“Feeling better?” Rosanna asks me.
I sit on the puffy armchair. It feels weird to sit upright after reclining for so long.
“A little,” I say.
“Do you want to watch the fireworks in Tribeca tonight?” Darcy says.
“Who’s going?”
Rosanna and Darcy exchange a look.
“Logan and Donovan are meeting up with us,” Rosanna admits. “But then D and I are leaving for Miami before the fireworks. He’s letting Darcy and Logan up to his roof so they can stay and watch them. He says the view is incredible.”
“Enjoy.”
“You don’t want to come?”
Every year I look forward to the Fourth of July. Where else do you get a front-row seat to the best fireworks in the country? Everyone else watches the fireworks on TV while New Yorkers get to see them live. But there is no way I’m watching the fireworks this year. Not after that ginormous non-coincidence with Austin. We were talking about the Fourth of July a week ago and how much we love the fireworks. Then he drove me to New Jersey so I could see the Manhattan skyline from his side of the water. That’s when we saw a short practice run for tonight’s fireworks over the Hudson River. Right after we were talking about them. At the time I thought the non-coincidence was a sign that we were meant to be together. But I guess that non-coincidence happened for a reason I don’t understand.
“I can’t watch the fireworks,” I say.
“Why not?” Darcy asks.
“Remember that ginormous fireworks non-coincidence with Austin?”
“Oh yeah.”
“So I’m not really feeling up to it.” I’m also not really feeling up to being around two happy couples. “I’m staying in.”
“Um . . . that’s not happening.”
“Why not?”
“I called—”
The door buzzes, cutting Darcy off. My heart jumps into my throat. “Who’s here?” I ask Darcy.
“It’s for you,” she says.
“It’s not Austin,” Rosanna quickly adds.
My heart recedes back to where it belongs. I go over to the intercom and press the talk button. “Hello?”
“Hey, Sadie,” says a familiar girl’s voice. “It’s me.”
I buzz her up.
“Hope you don’t mind that I asked her to come over,” Darcy says.
“No, it’s cool. How did you get her number?”
“Your phone. Excuse the invasion of privacy. Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
When I open the door, I’m happy to see Brooke. Just seeing that she looks the same after so much has changed—wavy brown hair, brown eyes, skinny, tough, two inches taller than me—is oddly comforting. Brooke is my best friend from high school. She understands about soul mates better than anyone else I know. But I didn’t tell her about breaking up with Austin. Even the thought of talking about it made me want to throw up.
“Hey,” I say, relieved that I was forced to take a shower and change.
Brooke folds me into a tight hug. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she says against my wet hair.
“I didn’t tell anyone except Rosanna and Darcy. But only because they live here.”
“The comatose body on the couch was pretty hard to miss,” Darcy quips.
“Thanks again for calling me,” Brooke tells her. “I wish you would have called me sooner.”
“We wouldn’t have been able to get her out of the apartment before. She’s ready now.”
“Ready for what?” I wonder.
“We’re going out, just the two of us,” Brooke says. “To Kitchenette. For cupcakes.”
This makes sense. Brooke is a fellow cupcake addict. She is a big believer in the power of a cupcake to mitigate boy drama.
Brooke talks to Darcy and Rosanna while I go to my room to get ready. Leaving the apartment feels like something I used to do a million years ago. I stand in front of my dresser, figuring out what to wear. The girl looking back at me in the mirror is a girl I don’t entirely recognize. She looks shell-shocked, a survivor of serious destruction. Sparkly eye shadow and mascara aren’t helping. I run a comb through my wet hair. That’s one thing I love about summer. You can go out with wet hair and it doesn’t matter. People think you just came from the pool.
Brooke and I take the subway to Kitchenette. She sits next to me in silence the whole ride down. We’ve never been quiet together for this long before. She can tell that I don’t feel like talking yet. But when I do, I know Brooke will listen without judgment. That’s the kind of true friend she is.
The first thing I realize at Kitchenette is that they’re out of my favorite cupcake. The vanilla rainbow sprinkles ones are always in the same place in the dessert case. There’s a big gap where rainbow sprinkles should be.
“Of course,” I grumble at the gap.
“But they have peanut butter chocolate,” Brooke points out. She knows why I’m grumbly.
We settle in at a table with our cupcakes and coffee. I still don’t feel like talking even though we’re totally at home here. There’s a little girl with her mom at the next table. The girl is about three years old. She’s eating a cupcake while her mom yaps away on her phone. Doesn’t her mom realize this time is fleeting? That her little girl will be grown up before she knows it? If I were that girl’s mom, I would be fully focused on her. Or if I were that girl’s big sister.
I had a chance to be a big sister. That chance was taken away from me. Those two guys arguing on the subway . . . one of them pushing the other, who shoved my pregnant mom so hard she fell. . . . The scene replays against my resistance for the billionth time.
My stomach twists in knots. Any hint of an appetite is gone.
Brooke is concerned. Typically I would be on my second cupcake by now.
“I made you something,” Brooke says. She reaches into her bag on the chair next to her and pulls out a bright yellow origami flower. Flowing script in orange glitter pen spirals on each flower petal.
“A warm fuzzy?” I ask. My throat gets tight. Brooke was so cynical when I met her. She scoffed at the first warm fuzzy I gave her, assuming I had some ulterior motive. Now she not only gets warm fuzzies, she made one for me.
“I learned from the best,” Brooke says.
My eyes well up with tears. It takes every bit of energy I have not to start bawling in the middle of Kitchenette.
“Thank you,” I manage to say. “And thanks for getting me out of the apartment. Sorry to be such a drag.”
“No apologies allowed. Austin is the one who should be apologizing.”
“He did. I didn’t want to hear it.”
“I’m so sorry things turned out this way.”
“He was cheating with me the whole time,” I say miserably. “I was the other woman. But I swear it felt like we were meant to be together.” How can I explain the epic love I thought we had? How can I make her understand how it felt to be with him? To touch him? To kiss him? “What if I never find that kind of love again?”
“You will,” Brooke insists. “You’re the most positive person I know. You’ll get back to your optimistic place. And it will be even better next time because the person you’re meant to be with won’t be married.”
I really want to believe Brooke. I want to believe that time will heal. That one day I’ll be over this. But there are some things you just never get over. Brooke doesn’t know about my sister. Maybe she wouldn’t think I’m so positive if she knew about the loss and fear under my optimism. I feel like a fraud. Brooke thinks she knows me. But she only knows the shiny happy parts of me. The bright parts I show the world while I hide the darkness.
“I just feel so unhinged,” I say. “It’s hard to explain. It’s like . . . I can’t trust anyone the way I thought I could. Like I can’t even trust reality as I know it. Because what do I really know? Nothing is guaranteed. Bad things happen to good people. Anything can fall apart when you least expect it.”
“But there’s the Knowing. So
metimes deep down you do know.”
The Knowing is what Brooke calls this feeling of absolute certainty she sometimes has. The Knowing is rare, but when it happens, Brooke never questions it. It’s a gut instinct guiding her with unshakable clarity. Even when the Knowing sounds crazy, about something that seems totally illogical or impossible, it is always right.
I had the Knowing about Austin. I knew he was my soul mate. And the scary truth? Even after everything that happened . . . I still do. If we had met another time when we were both available, we would be together. The timing wasn’t right for us. And the lying wasn’t right for me.
But it doesn’t matter. There’s no way I can forgive him.
My eternal optimist side still knows that following my heart is the right thing to do. That’s how I will eventually end up where I belong with the person I’m meant to be with. Brooke wouldn’t even be here if she hadn’t followed her heart. She moved here senior year even though that meant she’d have to live with her dad. She had a Knowing it was the right thing for her. Coming to New York has shown her so many possibilities. Possibilities she never even imagined before she moved here.
Brooke’s story gives me hope. Just being with her is helping me start to heal. It will be a long time until I feel like myself again. But right now, my best friend is helping me find my way home.
FIVE
DARCY
THERE’S THE POSSIBILITY THAT I might have figured out what to say to Jude. There’s also the possibility that he will hate me forever once I say it.
Things could go either way.
I swing by Jude’s spot in Washington Square Park after my last class. He’s performing a magic trick with big bubbles. Could the boy be any cuter?
The last time I saw Jude was Saturday night. I couldn’t wait for him to come over. Words I needed to say to him were boiling inside of me. My lid was about to pop any second. When the door buzzed, I ran down the stairs instead of buzzing him in. That’s how excited I was to see him. I couldn’t even wait for him to climb the freaking stairs. But it wasn’t Jude at the door. It was Logan, saying all the things I’d been wanting to hear since I left home.
Logan was telling me that he wanted me back when Jude came around the corner. Logan was totally focused on me. He didn’t see Jude until Jude was climbing the steps with a big smile. His smile faltered when Logan turned to look at him.
I did not know how to introduce Logan to Jude. My brain blew a fuse from stimuli overload.
Mental note: Boys from different parts of my life should never meet.
Jude stuck his hand out to Logan.
“Hey, man,” he said. “I’m Jude.”
They shook hands. I had never seen Logan shake anyone’s hand in any circumstance ever. Logan is not the hand-shaking type.
“I’m Logan. Darcy’s boyfriend.”
“Ex-boyfriend,” I quickly clarified. “‘Ex’ as in ‘not anymore.’”
Jude looked confused. “Ex-boyfriend . . . from Santa Monica?”
“Yeah. I’m living in New York for a while.”
“I didn’t know he was coming,” I told Jude. “He surprised me.”
“That makes two of us.”
Logan raised his eyebrows at Jude. “Is there something I should know?”
See, that’s when I should have spoken up. I should have just come out and told Logan that Jude and I were sort of together. Or hanging out or whatever. But I just couldn’t. I couldn’t do that to the boy I loved ferociously not too long ago, my first love, who came all the way here to win me back. Even after what he did to me.
So I didn’t say anything. Neither did Jude. He mumbled something about needing to go. I tried to get him to stay, but he wasn’t hearing it. It was awful.
I was awful.
This is my chance to apologize for my awfulness. Hopefully he will forgive me and understand that I need to give Logan a second chance. I want to be with Logan, at least to see where it goes . . . but what I had with Jude felt so right. Trying to do the right thing is not going to be easy. Jude hasn’t tried to get in touch with me. He hasn’t responded to any of my messages. The only way to beg his forgiveness is in person.
The crowd watching Jude in an enthusiastic semicircle breaks into applause. Jude thanks everyone for coming. He’ll go on break now before starting another show.
I take a deep breath and approach him. He’s taking a picture with a little girl, hamming it up for her mom. Early evening sunlight is making his blue eyes glow like neon. He sees me when the last of the crowd leaves.
I approach him. “How’s it going?”
“Decent crowds so far.” Jude takes a sip from his water bottle. I love that I know his water bottle always sits by his yellow collection bucket with the smiley face. I love that I know he changes into his hipster magician costume (violet-and-black striped cigarette pants, fitted violet T-shirt, turquoise high-tops) in café bathrooms. I love that I know things all the people who’ve stopped to watch him never will.
“That little girl was so excited to take a picture with you. You’re like a rock star with the ten-and-under crowd.”
Normally Jude would laugh at that. He’d crack an aw-shucks grin, then try to hide it by looking down. But none of that is happening. He’s staring at me with the blankest expression I’ve ever seen on him.
“You know that’s how I roll,” he says absently.
The real Jude isn’t showing. He isn’t being his usual warm and wonderful self with me. This is some other version of him I’ve never seen before. The cold and wary version I created. I want the real Jude back.
“So . . . I just . . . I wanted to come by and say I’m sorry. About Saturday night.”
“I got your messages.”
“But you didn’t respond.”
“No. I didn’t.”
“I’m really sorry Logan showed up like that. Seriously, I thought it was you at the door. That’s why we were on my stoop. I ran down when he buzzed because I couldn’t wait to see you.”
“Too bad it wasn’t me.”
What if it had been Jude? Where would we be right now?
“Logan totally surprised me,” I say. “He didn’t tell me he was coming to New York.”
“You had no idea he was coming.”
“None! He showed up out of nowhere. The last time I saw him before Saturday was when he dumped me. Oh wait, it was when I threw that drink in his face. But yeah, so—”
“You threw a drink in his face?”
“You didn’t know I was a badass?”
“No, I knew.”
“Anyway.” I give Jude a shy smile to test the waters. He smiles back. Not the dazzling Jude smile I know and love. But at least he’s giving me something. “I’m sorry it was weird. It won’t happen again.”
Jude’s tight expression softens. Then he reaches out and hugs me. He lingers against me, sliding his hands down my arms.
“Thanks for coming to find me,” he says. “Not seeing you for so long was a bummer.”
“We can’t let that happen.”
“What are you doing tonight?” Jude has defrosted. I hate that I have to tell him this next part. But now that he’s warmed back up to me, maybe it won’t be so bad.
“Actually, I have plans tonight. With . . . um. With Logan.”
Jude drops his hands from my arms. “Why?”
I fidget uncomfortably on my peacock espadrilles. “It’s . . . kind of complicated.” I want to be completely honest with Jude. He deserves to know what’s going on. I desperately want to rip off the Band-Aid. Just tell him, get it over with, and move on. But the words are playing a killer game of hide-and-seek and they are crazy determined not to be found. Leave it to words to find the best hiding places.
“He’s your ex, right?” Jude says. “So he shouldn’t get in the way of us. Right?”
“He wants me back. That’s why he came here.”
“What do you want?”
I face him like a wide-open sky. Nothing to hide.
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“I don’t know,” I admit. “I’m figuring that out.”
Jude would look less hurt if I had just smacked him across the face. I watch helplessly as the scalding shock turns to icy indifference. Any defrosting that might have occurred is over. The boy is back in the freezer. Way back with some old meat that expired a year ago.
“Good luck with that,” he says. He bends down to his collection bucket. He takes out a few bills, lining them up neatly before putting them in his wallet.
“Can we . . . do you still want to hang out?” I ask.
“We’re done.”
Tears spring to my eyes. “Why does it have to be like that? We have so much fun together.”
“I don’t want to share you.”
“But you were okay with not being exclusive.”
“No, you were okay with not being exclusive. That’s never what I wanted. From the first time I saw you, I knew I wanted more.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought it was better to have part of you than not have you at all.”
“But we can still—”
“No.” Jude glares at me, blue eyes ice cold instead of glowing like neon. “There’s no ‘we’ anymore. There was a chance at a ‘we.’ But you blew it.”
Part of me wants to tell Jude what I was dying to tell him before Logan showed up. That I want us to be exclusive casual. That I don’t want to put Summer Fun Darcy on a shelf, but I don’t need boy adventures with other guys to have a good time. Jude is the only boy adventure I need. Except he didn’t want to be part of an adventure. He wanted the kind of commitment that’s all official where people start throwing down rules and making demands and the magic dies after six months.
And now Logan is here. For real. He’s back in my life the way I wished he would be. Even while I was looking forward to a summer of fun with New York City as my playground, a secret place in my heart hoped we would get back together. I can’t shut him down. But Logan can’t erase all the trauma he caused just by showing up like some leading man in a rom-com. This isn’t a movie. Real life doesn’t work that way, all happy resolutions and polished Hollywood endings. Real life doesn’t come with a big red bow at the end of a conflict. It comes with two miserable people who now have even more crushing disappointment to add to their emotional baggage. Two people who end up alone.