You’re it.
A minute passes. Two. It feels like a million fucking years. Three minutes. Weeds grow over my feet. The polar ice caps melt a few dozen inches. Four minutes. My internal organs petrify.
My phone makes a sound and just like that, the world is back in motion.
Aimee
“That was a titillating lecture, don’t you agree?” Jodi rolls her eyes.
“Dr. Hillard blew my mind like usual.” I bring three fingers to my temples and rub vigorously. “After an hour of that, I think I need a caffeine boost.”
“Me too. I actually want it to be pumped into my bloodstream intravenously.” She fishes around the front pocket of her bag for her sunglasses. Slipping them over her nose to shield her eyes from the sunshine, she turns to look at me. “The union ?”
I nod once. “union .”
“Hey, I meant to tell you something,” she says as we move down the sidewalk, dodging a couple of guys. One of them looks a little like Cole and I let my eyes linger on his blond hair and the straight line of his jaw.
“What?” It’s amazing how a few months ago, when I wasn’t looking for him, he was everywhere, and now I haven’t seen him in weeks. Maybe it’s the universe trying to tell me something.
“I saw Cole last night.”
The sound of his name spoken out loud makes my heart do a somersault. I stop walking and spin around so that I can look at her. “You did?”
“Yep. Kyle and I were having dinner at that outdoor cafe on Southbay. They’ve got a fantastic mango tofu wrap that’s the perfect balance of sweet and salty. Another plus is that you can get onion rings as a side instead of your standard fries. You know that I seriously love onion rings.”
“Jodi,” I say impatiently. “I’m figuratively tapping my foot over here.”
“Okay, okay.” She squishes up her mouth and pushes a loose curl back behind her ear. “There honestly isn’t much to tell, which is probably why I didn’t mention it first thing. I only saw him from a distance walking to his truck and all I can tell you is that he looked good.”
Of course he looked good. He always looks good. “Was he alone?”
Jodi drops her head so that I can see her eyes over the sunglasses. “Yep. No shirt on so I think he must have been finishing up at the gym. Either that or he was modeling for a calendar.”
I start to speak but change my mind and let Jodi babble the rest of the way to the union . She fills the silence with a complete rehash of the compulsory sorority meeting that she attended two nights ago. I nod and grunt a little but, really, my brain is five minutes back, stuck in the tar pit that is Cole Everly, bare-chested and sweaty after a workout.
Once we’ve gotten our coffees, Jodi clears her throat and says, “I want you to tell me again.”
“Tell you what again?”
“Go over it again.” She rolls her hand in the air. “The texts, the photos that he’s been sending… all of it.”
I reach for a wooden stirrer from the opposite end of the counter. “Why? It doesn’t mean anything.”
Before Jodi puts the lid on her coffee, she dips her finger in and brings it to her mouth to test whether or not she needs to add more sugar. “Do you want it to mean something, Aimee?”
Do I want it to mean something? I take a few seconds to answer. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”
She shoots me a knowing look. After that night, I told Jodi everything. And I mean everything—about Jillian, the accident, and Cole’s mother. She needed to hear something so I gave her the truth. And the whole time that I cried and let her hold my hand, I was thinking about that time that I woke up and Cole was looking at me with sad, shiny eyes. Didn’t you have anyone else after Jillian died?
“Ah.” She tips her chin. “We’re back to this again.”
“Jodi, he’s probably already met someone else by now. Guys like that… they don’t just wait around.”
“He didn’t sleep with that Kate bitch, and I don’t think he’s interested in anyone else.”
“How would you know?” I shake my head. “It’s been weeks.”
“Weeks, months! It doesn’t matter. He told you that he loved you.”
“Not exactly. He asked me what I would say if he told me that he loved me.”
I can see that she’s a little disappointed with my response. “Now you’re just being obtuse.”
“I’m not being obtuse. I just…”
Jodi doesn’t let me finish. She’s moving her head and her hands in ten different directions. “You can lie to yourself all you want, but I know the truth. I see it. Cole loves you and you love him.” Her voice holds a certainty. “When you two look at each other your eyes turn into little sparkly red hearts.”