In This Moment(46)

I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. As usual, I’m the asshole who fucked up.





Aimee



For the first time in a long time, home wasn’t so bad. Dad grilled burgers and we played Scrabble on the back patio and no one talked about anything important, but at least we talked. And when Mara and I got back to the townhouse last night, I had a missed text from Cole. All in all, it wasn’t such a terrible Saturday.

“Do you think this thing with him is crazy?” I ask Mara on Sunday morning.

We’re both cross-legged on the couch. She’s eating a green apple and I’ve got a bowl of Lucky Charms balanced on my thigh. Unlike my sister, my motto on breakfast foods is that they don’t count unless they contain at least twice the recommended daily allotment of sugar.

Mara sets the apple down, crosses her arm across her chest, frowns. “Who are we talking about, Aimee?”

“Cole,” I say it like his name has been eating up my tongue for days. “Do you think that it’s crazy for me to hang out with him?”

“No. I think you’re crazy about him. There’s a difference.” Mara looks me in the eye. “And don’t start hyperventilating or anything Aimee, but he’s crazy about you too.”

“How can you be sure?”

Mara answers my question with a question of her own. “How can you be so blind? Cole Everly looks at you like you you’re made of rainbows and he’s over here almost every single night not getting laid. Aimee, what do you think that means? Jeez. The guy’s done a complete one-eighty in the past couple of weeks and it’s all because of you. I think the only thing left for him to prove himself is to carve your initials into his skin with a penknife.”

“I’m not sure that I’m ready for things to change yet,” I admit slowly. “I’m not sure if I’m ready, period. I haven’t put myself out there in a long time and what Cole and I have is good. If…” I close my eyes and swallow hard.

“If what?”

“I’m just afraid to lose what we’ve got. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I don’t have so many friends that I can just risk them willy-nilly.”

“I hate to break this to you Aimee, but you’re going to lose him one way or the other because this chasing game that you guys are playing can only go on for so long.”

“I’m not sure that it’s like that with us.”

“It is like that. I know it. He knows it. And I think that deep down you know it too,” she says. “Let me put it to you this way—it’s like the two of you are standing barefoot on an enormous pile of hot coals. A person can only do that for so long. Eventually, you either have to jump off or start moving your feet.”

Strangely, the analogy sort of makes sense to me. “Okaaay… there’s also the fact that Cole is way out of my league. He’s so bright that he burns. He could—” I catch a quick breath. “He could have his pick of any girl that he wants. I just don’t understand why me. Why would he want to be with me?”

“Where is this coming from?” She’s looking at me like I’m crazy. “Why wouldn’t Cole want to be with you?

“Because,” I say, feeling exasperated and shaky. “I don’t have friends. I don’t do anything. I’m home almost every night, like you said, not getting laid. I’m weird, Mara.”

Mara’s mouth straddles a smile and a grimace. “It doesn’t have to be like that. Before the accident you were—”

I interrupt her before she can finish whatever she was going to say, because I can’t listen to it. “Mara, the way that I was before was all because of Jillian. She was the one who was good at parties and guys and all that kind of stuff—not me. I was always meant to be the sideshow act.”

Mara doesn’t say anything for a minute. “Do you remember Collin what’s-his-name? The guy from middle school…”

My forehead crinkles. “Collin Peskowitz? And yeah, I remember him. I just can’t believe that you do.”

Collin Peskowitz. I was eleven, and by my standards back then, Collin was sort of epic. He was amazingly braces-free, had great hair that he spiked up with gel, and in the summer before sixth grade he was learning to play guitar while the other boys in our grade were busy expanding their range of fart sounds and playing touch football.

The look on her face is terribly serious. “That was all you, Aimee. Jillian Kearns had nothing to do with it.”

I know that Mara is referring to the fact that I confronted Collin at the Dreffin’s annual Fourth of July picnic and told him in front of everyone, including my parents, that I liked him and that he had exactly one hour to decide if he liked me back. That was the night I got my first kiss under a sky full of fireworks.