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by L. M. Augustine

  “You know the answer to that,” I say, my lips curling. It feels good to be smiling with her again, like a weight I didn’t even know I was holding has been lifted off my chest.

  “I don’t,” she says, feigning innocence, but I can see the faint trace of a grin on her lips. “Enlighten me, West Ryder.”

  I laugh softly. “Well, when mommie and daddie love each other very much, they…”

  “They what? They eat pizza together?”

  “Yes, Cat Davenport, when mommie and daddie love each other very much they eat pizza together. It’s very romantic.”

  “Knew it all along,” Cat says proudly. I shoot her a look that reads, “You are so weird.” She responds by ever-so-eloquently sticking her tongue out at me.

  There’s a pause. Something crashes in the house behind us, a falling lamp or a giant textbook knocked off a table or something. Out here, I feel nothing but calmness, though, and even with the racing of my heart, I know I can’t feel anything but it when I’m around Cat.

  “So,” I say, holding out my hand. “Friends?”

  For an instant, Cat just stares at my outstretched hand, and I feel more coolness rush all around me. I can even taste the dew in the air, feel the softness to the night sky. “Okay. Friends,” Cat says after a while, and she shakes my hands.

  She starts to turn away after that, whether to go to sleep or return to working on the car I do not know. I start to turn back, too, shoving my freezing hands into my pockets, but before I can move Cat spins back around. Without a moment’s hesitation she leans into me, her lips hovering a millimeter from my ear, whispering, “We can be friends for now. But West Ryder, if you think this means I won’t fight for you with every last breath I have, you’re in for a hell of a surprise.”

  Then she lets her hand slip from my arm, spins back around, and heads inside.

  I stand there for the longest time, just staring at the spot where she was standing. Her touch sends a tingling sensation up my arm, her words making my heart pound harder and harder. I feel it all, but I don’t know what to do.

  Then, through the darkness, I smile.

  Chapter 10

  The next few days roll by quickly, and I find myself more focused on school and my vlog than anything else. I post another video, this one about relationships and euphemisms (I even include “having chocolate” as a potential euphemism, no thanks to Cat.) Cat and I talk here and there, mostly short conversations in the hallway or during lunch about why Albert Einstein must love ice cream or her lecturing me on the origin of lettuce, but even so, everything still feels weird between us. Friendlier, yes, but not quite… normal.

  When I lay eyes on her now, it’s like I’m looking at her for the first time. I no longer see her as just my amazing and hilarious best friend who I can’t possibly go without, but also as a normal girl with a great smile and an air about her that draws me in. I notice things, too. How her hair cascades down the back of her neck. The way her lips move when she talks. The light in her eyes, so gorgeous, like a sea of deep blue. How pretty she looks when she laughs.

  I’ve never noticed that before. But now? Now it’s as clear as low tide at a tropical ocean.

  On top of it all, I’ve been worrying. Worrying that this whole “go back to being normal” thing won’t work out, worrying that the mega awkwardness will blow up in our faces, worrying that Cat and I will only have another setback that sets us further and further apart.

  But worse, I worry that I’m getting in too deep, that maybe, just maybe, I will fall for her—and that will be the end of everything else we have.

  I hope like hell it doesn’t happen.

  Soon the days grow colder, shorter, and the perfect season of autumn slowly melts into winter.

  Things with my dad aren’t getting any better any time soon, but at least we still aren’t arguing. I still feel the need to do something to fix our relationship, though, to not just sit on my hands and wait. But what else is there? Therapy? He would probably kick me out if I so much as bring it up.

  I don’t talk to Cat as much as I used to during these early winter days, either, but we do at least talk. We can even be completely normal on occasion, forgetting the awkward between us, and at this point, that’s all I can ask for. Her. Her comfort. Her warmth.

  Still, I miss her. I do. I really really do. I wish I could go back in time, before all this happened, before love screwed me over once again. I want to go back when everything was so safe, when I still had a best friend to count on.

  Finally, in the middle of the night, I get a call from Cat. I’m dead asleep when my phone vibrates on my bedside table, so knocked out, in fact, that it takes several rings for me to even wake up. When I do, I scramble out of bed, fumble around for the phone, and click “TALK,” nearly murdering my lamp and history textbook in the process.

  “Hello?” I mutter, completely groggy, and slowly sink back into bed. I glance at the time—3:30 a.m. A sigh escapes me. I don’t think there’s a worse possible time to call someone.

  “This better be important…” I mutter to myself.

  “West,” Cat says, and her voice is so clear and strong that it sounds like she’s just slept a good twelve hours. I am not sure what universe she lives in, but I’ve decided if that’s the case, either she’s insane or nocturnal. Probably both.

  I collapse back onto my pillow. “That’s my name.”

  “It is.”

  “And you’re calling at 3:30 in the morning… why?”

  “Because I felt like it,” she says simply.

  “You woke me up because you felt like it?”

  “I did.”

  I shake my head, closing my eyes and sinking back into the covers. I switch the phone to speaker and place it on my chest instead, so I can lean back as I talk. “Cat, you’re amazing, but do you actually have something important to say? I’m a normal human being, believe it or not, and that means I like to sleep at three—”

  “You missed ‘fabulous,’” Cat cuts in. “I’m not just amazing. I’m also fabulous.”

  I roll my eyes even though she can’t see me. I yawn loudly, and I’m sure I’m going to fall back asleep any second now.

  “So let me get this straight,” I say, taking another breath. “You’re calling me at three-thirty because you feel like it? And also because you want to remind me how fabulous you are?”

  “That’s exactly it. Also, I’m glad you’ve come to understand the ways of my inner fabulousness.”

  “Cat,” I mutter, rolling over onto my stomach. My eyelids grow heavier, and the reminder that I have to wake up for school in two and a half hours seems to make me even more exhausted. “I’m going to bed. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Goodnight.”

  Cat doesn’t respond after that, and I vaguely wonder if she’s just calling to annoy me or is legitimately angry again or… something else. I don’t the let the thought continue. Right now, I just need to sleep. We can talk again in the morning.

  With that, I sit up and start to turn off my phone.

  “Wait,” Cat says suddenly, and I hear muffled cursing on her end of the phone like she already regrets it.

  “Yes?”

  She pauses, takes a deep breath. “That’s not… the reason I’m calling.”

  “Then what is?” I don’t mean for it to come across so flippantly, but I’m too tired to think of anything but sleep sleep sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

  Her voice is quiet now, slow and easy. “You really want to know?”

  “I guess?”

  She hesitates, and I can just make out her muffled breathing as she contemplates whether whatever she’s about to say will be worth it. I know because I do it too. Do it to her, all the damn time nowadays. “West…” she says, and I can practically feel her sitting next to me, her side pressed to mine, touching my arm and whispering into my ear. And strangely, I… like the idea.

  I scrub the thought out of my head the instant it comes up. I can’t be attracted to Cat. Wait, no. I am not attract
ed to Cat. End of story.

  “West,” Cat says, more softly this time, “I’m calling you at three-thirty in the morning on a Thursday because I want to hear your voice.”

  That shuts me up.

  In an instant, all of the exhaustion seems to rush out of me. I sit up, pressing the phone closer to my ear. My heart is pounding now, and I feel something inside of me grow, something light and buoyant. I want to hear your voice, she said. Oh my god oh my god oh my god. She wants to hear my voice!

  I shake my head. Why do I care? Why does it matter that she likes talking to me? She’s my best friend, so of course she does.

  But the thing is, it does matter. It matters so much it scares me.

  “I was lying on my bed because I couldn’t sleep, and thinking about how I missed you and then I wanted to hear your voice,” Cat continues. “So I called you.”

  Now my body really tightens. “You were thinking about me in bed?” I say, feeling a smile slip across my lips as I press the phone closer to my ear, wishing I could be sitting next to Cat right about now.

  “Not in that way, perv,” she says and laughs.

  “Oh, shut up. It was totally meant that way.”

  “You flatter yourself. Unfortunately, you have no reason to.” Then she adds, “I can feel you smirking through the phone.”

  “Dude, I so am not.”

  “You always were a terrible liar.”

  “Am not.”

  “Am too.”

  I grin. “Idiot.”

  “Loser.”

  “Freak.”

  “Creepo.”

  “Did you really just call me a ‘creepo?’”

  “Oh, West Ryder, I totally did.”

  I sit up a little straighter. “I have just lost all respect for you.”

  She laughs, and I swear I can feel her smiling through the phone, too. “Lies. LIES. All of them!”

  “Sure,” I mumble. A sliver of light peeping in from under the doorway illuminates some of my room, showing the outline of my small desk in the corner and my backpack sitting with my camera atop it. My dad snores in the other room, deep and gruff noises that bring a shiver down my spine. I sigh.

  “But yeah,” I say, nodding to myself. “I… I guess I miss your voice too. As a friend, that is.”

  “I think we’ve established that we’re both friends here.”

  “I don’t think we have,” I say.

  “Oh really? Still afraid I’m going to pull something, are we?”

  “More like straight-up afraid of you.”

  “Oh yeah, at six inches shorter than you I’m utterly terrifying.”

  “You are! You know where I sleep. You could murder me. I wouldn’t be surprised, either. Serial killers are always red-heads.”

  “And rapists are always blond.”

  I scoff, feigning hurt. “That’s entirely inaccurate. Blonds are the gorgeous swimsuit models who all the girls drool over.”

  “Really? All the girls? Yeah, because I’m sure you get a ton of them.”

  “Yes I do. In fact, one is sleeping beside me right now. Isn’t that right, Kayla?” I say to the empty space beside me, grinning like an idiot.

  Cat cracks up. “Kayla? Kayla?! Oh my god what even goes on in your head?”

  “An unending party.”

  “Of suck.”

  “I believe it is pronounced ‘awesome.’”

  “I believe you are mistaken.”

  “Oh, yeah, well… YOUR FACE.”

  “IS GORGEOUS.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “Idiot.”

  “Loser.”

  “Freak.”

  “Bully.”

  Cat sighs at that, and I can almost detect the happy smile behind it, which makes a smile ebb at the corners of my own lips. I realize then how good it feels to talk to her again—like normal friends. To smile and not worry about loving each other, about drifting apart, about our friendship falling to pieces. Somehow, talking to Cat always seems to boost my mood, even at freaking three-thirty in the morning.

  My eyelids start to feel heavy again, and I realize once again that I need to sleep. But a much larger part of me wants to keep talking to Cat, because sitting here, alone in the darkness and hearing her voice, I feel like I’m walking on air. I need Cat like I need to breathe, and that is that.

  After a while, I glance around. My room is a mess of computer and camera supplies for my vlog, unfolded laundry, and some hardcore food-related posters hanging on my fading, blue-painted wall. My desk and bedside table sit on either side of my bed, shoved into the corner of the room, and aside from the closet in front of me and the window to my left, there is nothing else to it.

  “So,” Cat says after a long pause. I keep the phone pressed to my chest like it’s some kind of sacred object I can’t possibly lose. In a way, maybe it is a sacred object—after all, it’s Cat on the other end and she is more sacred to me than anything else in the world. “I was thinking about going to the lake this weekend. You want to come, friend?”

  “The lake?” I say skeptically.

  “Yep. The one on the edge of town. It’s only a few minutes away. You know it.”

  “I do,” I say quietly. “We used to go there all the time.” And we did—in addition to my mom and dad’s kayaking wars, Cat and I used to go there too. We would sprint down the boardwalk and play in the water, running and jumping and having some seriously epic noodle wars, not even caring about the amused and slightly creepy adults watching us from the neighboring areas, and not even caring how utterly stupid we looked. Mom used to join Cat and I, to watch the sunset from the lake on some nights in the summer, and occasionally Dad would even join us too. Mom would always say that the sunset was the most beautiful thing in the world, that it symbolized rebirth and the beauty of coming back from adversity stronger and more competent than before and other things I can’t possibly remember. We would sit on the edge of the lake, letting the water lap at our toes as we watched the sky turn red, yellow, orange, and then slowly into nothing.

  I miss then.

  I want then back.

  “And… why do you want to go to the lake?” I ask Cat suspiciously. Lakes are not exactly romance-free places.

  “Well, we’re friends, aren’t we?”

  “We are.”

  “And friends tend to do things—like, be social.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I’m with you.”

  “So. Let’s be social. Together. Like normal humans.”

  I sigh. “Fine, fine. I’ll go with you. But promise you won’t pull anything, okay?”

  “Didn’t I already make this promise?”

  “Yes. Now make it again.”

  I can almost feel her roll her eyes through the phone. “Yes,” she says. “I, Cat Davenport, solemnly swear not to pull anything.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Let’s go to the lake together. As friends.”

  “For real?”

  “For real.”

  “Well in that case, get ready for me to rock your world.”

  I don’t bother holding back my smile. “I thought you said you weren’t going to pull anything?”

  “Oh West, you naïve little creature. I lied.”

  Chapter 11

  I can’t believe I let Cat drag me to the lake. I mean, it’s Cat. Clearly she is planning something, something more—well—intimate than just a harmless visit to the water. After all, she herself said she is going to fight for me. And yet, for some reason, I still find myself wanting to go.

  I try not to think about what that means.

  I know it’s a mistake, however, the second I get into Cat’s pickup truck and she speeds all the across town to the lake, nearly killing several old ladies, a mailbox, and us in the process. When she finally skids into the small parking area overlooking the water, the car is moving so fast that I half-expect her to drive all the way through it and plunge us into the lake. Admittedly, I’m surprised when she doesn’t. I grip my se
at hard as she swerves in, does a dramatic U-turn, and hits the brakes at the last second, causing the truck to jump up violently before it settles into parked position. My heart is in my throat at this point, and I turn to her, wide-eyed.

  “I forgot what a terrible driver you are,” I say, taking a breath of relief. I’m actually surprised I’m still alive.

  Cat raises her eyebrow, giving me her “oh, no you didn’t” look. “Please. I’m a badass driver.”

  “You almost killed an old lady on the way over!”

  She shrugs. “The woman had it coming,” she says like it’s nothing.

  I suppress a laugh. Sunlight floods in through the car window, warming my back, my legs, my stomach. I turn to Cat, unintentionally noticing how her skin seems to glow in the sunlight. It’s warm out, really warm for a winter day, and her red hair looks so suddenly perfect on her shoulders. I take her in, bit by bit, my breath catching.

  I should be used to looking her. Wait, I am used to looking at her. So why does she appear so different now? Why does it feel like, for the first time, I’m seeing what’s really there?

  I shake my head. No. No. This is not happening. We’re friends. That’s it.

  “One day,” I say to her, “I’m going to call you cupcake.” The words roll off my lips before I can stop them, and I regret saying it instantly.

  Cat pushes open the driver door and turns to me, narrowing her eyes. I glance out at the rest of the small parking lot. Aside from an abandoned SUV, we’re the only ones here. “Cupcake?” she says suspiciously.

  “For your red velvet hair. What? Would you prefer to be called ‘red velvet?’”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, Red Velvet.”

  Cat frowns at me. “That’s… entirely not romantic.”

  “Of course it isn’t. We’re friends, remember? Friends aren’t romantic.”

  “Right,” she says, giving an awkward nod. “Friends.”

  I roll my eyes. “You really couldn’t make this weirder, could you?”

  Cat doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she shoves her foot against the door and lets it swing open. More light pours into the car as she steps out, turns back, and smiles at me. “For the record, West: I so can.” And by the devilish glint in her eyes, I know she isn’t lying.