It's not night. It's 2:30 in the afternoon, and the sun hasn't even budged from it spot in the blue, cloud-scattered sky. It's scalding warm and I don't know this town and I find myself lost against the swath of budding flowers and greenery and houses old enough to be my grandmother. Big enough that they could swallow at least 4 carloads of people. Their front yards are pops of color and leaves and lawns that stretch for eons. It's all so pretty and isolating.
I hide in a bush. My head pounds to the beat of my heart, and my eyes ache. I take a moment to collect myself before the mortification can set in, wondering how stupid I have to freaking be to burn so many bridges in one go. Angry that I said all those things to Simon. More disappointed than angry that I swore. How ungrateful I have to be to not suck it up when the world is on standby, being attacked by freaking murder hornets, and people are sick and dying.
Simon tries to call me a couple times. A few unknown numbers do, as well, but I don't pick up.
The air starts cooling, and I go back to walking the sidewalks, keeping my distance from everyone. Crossing the empty streets if I have to.
Marie is busy. Fran doesn't pick up the phone. Michael picks up and says he'll call me back before hanging up. Oscar rings and rings and rings before the call drops out. I call him again. It rings and rings and rings for a solid 2 minutes. until he finally picks up. "What."
"Hey, can we talk?"
"No, but I know if I hang up now, you're going to call me again. So what, Micah?"
His tone is unforgiving, and it twists my guts until I feel sick. "I just, wanted to talk. We haven't talked in a while."
"I. Know."
I swallow. "Did I do something?"
Oscar scoffs. "God. Knew this would come someday. Was hoping you'd be stupid enough to not notice it."
"What?"
"Bro, I didn't re-add you to the group chat. Take a guess why. I am not your friend. You were dating Marie, and I was friends with her. You were my friend by proxy, not by choice."
"That's not true."
"I don't like you, Micah. You're annoying and needy and so positively upbeat – " He mocks it at me, making me nasally and whiny-sounding. " – and I seriously hate you."
"That's not true, Oscar."
"God, I should've just fucking texted you. I knew you'd do this."
"What?"
"Oh my God. This. Why do you think I haven't messaged you back in the group chat?"
"You said you were busy with school!"
"Why do you think I didn't add you when I got a new number? Should've fucking blocked you when I got it. Stupid of me to think that Marie wouldn't give it to you when she knows."
I feel cold. "Oscar, I-I don't know what I did, but I'm sorry. Y-you're my friend."
"You can't apologize for being you. I don't like you. Don't call me again." He hangs up.
I try messaging him, but they don't go through. I try calling him – to apologize, to ask what I could do to fix things. I don't know. The line rings once before telling me the number is unreachable. More text messages, except none of them go through. I cover my face. I'm too tired to cry but I feel like I could do it again.
I call Marie 4 times before she picks up. "Micah, now's really not – "
"Why didn't you tell me Oscar hates me?"
She huffs. "You got through to him?"
"Yeah. And he hates me?"
"Didn't think he'd pick up. He's just been muting your messages in the group chat."
"Why did you give me his number if he hates me?"
"For fun?"
"Is this some kind of freaking joke to you?"
"Micah, Oscar's like my brother. If I can fuck around with him, I will."
"But I thought he was my friend!"
"Micah, not everyone has to like you."
My skin prickles at that. "I-I know, but why – "
"I don't know. It's Oscar."
"And you didn't think to tell me? Y-you're all my friends. I mean, I...I thought – "
"So Oscar lifts out of the group chat. It isn't the worst – "
"Marie, you don't get it! You guys are my people, or you – was – I – was everything about us a lie that I was too stupid to see?" I don't give her time to answer, because I immediately hang up on her.
I walk.
I walk, and my vision becomes a blur of frantic note taking, green, and buildings that could engulf me. Cars worth more than Simon's apartment in the driveway. Shadows start stretching across the empty roads.
My phone buzzes, and it keeps buzzing. Suddenly I can't stand to look at it.
I start running memories like movies on fast forward, trying to pinpoint the thing I did wrong that kicked this all off. This drifting apart. But everything I can remember feels tainted by nostalgia – we're all laughing, smiling, sharing fries and exploring the tidal pools outside town. Going to Port Lindsay in the summer, and getting hot chocolate and coffee from the cafe when the summer season was over.
The more I think about it, the more fractured the memories become. In some, Oscar doesn't look my way, if only to throw out a snarky comment that I laugh at. Other memories feel tainted – he's too nice or too mean-spirited, and I don't know which one is right. Memories of us together and friends feel like panning for gold in an ocean.
I don't know what I did.
Why didn't he just talk to me?
Harley picks up after 5 rings.
"Did you know Oscar doesn't like me?"
He takes in a breath.
"You knew."
"I..." Harley sighs. "Micah, he was saying some awful shit about you in the group chat, and I called him out."
When was this? Why did he do that?
"He said he was going to talk to you. I-I didn't think – "
"When was this?"
"After your 'Congratulations For Surviving' Party. After we took the SATs and the...other one." Something shifts underneath him. "Micah, I thought he was going to talk to you."
"Am I really that unbearable?" I stop under the dappled light of a tree, loneliness suddenly raw and suffocating. I cross a street, bathed in pink light, before getting shadowed again.
"No, Oscar's just a dick."
"He's the sarcastically witty one."
"No. He's a dick. He's always been kind of a dick."
"That's not true."
"He didn't tell you he didn't like you for 2 fucking years and then got mad at you for being you. That's being a dick, my dude."
"I don't know what to believe anymore."
"Believe he's a dick. Because he is. I don't even talk to him anymore."
The realization is jarring yet painfully intimate. I hang my head, breath stilled in my throat, squeezing the phone until it feels like it might burst in my hand. "...when did our group start falling apart?"
"Micah, it isn't like that."
"It's, apparently, old news that Oscar doesn't like me." I can't fix this.
"There's no pinpoint for it, dude; it's, like, a progression you don't notice. When did Ursa Major start coming into existence? We can guess, but we don't actually know the moment it started."
"When did Oscar start hating me?" I want to fix this.
"Don't fixate. What does it matter that he does or doesn't like you?"
"Because we're friends." I need to fix this.
Harley sighs.
"We're friends."
"Micah, it happens."
"No. We...we're friends." Why can't I fix this?
He sighs again. "Where are you?"
"Outside."
"No, I – no. Where's Simon?"
"We fought."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Are you okay?"
"I made a mess, Harley."
"Is it bad?"
"No. Yes. I don't know."
"You can fix it."
"No I can't."
"You'll find a way. You know how I know?"
"Hm."
"Because you're Micah freaking Cohen, you're relentlessly upbeat and enthusiastic and needy..." He chuckles at that, but I don't laugh. "...and...and you really care about the people in your corner."
I grunt.
"...have you called David or Cheryl?"
I shake my head. "No."
"Why?"
"I don't know. Don't really want to bother them."
"Dude, bother them. It's your right."
I'm not their kid.
Apparently, I've taken too long to say anything, because he asks again, "Are you okay?"
"Would you believe me if I said I was?"
"No."
I cleared my throat. "I...just want to talk to Simon." I don't really want to talk to Simon, though. Feels like I've started burning that bridge with everything between us, recently, even if I didn't mean it.
At the same time, I want him. I want him here. I want him looking at me the same way he saw me for the first time in the coffee shop, where the world disintegrated and it was just us, and everything was new and sparkly and beautiful and terrifying. I want him to hold me while I smell him – kind of musky and plain from the Dove soap he uses, cucumber melon from his shampoo – while he tells me he won't leave me again.
I don't know if he can, though.
"Where is he?" Harley asks.
"Back at his house? I don't know."
"Then go back to the house? Simple."
I grunt. "Harley, I...want to, but I don't – "
"Micah!"
My heart drops. It aches in the same millisecond.
Simon stalls at the corner before turning towards me, his face flushed red and his eyes wide. Sweat drips down his forehead. His limbs are wild, cutting through the air as he runs at me. His blue eyes are frantic, tinted red.
I step back, heart pounding in my ears. I don't even know if I hang up the call because I'm running at him, my breaths a cascade of crashing waves. His name hangs on my lips. Everything screams for him.
The moment I can touch him, Simon collides into me, knocking me back a few steps, and wraps his arms so tight around my neck that he not only knocks the air out of me, but I forget to breathe in. He buries himself into me, shoulders heaving.
And for a split second, everything goes quiet