“I’m honestly surprised you want to, considering you haven’t even tried to talk to me in weeks. Never even bothering to give me an explanation.” Matt shakes his head in disgust and turns back to the vending machine. I watch as he plugs in a few numbers, opting for salty, and a bag of chips falls to the bottom. He pushes the door in and grabs them, letting out a long exhale before facing me again.
“Matt—” My voice cracks, and I see him pause, see the tiniest hitch in his breathing.
He reaches for my hand, just like he used to. At my locker, or before his football games. But he stops short, and I see his fingers fold into his palm, his hand balling into a fist, his arm recoiling as he turns and walks away.
I don’t understand.
I thought the words would just come, but they didn’t. Still, all I’ve got is that I want to fix it. Nothing more than that.
But Matt wants to know why it broke. And I still don’t have an answer to that.
I watch him go, with his swoopy brown hair and his broad shoulders, tan now from his days spent on a lifeguard stand.
He’s beyond cute. Every girl in our grade knows that. He’s sweet. He remembers every anniversary and holiday and birthday, big or small. He actually listens, and everyone in our friend group, not just me, knows he’s the person you go to if you have a problem.
And he gets me, just like I get him. He knows that I like rom-coms more than horror movies, and my favorite triple-layer chocolate cake recipe, and that I get quiet when I’m upset. Just like I know that his favorite director is Wes Anderson, and his favorite Nintendo Switch game is Fortnite, and that he hates when people are late.
But I still can’t stop the feeling that always used to blindside me during our relationship from suddenly swimming back into my bones, settling deep in the marrow.
The feeling that something is… off, no matter how perfect Matt Henderson is.
Which… means that something about me needs to change for it all to click. Maybe I’ve been too busy looking at him, when I need to look at myself. If what I needed to say didn’t just come to me, then maybe it’s a problem with me.
Is this all because of how much I changed after Mom died? Maybe I still have more lessons to learn from the list before I can figure it out.
Or… maybe it’s something else entirely?
My eyes travel past Matt to the deep end, where Blake sits, her hair in a messy bun. I’m both relieved and anxious to see her. She pushes her sunglasses up onto the top of her head when she sees I’m looking at her.
“You good?” she mouths, only for me, and the wrongness melts away.
I nod, but I’m really not, and for some reason it feels wrong to lie to her.
I swallow and look quickly away, noticing the lifeguard table is still hard at work, staring at me like I’m auditioning for a Broadway musical. I make a beeline for the exit, eager to get right the hell out of here. I’m definitely not in the mood to stay and give them any more of a performance.
I know now I can’t just wait for the right words to come, for the switch to flip. I need to figure out what’s wrong and fix it. Only then can I really show Matt how sorry I am. That I can still be the same person he fell in love with.
I just need the list to show me how.
I also don’t want to stick around and risk Cassie Evans actually figuring out how to kill someone using her glare. If anyone was petty enough to succeed, she’d be the one.
15
I meet up with Blake after work on Friday at the local park for our picnic, eager to be anywhere but home, obsessing over the Matt drama as I sit in my empty living room.
With the uptick in house showings, and our boxes very nearly packed, I would’ve thought we’d be looking at places to move into. But we haven’t looked anywhere yet.
When I sent Dad a few listings I’d found online this morning, even one for a nice apartment just above the hardware store in town, he’d just ignored me.
“I’ve got it handled,” he murmured before heading off to work.
Whatever that means.
Blake has gone for the full stereotype for our picnic, a checkered blanket unfurled on the big grassy field just up the hill from the playground. I bring some of the apple tarts Nina made with the apples we picked, and Blake brings a square container, her fingers tapping on the edges.
“I called my grandma. The one in Hawaii. She walked me through how to make them,” she says as we sit. “And it’s her recipe, so I definitely don’t think you’ve had this before.”
When she opens it, there’s a tiny hiss of steam.
“I think they’re best if they’re still warm. I pretty much wrapped the nori around them, threw them right in the container, and floored it over here,” Blake says while I peer down at the rectangular blocks she’s brought for us to eat, rice and a pink hunk of meat wrapped together with a thin piece of seaweed.
“Is that…? Is that Spam?” I ask. I am no stranger to Spam, especially when a twelve-ounce tin is under three dollars at the local grocery store.
But I can’t say I’ve ever had it quite like this.
Blake nods, placing the container down on the blanket in between us. “Spam musubi. You can kinda just…” Her voice trails off, and she reaches out, picking one up and taking a big bite out of it.
“My mom would never eat something like this. She was such a picky eater,” I say as I imitate
