We Used to Be Friends

by Amy Spalding

“Can I get you a beer?” he asks me, and I shake my head.

  But, actually— “Sure.”

  He dashes off and returns moments later with a red Solo cup full of foamy beer-smelling beer. I get only halfway into my first sip before realizing that I hate it, but I take a few more sips because he fetched it and because who even knows what I should hate anymore?

  “How’s Sidana?” he asks.

  “Oh, he’s—we broke up.” I want to feel freed by the words, and since I don’t, I take a few more sips of beer. “What do you think of Mr. Wellerstein? Humanities isn’t exactly what I expected.”

  He sort of laughs, and it makes me feel like I can read his mind. He doesn’t care about humanities or Mr. Wellerstein right now. My head feels foamy like the beer and I think the beer is to thank or to blame. I don’t want to remember the last time I was sorting out whether someone wanted to kiss me, because it’s only bound to make me think about Logan and the way his stubble scratched my face the later in the day it became.

  So I lean in and kiss Gabriel. He’s about my height, which I’m not used to, so my nose bumps his on my approach. All of it’s fuzzy, like a dream, like earlier when Mom was changing everything. I go with it because I’m already here, and Gabriel’s a nice guy. I’d rather kiss someone than no one. Now it’s proven: Logan is officially behind me.

  “James.”

  I realize that my eyes are closed and that it’s very bright and I’m on the floor of Kat’s bedroom. There are hazy fragments of memories from the night before, but it would be a lot of work to piece them back together right now.

  Kat lightly smacks me in the face with a pillow from her spot in her bed. “Your phone’s buzzing like a whole freaking beehive.”

  I reach into my bag to scoop it out. My screen has never been lit up with so many messages and missed calls. Logan, Mom, Dad, Mom, Dad, Dad, Mom, Logan, Logan, Logan, Mom, Dad. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”

  Someone knocks on the door. “Kat, is James in there? Got her parents on the phone.”

  “Shit.” I pull myself to my feet—why the hell did I sleep on the floor when Kat has a perfectly comfortable queen-size bed we normally share?—and open the door. Kat’s dad holds out his phone to me. “Hi, I’m sorry. I fell asleep at Kat’s.”

  “It’s fine, kiddo,” Dad says. “I’m just glad you’re OK. Can you please come home?”

  I agree and, after giving Mr. Rydell his phone back, step back into Kat’s room to get my bag. I notice another head poking out from under Kat’s flowered comforter and realize why I was relegated to the floor. It’s the same answer as it is to almost every annoying question lately: Quinn Morgan. I’m in too much of a hurry to care. Much.

  “I’m sorry again,” I call out as I let myself into my house.

  Dad walks into the front room. “I’m not saying I want it to happen again, but it’s OK. I know it was a rough day. I’m just relieved you’re alive, and I know your mom and Logan were when they heard, too.”

  “When they heard? Is Mom not here?” I ask, and instantly feel stupid. Of course Mom isn’t here. She’s in Toluca Lake with Todd. While I was gone and my life fell apart more, Mom was leaving us all the way. “Did Logan call you?”

  “Your mom texted him to see if you were with him, but he hadn’t seen you in a while. I know he was concerned about you, too, so in case you didn’t have a chance to let him know you were fine, I texted him.”

  “You don’t have to text him anymore,” I say. “Don’t worry. We broke up.”

  “James, I’m so sorry,” Dad says. “Do you need me to punch him or something?”

  “Dad.” I find myself laughing. Dad comes home sore from wine-tastings because he uses a corkscrew so much. There’s no punching in his future. “No. I can take care of myself. And he doesn’t need any punching, not that I think you’re the best one for the job.”

  “Well, I could call a guy,” he says. “How about breakfast? I’m the right one for that job at least.”

  I stare at the coat hooks near the front door. Six in all, two for each of us, for a light jacket and a heavier coat. The middle two are empty. “We’re all alone.”

  “Yeah,” Dad says with a sigh. “It really sucks, huh?”

  I blink back tears. “It really does.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  July after Senior Year

  KAT

  When we were only fourteen, James and I buried a time capsule in her backyard. We sort of took it seriously, but we also knew we weren’t really saving something important for future historians. After all, we were fourteen, not idiots.

  Mixed in with all the dorky stuff that seemed like a big deal at the time—on the one hand, I cannot believe just how hard I crushed on Justin Bieber, but, on the other, I did end up with someone who basically has his most iconic haircut—we decided to write each other letters about our friendship. I crammed in every single thing I could think of, even though I legit couldn’t imagine what on earth James would say.

  And so even though I know it was the wrong thing to do—and I for sure knew at the time—I couldn’t bear the thought of waiting. James kept her feelings so close to her heart, and I had to know what she’d write down. As we closed up the time capsule, I sneaked the letter out and into my pocket. I even ended our hangout prematurely—super rare for us back in those days—to escape home to read it.

  For a while I read it every night. It seemed like it answered every question, including ones I didn’t know I had. Even when I was little, I was totally aware of how hard I felt my feelings, how close they were to the surface, how they rarely were just for me but for everyone else, too. James’s feelings were somewhere else entirely, and I felt like a secret keeper now that I had this letter.

  I never would have believed then that even a full day could slip by without speaking to her. But it’s been nearly a month since graduation, and we haven’t talked at all.

  When I was seven or eight, I tried on one of Mom’s fancy dresses and somehow got Play-Doh stuck all over it. She’d never yelled at me like that before (and maybe even after), but of course I was little and didn’t get how royally I’d screwed up. I just thought my mom was the meanest in the world, and I somehow made it a full forty-eight hours without talking to her.

  Obviously, I would give just about anything in the whole universe to get those forty-eight hours back now.

  Losing Mom was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, and I pray all the time that it remains the worst thing that ever happens. And so it’s hard to accept that I’m not talking to someone as important to me as James is when there’s a choice in the matter.

  But the truth is that I’m not talking to her, and I have no idea what to do about it.

  Even though we’re shopping for the same campus with the same list, Quinn and I decided not to shop together. We both agree it’s important that even though we’re going together we’re not going together. We have different majors—well, she has one, and I’m figuring things out—and different goals, and of course we’re not roommates or anything.

  I’m considering two different sheet sets at Target—definitely an easier purchase when you’re not with your girlfriend who you at least assume might sleep on them too at some point and has, like, strangely strong opinions on thread count—when someone turns into the same aisle.

  “Hey, Kat,” Hannah Padilla greets me. Her reddish-brown hair is up in a ponytail, and her face seems extra freckled. Even in Southern California, it’s always interesting to see people’s summer selves.

  “Hi!” I hold up my printed-out list. “Dorm stuff?”

  She holds up her own. “Dorm stuff. Where are you heading?”

  “Oberlin,” I say, and then, “Ohio,” because it feels like most people need the full set of info.

  “Oh, right. I’m going to Berkeley, but I’m sure you already heard that from James.”

  “Oh, I . . .” The list is suddenly wrinkled in my fist. “Sure. Yeah.”

  “Not to gossip, but . . .
she seems like she’s doing better, doesn’t she?” Hannah asks. “I can’t imagine going through your parents’ divorce your senior year, but now that she’s working so much with Habitat and getting therapy, it’s like this . . . well, not a brand-new James, but she’s happy. Though hooking up occasionally with Logan Sidana would do wonders for most of us, huh?”

  A flush spreads from my face down the back of my neck, like that moment you’re positive your allergies are actually the flu.

  “Um, huh, sure,” I say, and also just like the flu I calculate how quickly I can get away because honestly I could just totally barf right here and now.

  “And I’m sure—no, I’m positive she feels shitty about everything she said at Jon’s party way back whenever. Whichever version you heard. I think people were just at prom overload at that point, you know?”

  “Oh, sure,” I say, and stretch a big smile across my face. “I should probably go. Good luck at Berkeley.”

  I take off without waiting for her reply. I’m in my car stuck in traffic on Victory before I even know it. My brain’s way too busy turning over all this information, pulling it apart, trying to figure out if there’s an angle to look at it where James doesn’t look like a huge liar. In another flash I’m parked, and then I’m outside the door at Quinn’s aunt’s.

  “Hey,” Quinn says, stepping out of the house with Buckley springing ahead and pulling his leash taut. “Did you get everything you needed?”

  “I got, like, nothing.” I lean over to pet Buckley, but he’s way more interested in sniffing grass and peeing everywhere than my affections. “I ran into Hannah Padilla and had like the world’s most awkward conversation ever, so I just ran away.”

  “Really?” she asks, as we start down the sidewalk. “Hannah’s always been really nice to me.”

  “She’s nice, but . . . I don’t know. Just trust me.”

  “I always trust you,” she says before leaning in and kissing me. “Are you OK?”

  “I will be, I guess.” It hits me how nice it is not pretending to be fine when I’m not. I’m so lucky this is how Quinn is, and this is how we work together. I start to say more aloud, but it’s funny sometimes how words don’t match their own gravity.

  Buckley snarls at somebody throwing a soda can into a nearby trash can.

  “He’s terrible,” Quinn says.

  “You can’t say that! He made us fall in love.”

  She laughs. “He did not! His escapades got us to interact. That’s it. Maybe we would have fallen in love in humanities.”

  “I don’t like risking that we wouldn’t have. Humanities is not romantic, Quinn.”

  “Neither is chasing a Chihuahua on the lam!”

  “More so, though! Maybe he’s mad that guy didn’t recycle!”

  “You know as well as I do that we have comingled trash and recycling here, K.”

  Quinn grins at me, and I feel it course through me, that sunshiny rush of mutual love. It sounds ridiculous, but I didn’t know how much more I could feel than the already amazing joy of falling for someone. Falling for someone, and staying fallen, and feeling almost literally the love in their heart, is something I barely even have words for. The secret about falling in love is how you can do it a million times over with the same person, when the person is the right one.

  I have fallen in love with Quinn Morgan at least one million times already.

  “I guess I just really need to talk to James,” I say. “Like a super good and honest talk. It doesn’t make sense everything should feel like this when we have, like, this total history, you know?”

  Quinn is quiet, and I am pretty sure it’s because to her it doesn’t even make sense that James is—was?—my best friend. And right now, I don’t have anything that could convince her without a magic window into my heart.

  “Senior year was just, like, a lot,” I say. “Maybe now that it’s over, everything will . . .”

  I’m glad Quinn doesn’t call me out on not finishing the sentence, because I’ve never wanted everything to stay the same, and even if I did, the end of senior year is the worst time in the world to expect it.

  I text her the next day and try to sound as normal as possible.

  If I ever have to be chill to save my life, I am seriously as good as dead.

  She responds, though, without even much delay.

  I do, so I change out of my gross sitting-around clothes because I’m pretty sure no one has mended a weird and potentially broken friendship while wearing grungy terry cloth shorts and a ragged tank top.

  “Hey.” She lets me into her house, and for a split second I can let myself believe everything’s exactly the same. After all, she’s done this probably thousands of times for me.

  “So, um . . .” I glance around, but it looks just like it always has. I want to blame myself for not realizing something huge had happened, but you’d seriously never know that James’s mom doesn’t live here anymore. “I super hate how things have been, James.”

  She sighs. “Me too.”

  I sit down on the living room sofa, like I have a million times. Like it’s all going to be fine soon, because, like, why wouldn’t it be? Things can be really hard sometimes, but things can also find their way back into place. It wasn’t really that long ago when it felt as if there was some hovering force between Quinn and me, but now when it’s just us, it’s just us.

  “So, um, I ran into Hannah Padilla at Target,” I say.

  James shrugs. She’s still standing, and considering our height difference, I’m practically craning my neck to look at her.

  “It feels like she knows everything going on with you,” I say. “Which, like, obviously we both have other friends, whatever. But . . . it’s weird I still feel like I know, like, none of it.”

  “You didn’t ask,” she says, like it’s just that easy. Imagine being James! Everything is just simple and straightforward and only idiots complicate things.

  “I assumed if something was going on, you would have told me,” I say. “I tell you everything.”

  “God, don’t I know it,” she says. “When would there have been room for my problems? For me at all?”

  Whoa. “James . . . it’s not like that. I tell you everything because you’re my best friend.”

  “But it’s not like that,” she says. “It’s like I’ve been your therapist. You dump all over me and then you don’t even stick around to reciprocate. At least therapists get paid. I’m just doing all of it for free.”

  “I ask how you are,” I say. “I ask about Logan, and college, and . . .” I don’t know what else I ask about, honestly. I didn’t ask about her parents, because as far as I knew, Mr. and Mrs. McCall were still living out their amazing, true, and beautiful love story. And maybe I didn’t ask a ton about college, but James seemed so tight-lipped when I did that I took it as a hint. I tried as hard as I knew how to, but it’s like, looking back now, it was never enough. No matter how I tried, James needed some other thing entirely.

  “It’s like you don’t think I can see how you are,” she says.

  “How I am?”

  She seems to be gathering her words, and so I try to gather mine. How am I? I really just want to be good for everyone, for my family and for Quinn and for future me so she’ll look back and be proud and of course for my mom just in case she can still somehow keep an eye on me. But I feel like my thoughts are coming faster than I can fully comprehend them, because maybe not everything James is saying is super untrue. Maybe not the things about me, at least. I just don’t know another way to be. Especially around James, who I thought had loved me with super unconditional friend love for more than a decade now.

  “In front of everyone else, you’re perfect,” she says, and I feel it, like how I think getting punched would feel. Because Luke’s said it and Quinn’s said it and now it’s James saying it.

  “I know,” I say.

  “Oh, god. Of course you know. Because Kat Rydell doesn’t do anything wrong or by accident.”r />
  “I didn’t say that!” I stand up even though it only evens out the height difference a little. “I just mean that I know it’s a thing with me, and I’m working on it.”

  “OK, fine,” James says, and walks out of the room and into the kitchen. I’m not sure what to do, so I follow.

  “I sorta feel like you hate me,” I say, not because I believe it but because I need her to tell me it isn’t true. “Like, to leave me out of so much. And assume the worst of me.”

  James watches me but doesn’t respond. She just gets a glass of water. And so maybe she does hate me.

  “I mean, you’ve never taken my relationship seriously.” Now it’s like I’ve punched myself in the gut. Somehow I couldn’t even fully see this until the words were out of my mouth.

  “Not at first,” James says. “That’s fair. It was all so fast, and suddenly everything in your whole life was Quinn and being prom queen, just whatever you could do to get attention.”

  I wish we were fighting like dumb boys do, because I’d rather James’s strong fist in my face than hear those words from my very best friend’s lips.

  “I can’t believe you’d say that to me,” I say. “Like I couldn’t figure out other ways to get attention, Jesus.”

  “Are you serious?” She enacts an extremely dramatic eye roll. “When you were with Matty, you were a vegan and told everyone who’d listen what went on in factory farms. When you went out with what’s-his-face—”

  “Ryan,” I add for some stupid reason.

  “—you went to all those black-and-white movies. You joined the swim team for, like, half a minute. You were going to try out for the school musical freshman year and you made me watch all those PBS videos of Great Performances. You knit three-fourths of a scarf and then tried to give it away to someone short like they wouldn’t notice.”

  “I like trying new things,” I say. “Not that Quinn is a new thing to try. Not like girls are.”

  “I promise you,” she says, and she sounds extra serious, “I didn’t mean that at all.”

  “Right now, it sorta feels like it.” I’m actually not sure that it does right now but it sure has for plenty of the rest of the year. I guess I need to say it.