My knees were knocking together under the table. I began unconsciously fiddling with the napkin. It had been three months. Three months was a long time.
Would she be showing her baby bump yet? Would she be the same Maddy she was when I'd deserted Arlington?
I let out the breath I'd been holding and focused on the slow moving cafe instead. I'd just come from my Friday afternoon meeting with the psychologist, which had me feeling a little overwhelmed.
The first thing they'd done when I'd enrolled at Silver Oak Science and Mathematics School was assign me to talk to a psychologist. After only a week of sessions, she'd listed multiple issues I was facing. Grief. Borderline OCD. The sure signs of a developing eating disorder.
At first, I was set back with a debilitating loneliness. Transferring schools mid-year had left me with a stack of work and not many people open to talking about it. So, through some unsaid agreement, they assigned me a buddy named Aanya who started sitting with me and asking how I was. Often I didn't know how I was. My mind usually revolved between two people who I wasn't supposed to be dwelling on.
Time had brought with it insight on everything that had happened at the start of the year. Over Christmas break, when I was cleaning the last of my lists from my drawers, I found the note he left me the first night he'd stayed over. It was like my body was fracturing all over again. Until then I'd been doing so well at shoving him from my life.
Our last argument lingered in my mind, even now, as my eyes strayed to the window, awaiting my lunch date. I didn't hate William. The more I thought about him, the sadder I felt for him. I imagined that night, the one I'd sought him out to use him with no intention of guarding his feelings. I wasn't the only one to do it to him. William was more of a puppet than any of us.
And what must have hurt the most was that it was a secret that must have been Earth-shattering for him. If I flipped the situation, I'd be left heart broken and torn. And that's how he'd been. I mean, he was protecting his family. It didn't matter if the girl who'd also tried to use him got a little hurt along the way.
What bothered me the most was that I didn't know how much of it he'd put on. So many times he'd been there to hold me or to break into houses with me or to just drive. So often it felt like he was genuinely caring for me, protecting me against them. And it broke my heart to think otherwise.
I never wanted to know the answer, because I wasn't sure I could face the truth.
And chances are, I'd never find out anyway. We hadn't spoken since I'd left, just as we'd promised.
The cafe was in a busy shopping mall, and I was watching a couple through the window as they stepped into a department store, playfully nudging each other at the hip. I smiled a little. Arlington had left the impression that there was no good left in people. Little signs of innocence like that reassured me. Even if it was only on the outside.
My gaze finally found the black-haired girl with an arm full of shopping bags balancing at her elbows, fishing for what I saw to be a mobile phone. Her stomach was concealed in a baggy cashmere sweater, and I knew that was probably intentional.
Once she'd retrieved the smart phone, her expression became relieved, and then she turned to face whoever was beside her.
Maddy Danton wasn't supposed to have a companion. This was only a lunch date to catch up. It had taken me weeks to agree. She knew that.
My breathing quickened when I recognized who it was trailing behind her, an uncertain look on his face as he eyed Maddy skeptically.
William.
I rose from to my feet and then sat down again. I'd stand out too much. I grabbed my purse from where it sat on the booth next to me and tried to look small. God, I was losing it. My head was going dizzy from lack of oxygen. What was he doing here?
I bit my lip hard and started searching for an escape route.
"Chloe, oh my God!"
Maddy had spotted me, and she flung her arms out for a hug, hitting a few people along the way with the bags at her wrists. I let her envelope me in cashmere, any happy feelings I might have had from being reunited with her tainted with a mix of emotion. Terror. Anxiety. Heart break.
"I hope you don't mind, I brought someone..." she said, her eyes darting to the tall boy beside her.
William looked as breathtaking as ever. His hair was a little shorter, styled neatly. He was wearing a knitted jumper which fitted his broad torso well. I wondered if he was playing lacrosse again, but then I dropped that thought from my mind.
I couldn't find it in me to look him in the eye. I knew from that moment I wouldn't be able to keep pretending everything was fine.
"I thought we were meeting with Piers," he said neutrally, his words lingering among the hushed noise of the cafe.
Maddy sighed, her shoulders slumping. "You two obviously left things badly. I'm doing you a favor."
The last time someone had said they were doing me a favor, my whole world had collapsed. And right now it felt like it could easily happen again.
When neither of us spoke, Maddy rolled her eyes and squeezed into the booth next to me, leaving William to reluctantly sit down opposite. My heart hammered in my chest. He averted his eyes to the window I'd just been staring out of.
"So how's Silver Oak?" Maddy asked, her bright eyes fixed on mine, oblivious to the tension around her.
"Um, good," I said, my fingers back to fidgeting with the napkin. Then I realized I couldn't even really talk to her, not with William there. I doubted she'd have told him about her pregnancy with Francis.
"Arlington's as terrible as ever," she said, flicking her hair over her shoulder as she reached for the menus in the middle of the table. "Sophie and Lola are still bitches. But they kind of pretended nothing happened with the photos, so things must have been pretty dramatic after all of that for them to get over it. And hey, Francis dropped out of school."
I frowned, I'd gone to a lot of effort not to look up any information on Arlington's favorite celebrity students since I'd left. "Dropped out?"
"Yep, pretty shocking considering he's supposed to inherit millions. Millionaire drop out," Maddy mused, her eyes scanning over the cafe's menu. "Oh hey, they have sweet potato fries."
My body was still tense as I reached forward to grab my own menu from the stand in the middle. At exactly the same time William went to take one too.
"Oh no, you take it," he said quickly as our hands bumped, sending a wave of electricity through my skin and disturbing the feelings that had been suppressed for so long.
I gulped back the lump in my throat and took the menu quickly, instantly acting as if I were intrigued with whatever they had to offer. Why did she have to bring him?
My eyes couldn't translate the text in front of me, and when Maddy asked me what I wanted to order I read out the first thing I processed.
"Great," she said, taking the menu from my grasp, and before I could object she was slipping in front of me. "I'll go order for all of us, shall I?"
My muscles froze as she darted away from the table and towards the rather long line of people ordering at the register.
I made the mistake of looking at him.
The vibrant green hue of his eyes hadn't faded as they bored into my own, somehow knocking their way past my barriers and hitting me hard in the chest. They ignited feelings of anger and hurt, so mixed together that I couldn't even separate them.
"I wouldn't have come along if I'd known," he murmured after a second, dropping his gaze to his folded hands instead.
He didn't want to see me.
"It's okay," I said quietly. I wasn't entirely surprised. Painful memories wrapped around my windpipes, choking me from within.
"How have you been?" he asked after a few escaping moments. "Really."
I looked up at him again, narrowing my eyes, trying to work out whether he was just being polite. "Okay."
"I think you made the right decision, leaving," he went on as the silence started to grow again. "I think you needed to do what was best for you."
I nodded a little, nibbling on my lip, willing the tumbling thoughts to leave my mind. We fell quiet again, and then I couldn't stop my lips parting. "How are you doing?"
"Okay," he said, repeating my response from before. "Things haven't been easy."
I nodded in agreement. They really hadn't.
I didn't know what else to say, and what would cross the boundaries of this strange get-together. I'd gotten so far in letting go, and now I was back to the start again, getting lost in what had been.
His lips parted a little, like he was grappling with what to say. I frowned. I was tired of unspoken words.
"You can say it," I said, "Whatever you're debating, just say it."
"I'm not sure if it's something I have the right to say," he admitted.
My frown deepened, and my voice lowered to a soft whisper. "Just say it."
"I've really missed you, Chloe."
And like that, the fixtures holding together the box full of unprocessed emotions were obliterated.
"Right, our food's ordered guys," Maddy said, sliding over me and back to her seat, oblivious to our exchange in her absence. I was glad for the distraction. I had no idea how I could have responded anyway.
He cared. He still cared enough to miss me. And that shouldn't have made my chest soar up above the clouds. Not after what he'd done to me.
"I just need the restroom," William said abruptly, standing and side stepping, not waiting for a response before he was out of our view.
Maddy and I were silent for a second before she burst into conversation.
"I'm sorry. You're probably pissed. I don't know what made you break up, but you don't even know how dark and brooding he's been since you left. I know you guys left things unfinished, and you're both too stubborn to just pick up the damn phone and get together."
I sighed. Maddy knew about Monica and my mixed intentions when I became friends with her. But, as if it were no big deal, she'd shrugged it all off. And she hadn't clued onto the fact that William and I had never actually been together.
"It's fine. Anyway, how are you really going?" I asked, trying to change the subject.
"Weirdly good. Then weirdly bad. It balances itself out," she said. "The worse part was quitting parties. It took a while for my body to... you know, right things."
"What did the doctor say?" I asked.
She shrugged, and I could see the anxiety that washed over her face. "He's worried, but they're monitoring me closely. He said everything's really good, considering."
"And your parents?" I asked.
A small smile arose on her lips. "Have been unbelievably supportive."
I smiled, feeling genuinely happy for the first time all afternoon. "That's really great."
"And," she went on, "Our lawyers have been in touch with the Greene's. They're as eager as we are to keep this all out of their ears, and have been happy to arrange finance provided I keep my mouth shut and never tell him. And a spot at Yale."
"What?" I asked, a little too loud. "Maddy, that's great!"
"It is, but..." She looked subtly towards her slightly bloated belly. "I have a difficult decision to make about what will happen... after."
I nodded somberly, just as a waitress came around and placed two coffees and a hot chocolate at the table.
"I want to see you more often," she said, her voice gaining a serious edge that it didn't often carry. "I understand if you'd rather just put all of Arlington behind you, especially after Monica. And everything. But I genuinely like you, Chloe. I want to be a supportive friend to someone who actually deserves it."
I thought about that. My psychologist kept telling me I needed to develop relationships with other people, and not to keep relying on my lost friendship with Mon. And, even if Maddy was a loose cannon most of the time, I wanted to be supportive of her too.
William returned just as our meals arrived, and the three of us ate over small talk. My mind was still whirring with his words. He missed me. And the thing that made me most confused was how overwhelmingly I'd missed him too.
Just as she'd stuffed the last of her fries into her mouth, Maddy grabbed her purse and stood up abruptly. "Sorry, guys, I've got to go to the bathroom too now."
I gave her a skeptical look as she crawled past me again and made a beeline for the door. I was puzzled, watching her as she moved away from the cafe, and then realization dawned on me when she headed into the Barneys across the mall.
She was giving us even more alone time.
I sipped the remainder of my coffee, the silence even heavier between us this time.
"I'm sorry for what I said earlier," he said slowly, his eyes studying my face, as if drinking in every feature. I hadn't changed much, apart from wearing almost no makeup or lipstick. My battle armor had worn soft.
"Don't worry about it," I said, but then my tone changed as my thoughts shifted. And then I was blurting things that should have remained hidden deep in my chest. "I've actually really missed you too, William."
The flicker of a smile crossed his lips, and it was just enough to make butterflies erupt in my stomach. "Will."
"Right, sorry."
"I should be the one who's sorry," he said, sighing. "I never said it, because I didn't think you'd want to hear it at the time. But I'm really sorry, Chloe. I was tormented with everything we did together, every moment I felt myself growing more and more... engrossed. Attached to things I shouldn't be. I know it's unforgivable, all of it."
I blinked rapidly. "I wish you'd said that when... when I needed to hear it."
"I didn't want you to hear it then," he said, and for a moment his hands reached out in some attempt to touch me. But, he thought better of it and rested his hands on the table instead. "Because if I was in that position, Chloe, I know I'd have no choice but to do it again. I was in a difficult position, but I still made the only choice I could."
I nodded, trying to translate that I understood with my expression. Because I did. "What he was using against you was awful, Will, I know that. I know it must have been hard, to go back to him with everything and have the stress of that information being in his hands. And my information. God, I never should have blackmailed you."
He actually chuckled a little. "Your blackmail was harmless in the end. You'd never have used it. That's what made it so much harder. I told you I never pretended to care, and that's because I didn't. I let myself care, probably a little too much."
My heart hammered deeply throughout my rib cage, and I felt the dangerous flame of hope arise within me. He cared for me. And even if what he did tainted every memory we'd ever made, it didn't stop the attraction from radiating between us now. It didn't stop his intentions from being for the best. For his family. And in some ways, for me.
"Tricking you was the worst thing I've ever done," he said, his fingers finding the salt and pepper shaker and circling it around on the table. "I know you were vulnerable, and it wasn't easy for you to let someone in like that."
I wanted so desperately to place my hands on his and feel the connection again. To remember just how it felt for his skin to be against mine. I needed it. I needed to know whether it was still there.
"Even if you were being manipulated, you still helped me," I said quietly. "Without you, I would have self-destructed."
His eyes found mine again, and he looked pained. "I keep wishing I could go back and change everything."
"But you can't," I said.
He took a deep breath and dropped the shaker. "I know that. And this might be pushing it, but... I was thinking maybe we could just start fresh instead."
I looked at him, his expression so unsure that it made me want to agree instantly. But I needed to think clearly. The wounds were still fresh. And I still wasn't sure of the boundaries between when he'd been pretending and when he'd been genuine.
But, time had mended a lot of things, and one of them was my ability to let people in. To try, and to be forgiving. I forgave the fact that Monica was human, and she wasn't perfect. She wasn't the person I painted her to be.
Time had also let a lot of things grow. Like the hollow ache in my chest ever since I told him goodbye. And seeing him again had ignited the piece of me that had fallen loose. I had cut out Arlington and the toxic people in my life. My toxic way of thinking. But, I was still missing someone who had helped put me back together in so many ways I hadn't realized.
I let my hands rise over the table and land over his, the warmth instantly entrapping me with the reassuring feeling that I was making the right decision.
"I'd like that," I said.
The grin he gave set the butterflies free, and I was falling again. We still had miles to go in earning back each other's trust and making things right, but the feeling of his fingers grasping around mine, the symbol of something within me mending, had me already grasping to hope. Even if it didn't work, or we ended it as friends, we had a fresh foundation.
The boy who had cared for me, even when I was my most self-destructive and reckless, was still there.
And with a blank canvas, and a new start, we could try things the right way. No blackmail or secrets, or the pressure of a publicized relationship.
My smile grew as he rubbed his thumb against mine with a feather light motion, and once again I was unwittingly finding myself falling into his forest green gaze.