Definitely, Maybe in Love

Funny, because I felt like death.

I lowered the sun visor to look in the mirror. There she was again: the same girl I’d seen when I locked myself in the bathroom at Henry’s house, and again just a few days ago, alone in the spare bedroom, pacing around like a lunatic. My eyes were bloodshot with dark, puffy bags, nostrils white and flaring, lips pale, brows heavy and lifeless. My face was completely void of color except for the red splotches marbling my neck like a funky rash. But the expression in my eyes…that was the kicker. It wasn’t that I looked shocked or sad, it was worse than that.

My face was exactly like Julia’s on that day she discovered Dart was gone.

Oh, sweet, fracking irony.

“Spring?” Mel shrieked, still gaping.

When I opened my mouth to reply, my stomach heaved and I doubled over, a gasp of pain exiting from my throat. I felt the car swerve then slow, the sound of gravel under tires. When we stopped, my window was suddenly rolling down. I sat up and hung my head out the side.

“If you’re going to be puking again,” Mel said from what sounded like several million miles away, “you should at least have food in you. You haven’t eaten in two days. Dry heaving is bad for the esophagus.”

My right cheek was pressed against the outside of the car door, and my braids twisted over my eyes as the top half of my body hung upside down, suspended by my seat belt.

“Keep breathing, babe.” Mel’s hand was on my back, rubbing and patting in comfort. As blood pooled in my brain, I was able to breathe easier, and my stomach settled. When I pulled my head back inside the car, Mel had a Diet Coke in her hand, holding it out to me. I pressed it against my forehead. The coldness of the can felt nice.

“Thanks,” I whispered. “I’m fine.” I attempted to smile after I took a few sips. “I’m just tired, I guess.”

“Tired, right,” Mel said, rubbing my arm. “We’ll sit here for a sec.”

“No, it’s okay. I know it’s a long drive.” With alarm, I searched for my phone, which had fallen to the floor in my jostling. I grabbed it and pressed it against my chest.

“No hurry,” Mel said, eyeing me. “There’s a restaurant up ahead. We’ll stop for a while.” She started the car and we pulled into the parking lot.

The restaurant wasn’t crowded, and we sat in a corner booth. When I insisted on only a salad that I knew I wouldn’t touch, Dr. Melanie took over, ordering an array of vegetable sides, soup and bread.

My cell was on the table, the calendar event still showing. I picked it up and held it between my hands. Then, I couldn’t help glancing one more time at what Henry had secretly scheduled for us to do:

Subject: My mouth

Location: You

Notes: Don’t move. My mouth is on your fingers, eyelids, your face. My mouth, your neck. Your mouth. My hands, your back, skin. Your mouth. My mouth, your tongue. Your mouth, my mouth. Your stomach, my mouth, my hands. Under your hair. Under your shirt. My mouth on you.

When the phone pinged another reminder, my heart made a mighty thwap and I grabbed for my glass of ice water.

Mel was watching me closely, elbows on the table. “We don’t have to talk about it. I mean, I know you think I’m a gossip and everything.” She rolled her eyes. “But this is you.” She kicked me under the table. “You know you can tell me anything and it goes no further.”

I lowered my eyes, reading his words again, need and misery hitting me like a tsunami.

“Take another drink,” she ordered, scooting my glass over.

“Mel,” I began, staring down, “there’s something I have to tell you.”

“I’m listening, babe.”

“I kissed Henry when we were camping.”

Well, it was a six-hour kiss, but who’s counting?

“Uh-huh.”

“The next day, I found out something…bad. That’s why I didn’t go with you guys to Portland. Did you know Henry never left? He stayed behind at the house after you and Tyler took off.”

“Really?” Her expression was smooth, no scheming grin, eager to hear the latest scandal. She looked like my best friend.

“He came barging in.” I swallowed, feeling pukey again. “He told me…” I lowered my eyes. “He told me he loves me.”

“Poor Henry.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You obviously threw him out,” she deduced. “And now you feel guilty.”

“Guilty,” I echoed. “You don’t know what I said to him.”

“He probably deserved it.”

“Probably.” I laughed bitterly. “What I thought I knew about him, then after what Tyler told me—”

“Tyler told you something about Henry?” she cut in. “That little gossip.”

I had to bite my tongue about the whole pot calling the kettle black.

“Henry did deserve what I said, but…” Suddenly, tears built behind my eyes and a huge lump blocked my throat. “Is it possible to feel so strongly about someone, to be so overwhelmingly attracted and connected that you want to forgive anything? How healthy is that? How stable?”

“I don’t know.” Mel shook her head. “I’ve never felt that way about anyone. But you and…”

I lowered my hand that was holding the phone. She stared at it, then at me. “I don’t know what to do,” I said, my bottom lip quivering. “I’m such an idiot.”

“Careful,” she warned with a kind smile, taking the phone from my open palm. “That’s my best friend you’re talking about.”

While she read the subject line of the event and then the subsequent, rather detailed, description that Henry had entered, I was busy staring down at the plate before me, my fork scooting the carrots and rice from one side to the other. A few seconds later, my cell was being pushed across the table.

“Steamy,” she offered, pointing at the screen. “And is that part even legal? Why aren’t you with him right now?” She glanced at the phone. “Doing that.”

So I told her everything.

Of course she’d heard Alex’s story floating around campus, but she knew nothing about Henry breaking up Julia and Dart.

“Who do you trust more?” Mel asked, running her finger along the rim of her glass. “Henry or Alex? Or Tyler?”

“Henry didn’t deny the Julia thing,” I said, feeling miserable.

“Okay, okay.” Mel moved her plate and glass out of the way and placed her hands flat on the carved up wooden table. “Let’s go over this logically. First, what’s this about Lilah?”

“Oh.” I shuddered and shook my head. “He just slipped up, so to speak. You know guys…a pretty face throws herself at him, and he loses all ability to think logically. I assumed Henry had a higher threshold, but we’re all susceptible at some point.”

As proof, I almost added that I’d fallen prey to Alex.

“I don’t know if it was a casual thing between them last summer,” I continued, “or if he thought there was more to her back then. He’s probably known her for almost as long as he’s known Dart. So it wasn’t like a one night stand.”

“They hooked up?”

I nodded. “Pretty sure.”

“Ew. She’s such a gnarly hag.”

“I agree. But think about it. If you only saw her and didn’t know the evils of her inner soul, she’s, ya know, beautiful.”

“Gross.” Mel made a gagging face.

“He seemed shocked that I even knew about it.”

“That’s because he knows how you feel about Lilah, and obviously knows how Lilah feels about you. That was probably why he was so engrossed by you at the party. Make no mistake, Lilah told him crap, so he assumed