Never Sweeter(83)

“I talked to his buddy today. Only his buddy claims Tate hates him.”

“You mean Chad Kilpatrick? The guy with the dark hair and the monobrow?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. That’s him.”

“Tate does hate him. Or at least, they don’t hang out anymore.”

“They don’t? You know that for sure?”

Lydia paused, as though considering some next move. Maybe wondering if she should make it or notand still hesitant when she decided the answer was yes. Her voice was halting when she spoke, her gaze too soft and sad. Several times she seemed to want to stop, but she kept going.

“I don’t know anything for sure. None of us do. That’s the whole problem with the human raceour big design flaw. Pretty much everything relies on us being able to guess what someone else is thinking, and yet we hardly ever get it right. We can’t possibly get it right. I could tell you a thousand times that I hate you, while one I love you was right there in my head all along.”

“That was…that’s a pretty cool way to look at things.”

“It doesn’t sound like you think it’s cool.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No. It sounds like you’re really upset.”

“Maybe because he said a thousand times that he hated me…” she started.

But she couldn’t finish the thought. It was too awful to even contemplate. Too hard to think about him in high school with that one I love you lodged in his head. Each time the idea surfaced, she came close to losing her lunch, and after a little while of sitting with it the tears just forced their way through.

They were running down her cheeks and invading the sensible parts of her brain.

And it was their fault that she blurted out what she did.

“I just can’t stop thinking about what Chad said to me. And I know, I get how stupid that is, and I see that it makes me an even bigger fool than you thought I was for falling for him in the first place but I” she babbled, but thankfully Lydia cut her off with a hug. And words, good, good words.

“Oh, sweetheart, I don’t think you’re a fool. I think you saw a chance at something nobody ever gets, and you took it. Of course you took it.”

“And then I threw it away.”

“You had reason to. You had every reason to. The evidence was”

“The evidence was a bunch of mostly cute pictures he sent to himself.”

More silence rushed in after that bombshell. Worse: Lydia pulled away.

Not by much, and only so she could look at Letty’s face.

But it still felt bad.

“Why would he send pictures to himself? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“No. You’re right. It doesn’t. Unless you haven’t got the first fucking clue how to back your shit up and think emailing everything is definitely the way to go.”

“Are you saying here that Tate is that kind of guy or…”

“Tate is definitely that kind of guy. And he’s also the kind of guy who uses one password for everything, meaning I could definitely check if Chad’s claim is true.”

She looked at her friend then, though she didn’t know what she was hoping to find.

Understanding seemed like a long shot, until she saw the hopeful light in Lydia’s eyes.

“I think you should probably…”

“I know I should probably. But I just…I can’t. I can’t. I’m terrified of what I’m going to see. I’m terrified of what I won’t see. I’m terrified of everything always and I don’t know how to stop.”

“Then let me do it for you.”

She was firm nowso firm that Letty couldn’t imagine saying no. Though even if she had she wasn’t sure it would have had any effect. Lydia was already grabbing her laptop out of her bag and settling herself down on Letty’s desk chair. Feet up on the bed, fingers flying over the keys. It took her all of thirty seconds to bring up his email provider and fill in the details Letty provided.

Then it was just thirty seconds more of agonized attempts at reading her friend’s expression. Was it a yes? Was it a no? But more important: which one was the answer she wanted to hear?

It didn’t feel like either in those few moments.

It felt like she was sinking deep into a mess of her own creation.

And she was right to have that feeling, too.

“It’s his account. Password works. Plus there’s a subscription here to burger-of-the-month club and an order for a T-shirt bearing the legend ONLY DICKS CALL THEM CHICK FLICKS, so I think it’s safe for us to call this one.”

“He does really love burgers. And hates people calling them chick flicks.”

“I remember when the cafeteria had those sliders. I’ve never known anyone get so excited over what is essentially just bread and meat. I think he ate twenty-seven of them. In one bite.”