after a week of her dropping things around me whenever I got too close to her, of her avoiding my eyes, I realized that my confession to her might’ve done some significant damage that would take a lot longer to repair. I was willing to give her the space, whatever she needed to feel comfortable around me again.

It was two weeks before school was starting and Macallan was busy in the kitchen with my mom. She had come over to hang out with me, but the second my mom showed up with a bag of groceries, Macallan jumped up to help her, and I hadn’t seen her since.

It seemed like every time we were supposed to hang, she’d find something else to do. Someone else to be around.

I guess this was how she felt the second half of sophomore year: discarded.

If I could have taken back that confession to her, I would have. Keeping it bottled up inside probably would’ve destroyed me, but better my sanity than my relationship with her.

After nearly a half hour of being ignored, I decided to go into the kitchen.

Macallan was sitting at the kitchen table, not helping, not doing anything, just chatting with Mom.

“Oh, sweetie,” Mom said to me, like she’d forgotten I was home. “Macallan gave me a new barbecue recipe that I’m going to try out tonight. You have to join us, Macallan. I feel like I haven’t seen you that much since you got home. Plus, I need you as my expert taste tester.”

Macallan beamed at Mom. “That sounds great.”

“Fantastic.” Mom looked over at me. “Stacey likes brats, right?”

“Yep,” I replied.

Macallan hit her head. “Oh my goodness, today’s Wednesday, right? I thought it was Tuesday. I have something tonight.”

“Aww, that’s too bad.” Mom looked genuinely sad. “Levi, how did your driving class go today?”

“Good, I’ve almost mastered parallel parking. I was thinking that I really want to take my driver’s license test on my actual birthday.” My sixteenth birthday was in a few weeks and I had my fingers crossed for a car.

“Sure.” Mom paused. “Although you’re going to have your first football game of the season the next night, so I don’t want you to overbook yourself. School comes first – you know that.”

“But I figured that if I got my license, then I could drive us all into Milwaukee for a birthday dinner or something.”

“Hmm, again, I don’t want you overdoing it. We should think about doing something low-key for your birthday. Sixteen is a big one, but I don’t think we should get crazy. You can go out with your friends after the game.” Her phone rang and she picked it up and went into the other room.

That was so not like my mom. She’d completely brushed my birthday aside. Mom always freaked out over my birthday. Extravagant, overplanned parties. The benefits of being an only child, I guess.

I turned toward Macallan. “Wasn’t she being weird?”

She looked confused. “What?”

“My mom. Just now. She was so weird about my birthday, don’t you think?”

“Huh?” Macallan looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language.

“Don’t you remember how she usually is with my birthday? She always makes a big deal out of it.”

Macallan’s eyes got wide. “You’re right – she’s a monster!”

Maybe I was reading too much into it. “So is she planning something?”

“Not that I know of. Honestly.”

I studied her for a second and could see she was being truthful.

“Maybe she thinks we’re growing up and don’t need to have a big party with clowns and balloon animals,” she offered.

“But I really wanted a balloon animal in the shape of a horsey.” I pretended to pout. “You’re probably right, although I usually have to calm her down over my birthday, and now it’s almost like she doesn’t care.”

Macallan dismissed me. “Wow. You’re being so dramatic. Your mom is the most loving mother ever. So just chill. I think all that practice in the sun has gotten to you.”

I was used to being in the sun, but being outside in the sun wearing a football uniform wasn’t exactly easy on my body.

“Yeah, I guess you’ve got a point. Well, anyway, what do you have going on tonight?”

“Huh?”

“Tonight?” I said. She looked at me blankly. “You have some plans, so you can’t stay for dinner.” I decided to poke her playfully at her side, but she jumped. I wasn’t used to her being this nervous around me. Something had to be going on.

Her eyes lit up. “Yes. Of course. It’s a … a family thing I have with Uncle Adam.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s really not a big deal. I promised I’d go see a movie with him tonight.” She wouldn’t even look me in the eye.

“Oh, yeah, what movie?”

“Movie? Um, I forgot which one he wanted to see.”

Okay, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that something was going on with Macallan. She clearly had plans tonight that she didn’t want me to know about. I wondered if she was already dating someone. She hadn’t even been back that long. But what else could it have been? She was disappearing and making excuses to not hang out as much. She hadn’t even met Stacey. I knew that she knew who she was from school, but this was different.

Whatever it was, she didn’t want me to know, and I had to respect her privacy. The last thing I wanted to do was make it worse.

I used to complain about the cold weather in Wisconsin when I first moved here. But little did I realize that the August heat waves would become the bane of my existence.

Keith walked out of practice with me. “This has never happened before, California.”

“You’ve never had a practice canceled?”

He shook his head. “Nah, this heat wave is brutal.”

We walked up to his truck and he unlocked the door. “Thanks for the ride, man.”

“No problem.” He smirked at me. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring a car seat for you.”

Ugh. I couldn’t wait to get my driver’s license. I hated having to rely on my parents or friends to get me around, especially to practice.

“Listen, if practice doesn’t work out tomorrow, you should come over and run a few plays with me. My backyard gets pretty shady in the afternoon.”

“Sounds good.” I paused for a second. I know guys are supposed to be chill, but I really appreciated everything Keith had done to help me with the team. “And thanks, man, for everything. I don’t think I would’ve made varsity without you.”

“Yeah, well, you’re fast. We need a fast guy. But don’t start writing me love letters yet.” He laughed. “You’ve still got to get in the game and catch the ball.”

“Got it. Get in the game, catch the ball, then write you love letters.”

He pulled up outside my house. “Yeah, but I wouldn’t want Macallan to get jealous. She’s a tough one. If only chicks could play football.”

I hopped out of the car and noticed Mr. Dietz’s car parked out front. I rushed inside, calling out, “Is everything okay with Macallan?”

I stopped suddenly when I saw Mom and Mr. Dietz leaning closely together at the kitchen table. They were looking at a piece of paper.

“Oh.” Mom jumped up. “What are you doing home so early?”

I looked between them. Something was off.

“Is Macallan okay?”

Mom shot Mr. Dietz a nervous glance. He stood up. “Yes, yes, she’s fine. I was just in the neighborhood….” He tried to grab the paper off the table nonchalantly, but it was so obvious what he was doing.

“What’s that?” I motioned at the paper in his hand.

“Oh, well …” They exchanged another nervous look. “I was asking your mother for her opinion on some cooking stuff I was going to get Macallan for her birthday.”

For some reason, I didn’t buy it. “Really? Can I see it?”

“Mr. Dietz was on his way out,” Mom said right as the coffee-maker went off. Mom never made coffee only for herself. She did it when we had company.

“Yes.” He excused himself. “I was taking a quick break from work. You know, Levi, I was hoping to surprise Macallan with this, so if you could not tell her I was here.”

I didn’t like deceiving Macallan, not when our relationship was in such a fragile place. But between Macallan’s behavior and our parents’ secretive meeting, I couldn’t help but think there was something going on that I wasn’t being told.

It was all very mysterious. And I wasn’t in the mood for mysterious.

In the next week, Mom and Mr. Dietz seemed to be talking on the phone a lot. Not that Mom told me it was Mr. Dietz. I had to sneak a look at her phone.

I figured Macallan might know what was going on. I headed over there the Saturday before school started. Normally, I’d just walk in, but since Macallan had been so uneasy around me lately, I knocked on the door.

“Oh, hey.” I could instantly tell that Macallan didn’t want to see me. She definitely knew what was going on. And I wasn’t going to leave until she came clean.

We walked into the kitchen, where she had all this dough and flour on the counter.

“I’m making pasta,” she said as she began working with the dough.

This was usually the part where she would invite me to stay for dinner. She always did that. But I hadn’t gotten one invitation since she got back. The only time we sat down for a meal was her first night home and during our Sunday night family dinner. The thought of having to sit around their dinner table the following evening made me uneasy. There were too many unanswered questions.

I decided to not dance around the subject. “Are you keeping something from me?”

Macallan stopped cold. I knew it.

“What are you talking about?” She threw some flour on the dough and turned around so I couldn’t see her face.

“I think there’s something going on with you. You’re doing that thing you do.”

She tried to play it off lightly. “Cook? Yep, this is what I do now, Levi. Call in the detectives!” She laughed, but it was self-conscious, almost calculated laughter. She wanted me to brush it all off and move on.

Unfortunately for her, I wasn’t going to do that.

Enough was enough.

“Come on, Macallan. I’m not an idiot. You’ve been distant. Our parents are talking to each other all the time. What would they have to talk about if it wasn’t one of us?”

“I don’t know. They’re friends – aren’t friends allowed to talk? Stop making it some conspiracy theory. Friends talk.”

“Yes, friends talk. But that’s not what you and I have been doing.” She ignored me and continued to roll out the dough. “Can you stop for a second, sit down, and talk to me? Please?” I moved a chair for her to sit down next to me.

She hesitated. She never used to be so guarded around me.

Macallan sat down with a towel in her hands. She methodically wiped the flour off her hands, still refusing eye contact.

“Macallan, can you please tell me what’s going on? You’ve been acting different since you’ve gotten back, like I make you uncomfortable now.”

She finally looked at me, and she looked scared. “It’s only … I had a lot of time to think in Ireland. And things have been different since I’ve been back. I have been different. It’s just that, I guess, it’s …” She looked down. “Levi, I think our friendship has been through a lot lately, so I don’t want to add any more tension, seriously. Can we not do this right now? Please.”

I wanted to give her some space, but wasn’t eight weeks in another country enough? Frustration started pouring over me. I’d always been truthful to Macallan, but I couldn’t help but feel that she was lying to me. Again.

I’d been so concerned about Macallan and her feelings, but what about mine? It had hurt me when she went away. I had tried to give her everything I thought she wanted – my time, my attention – and it still hadn’t been enough.

But this time it wasn’t on me. She was the one who left. She was the one who wasn’t around. She was the one who was canceling on me.

I had been there the entire time waiting for her to come back. But I still felt like she was gone.

And I was tired of waiting.

“You abandoned me.” The words flew out so fast I didn’t have a chance to catch them. “I confessed my feelings for you and you just walked out and abandoned me. Do you have any idea how much that hurt me? But I gave you your space and didn’t say anything because I hoped once you got back, everything would be okay between us. But they’re not. I don’t know what else to do because I’m not the one acting weird.”

“Oh, really?” Her voice rose sharply. “You’re turning this on me? Yes, you confessed your feelings to me. You left this huge door open. Then I come home to find it slammed in my face.”

“A door? What door did I slam in your face? I couldn’t wait for you to get home!”

Instead of yelling back at me, her voice wavered. “The entire time I was in Ireland, I thought of you. You certainly gave me a lot to think about. And I did, Levi. A lot. I wanted to make this work between us. So much. I got off the plane thinking we’d have this happy ending. And then I had the rug pulled from under me. I think all the time about when the plane was landing in Chicago. How different things are now compared to what I thought they’d be. How foolish I’d been. So yes, Levi, I’m not there for you as much, but you’re not here, either.”

“Are you kidding me? I’ve been here the entire time, Macallan. You were the one who left. Left me. And you’re the one who’s been ignoring me. I waited months for you to return, and you’re here, but you’re not really here. So just tell me what you want from me because I’m tired of guessing and tired of feeling like I can never satisfy you. So please, enlighten me.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Her gaze was transfixed on the floor. She refused to even look at me.

I wanted her to stand up and fight. To fight for this relationship, but I already knew she was giving up on me. And at the moment, I didn’t care. Why was it solely up to me to fix things between us? Especially when I had no clue what more I could’ve done. But nothing I did ever seemed to be good enough for her. She always expected so much from me. And that was the heart of the problem. Macallan didn’t want to share me with others.

I got up and started walking toward the door. Had she said something, I would’ve turned around. But she didn’t.

As soon as the door was closed, the fight left me. I was exhausted by the constant questioning. All the drama.

I began walking home. Putting distance between me and my former best friend.

If this was how it was going to be, it was better to know than to pretend. I felt a newfound freedom with every step.

Maybe Macallan going to Ireland was the best thing that could have happened to me. It proved that I didn’t need her to be around to be happy. Sure, I had missed her. But it was more the memory of her. How things used to be. She had changed, and so had I. It seemed we both were hanging on to someone who no longer existed.

I decided right there that all I wanted was a drama-free junior year.

If that meant it was without Macallan, so be it. I was done with her games.

We both went through the motions on Sunday nights. Fortunately, I only had to put up the act for the first two weeks of school before I started making excuses to get out of the dinners.

It didn’t matter. I had an awesome birthday. The guys came over after the game. Stacey brought some of her friends. Of course, Mom invited Macallan, but, thankfully, she couldn’t come. She didn’t even give me anything. Her birthday was in a couple of weeks and I planned on returning the favor.

If only our family could’ve figured it out and stop forcing us together. Fortunately, I was always free on Saturday nights, so it could be just me and my girl. My real girl.

Stacey had been great about the whole Macallan thing – which meant she never really brought it up. She let us be us, which had nothing to do with that. I appreciated it.

That Saturday when she pulled up in her car, she seemed extra excited to see me.

“Hey, handsome.” She bent over and gave me a kiss, her high ponytail brushing against my cheek. “I thought we’d try someplace different for dinner tonight. You in?”

“Sure.” I shrugged. I wasn’t in a great mood. The previous night had been our third game of the season and I still hadn’t gotten any playing time. I could run fast, was getting better with catching, but Coach wasn’t putting me in. I couldn’t show him my frustration, so it bounced onto the other people in my life.

“Where we going?” I asked when Stacey pulled into a hotel parking lot.

“I heard the restaurant here is really good.” She laughed nervously.

I got out of the car. Stacey looked at her phone. “Can you hold on? I have to make a quick call.”

“Sure.” A hotel seemed like a strange place for dinner. But whatever. Stacey usually knew what she was doing.

But then things got weirder.

“Levi?” I turned around and saw Macallan with Danielle. “What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?”

Danielle looked at each of us and stepped in the middle. “So crazy, right? I guess this is the new place to be.” She laughed as Stacey came over.

“Hey, guys,” Stacey said warmly to Macallan. “So insane that you’re here.” She exchanged a look with Danielle. “Um, I guess we should go in.” She started walking faster, with Danielle keeping step and saying she liked Stacey’s shoes.

This left me next to Macallan.

“Are you following me?” I asked her.

She groaned. “Yeah, whatever.”

“It’s just a little odd that you’re here. I never even knew this place had a restaurant.”

“It wasn’t my idea – it was Danielle’s,” she said coldly.

“How convenient for you.”

Danielle and Stacey led us inside and stopped in front of these giant double doors.

I was so annoyed at this. That I had to be stuck eating in the same vicinity as Macallan. And I highly doubted this was a mere coincidence. She clearly couldn’t handle not being around me anymore.

Macallan stopped and looked right at me as if she could read my mind. “Get over yourself, Levi.” She stepped in front of me.

“After you!” Stacey said as she and Danielle opened up the double doors.

I put a scowl on my face to let them know how much I didn’t appreciate this situation as I began to walk into the room.

“SURPRISE!!!” A loud shout echoed in the large ballroom. It took me a second to figure out what was going on as I saw the faces of friends and family greeting me. Then I saw a HAPPY SWEET SIXTEEN BIRTHDAY, MACALLAN AND LEVI! sign.

The secret meetings between our parents had been for a birthday party.

I turned to look at Macallan, who looked as shocked as I felt. So she hadn’t been lying to me about not knowing what was going on. But she was lying about something else.

Mom came up laughing. “Did we pull it off? Were you surprised?”

I don’t think I’d ever been so shocked in my life.