It takes a while for my mind to process his words. Enough time for the singer to spell out L-O. But this blatant admission of fault is not at all what I was expecting. Of course, I assumed his lack of response meant he didn’t feel the same way. That I’d made things weird between us and now he wanted nothing to do with me. Tarek owning up to it isn’t at all what I was expecting.
“Thank you. For saying that. It was shitty of you.”
“Glad we can agree on something,” he says.
The relief isn’t immediate, though, and maybe it’s because we still haven’t talked about what led me to send that email in the first place. And the fact that I acted shitty too. Remembering how his face shattered that night at the marina is what compels me to make my own apology. “I’m sorry too. About the fight, and what I said about your past relationships.… I pushed things too far. I thought we were just kidding around, but… obviously not, since we stopped talking.”
At least Tarek isn’t asking me for a reason. I can’t explain why I snapped at him without exposing a painful piece of my history.
On the other side of the dance floor, Elisa is balancing a stack of plates and laughing with Tarek’s mom.
Tarek grimaces, but when he speaks again, he sounds nonchalant. “It’s fine. I asked what you thought. You told me. I’m pretty sure that relationship wouldn’t have worked out anyway,” he says. “I was upset, but I should have emailed. I should have texted. I was—”
It’s odd to hear him brush it off like this, but I guess we’ve both had a year of space. “Busy. I know.”
“Right. College was just… more overwhelming than I thought it would be.”
“In a good way, though?” I try to picture him there, attempting to cook in a college dorm, being infuriated by a hot plate. “I mean, you’re going back, right?”
“I’m going back,” he confirms, and it’s not until we’re both quiet for another chorus of the song that I realize he didn’t answer my first question. And I’m not sure if it was on purpose.
I try to ignore the tiny part of me convinced this isn’t the whole truth. I can accept that he’s moved on from last year, but whatever the details of “overwhelming,” he’s clearly not ready to talk about them. Even if he handled this the wrong way—even if both of us did—I miss his friendship, too. I hate that he ignored me, but I hate even more not having my wedding ally.
“That email,” I say, forcing a laugh. I have to make this clear if we have any chance of being friends again. If I brush it off, maybe it won’t feel the way it did last summer: like he took the most breakable, honest parts of me with him to California. “I was probably just feeling weird about you leaving. I don’t feel that way anymore. I swear. We’re obviously going to have to work together this summer, and I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable around me because you think I’m hung up on you or anything. Whatever I felt, I’m one-hundred-percent over it. Over… you.”
It was a good thing, in a way: his rejection confirmed my feelings about romance. Just like Corey did at Alyson Sawicki’s party, with his assumption that I was someone to hook up with and nothing else. It can’t sting if I won’t let it—that’s why I’ve always preferred the physical over the emotional.
I can pull my cynicism blanket tight around me again. It’s cozy under here.
“Well… good,” he says after a pause. “I’d hate to be uncomfortable. So… we can be friends again, then?”
“Friends,” I agree. His palm on my back seems to grow less stiff, and he gives my hand a quick, friendly squeeze. Now the band is playing a jazzy, slowed-down version of “Livin’ on a Prayer.” “So, pal, what all do we have to catch up on?”
“I’m pretty much the same, bud. Chum. Compatriot?”
“Not true. You have a beard now. Or, like, stubble.” I catch him blush, like he’s embarrassed I’m pointing it out.
“Oh, that? That’s called being too lazy to shave,” he says. “And what about you? Your hair is different.”
“I cut it at the beginning of senior year,” I say. It was past my shoulders when he left for college. “It’s a little grown out now.”
“It suits you,” he says, and I’m not entirely sure how to interpret that or whether it’s a compliment, so I force my brain not to linger on it, which is a bit like forcing deep-fried butter to be healthy. We’ve fallen back into this rhythm so easily—I don’t want to ruin it. “You and Julia, you’re still close?”
“Of course. Even if the universe is intent on putting nearly three thousand miles between us next year, which, rude.”
“UW’s a good school, though.”
It is. There is nothing wrong with it, except for my parents’ fingerprints all over it. But Tarek doesn’t know any of that. He never has. And it makes me instantly aware of the other things he doesn’t know about: my OCD, or the medication I take every morning, or any of my past relationships. I’ve never been to his house and he’s never been to mine. There’s so much we’ve never talked about, never shared. We were friends, yes—but not the kind of friends I wanted to be.
I ask about his friends from high school, a couple guys I’ve heard about but never met. I ask if he’s been to the Book Larder lately, a bookstore that specializes in cookbooks and is therefore Tarek’s favorite bookstore, and he tells me it was his first stop. His face lights up as he talks about the new cookbooks he acquired, but I
