“Seattle’s the home of hidden secrets.” I don’t mean for the words to sound like anything more than a friendly response, but Mike’s eyes flicker to mine, and I can hear the silent question in his stare. I clear my throat and turn my attention to grabbing my laptop from my bag. “It sounds like you and Maddie have a new routine. That’s cool.”
“She doesn’t really like the music scene,” he tells me.
“That’s okay. I mean, I’m not a huge football buff, but I still like to go watch Paxton play.” I shrug. “It’s all about compromises, right?”
He shrugs. “Lately, she doesn’t like anything. She’s homesick, and she found that old scrapbook you gave me back in high school…” He stares at me without telling me her reaction, but I can sense it in my chest.
Alarm bells sound in my head. “You kept that?”
He looks maimed by my question. “Of course, I kept it. You made it for my birthday,” he tells me like I don’t remember spending weeks making it.
I shake my head to dislodge the accusation he’s pointed at me. “Why didn’t you just tell her the truth? Why’d you lie and say we were just friends? It would have taken away all the weirdness in the situation. Now, she probably feels like we lied to her.” I consider the situation for a moment. “We did lie to her, and why? It’s so dumb.”
“Because when I saw you, I couldn’t tell her the truth.”
I shake my head before he can continue and tell me why. “You could have. You should have.”
“You didn’t correct me.”
“I was meeting you for the first time in over a year, and you blindsided me. I wasn’t prepared to clarify our history.”
“Or you didn’t want to.”
I stare at him, resenting the fact he’s trying to make me share this blame with him. “You should tell her the truth and throw the scrapbook away.”
“You were my best friend before you were my girlfriend. Technically, I wasn’t lying. I know you better than anyone and—”
“Stop.” I shake my head and struggle to meet his eyes. “You need to think really long and hard about what you’re about to say because if you say what I think you’re going to, we can’t be friends anymore. I’ve moved on. You’ve moved on. It’s over.”
“You feel it, too,” he says. “I know you do.”
I shake my head again. “They’re memories. The feelings are all past tense.”
He opens his mouth to say something, but before he can, our professor enters the classroom and calls for attention.
The moment class is over, I’m out of my seat, my things already packed. I don’t want to chance if Mike will try and say anything more to me, and I already hate that his words are playing like a podcast in my thoughts, growing an entire audience of doubt and regret about how I’ve handled things with him and with Maddie.
Rae has a class in fifteen minutes, and I’ve already seen Paxton today at Mario’s, and we’re supposed to be going to a party to celebrate before the team leaves for Vegas tomorrow, but right now, I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts.
“Hey, Poppy!” a girl I don’t know greets me.
“Hi. How are you?”
“Are you on your way to see Paxton? Is the rest of the team going to be there? Could I come?” Her questions fire off in quick succession, so fast and intentional I can’t recall the first one, only its purpose.
I shake my head. “I’m just on my way to the quad.”
“Alone?”
I nod.
“Oh.” She looks both ways. “Okay then. Bye.”
I watch her walk away, shell shocked by the reality of what this moment seems to confirm, which is that so many of these strangers who know my name know nothing about me and have no interest to learn. They like me because I’m a channel to Pax and the rest of the team.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the boyfriend stealer.” My spine straightens as Candace comes toward me, her expression predatory and proud like a cat who’s just spotted an injured mouse, and I am without a doubt the mouse. “How’s it going, Poppy?” she asks.
I don’t respond—I can’t. In all of the time I’ve known Candace, she’s never addressed me. It used to bother me because it seemed so blatantly rude, but then I stopped caring because I was dating Mike, Paxton was still carefully listed under the “best friend’s brother” category, and Rae couldn’t stand her most of the time, which all contributed to making not caring simpler.
Candace stops, arms folded over her chest. “What? You only talk to guys you want to poach from other girls?”
When I was ten, I’d visited my grandparents and accidentally got too close to a Cholla cactus that my grandma had since my mom was young. To me, the cactus always resembled a creature you’d find under the ocean, with lots of segmented arms that looked deceivingly fuzzy and soft. I’m sure I’m thinking of that now because Candace is sort of like the cactus, beautiful and capable of inflicting pain.
“I need to go,” I tell her, hitching my bag higher.
“You’re never going to be enough. He’s mine, and I’m going to fight for him. I hope you know that.”
“I’m not going to fight you, Candace.”
“You shouldn’t, because you’d lose.” Her words are a threat that makes my stomach turn. I detest women breaking down other women. It’s one of my biggest pet peeves, making this situation even uglier.
I shrug, trying my best to appear unfazed, though my thoughts are starting to fray. “You’ve ruined your chances. I was never in your way. You were in your own way. You added the final nail when you slept with Derek Paulson. Even without me in the picture, do you really think Pax would forgive you for that?”
“Have you met Paxton? Do you realize how competitive he
