“You kissed him?” Aisling stared at me incredulously.

“I mean…” I grimaced. “That kind of makes it sound more successful than it was. It was more like I tried to kiss him and he immediately made it clear how much that disgusted him and how much he wanted me gone.”

“But like, your lips actually touched?” Caden asked, smirking.

“Well, yeah. But I don’t think you guys are focusing on the important part. It wasn’t the kiss. It was everything that happened after. Or before. Or all of it—just like, how wrong I read his signals. I can’t believe I thought—“

“Maybe he did want you to kiss him,” Caden insisted. “Maybe he just felt embarrassed about it afterwards.”

“How does that make anything better?” I scowled at him. “The result is the same. Nick very definitely regrets ever even so much as talking to me. Let alone staying on as our advisor. And I promised I wouldn’t do anything, promised he wouldn’t regret this, and then…” I stared down at the cafeteria table. “It’s all my fault.”

“Okay, well,” Aisling took a deep breath. “I’m not gonna lie and pretend that wasn’t maybe the dumbest thing you’ve ever done—“

“Is this supposed to be comforting?“

“—but if we’re really being fair…” she frowned. “I don’t know that you like, entirely read his signs wrong.”

It was my turn to stare incredulously.

“Are you serious?”

Aisling sighed. “I just think…” she shook her head. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like you guys got closer than maybe either of you expected and maybe you weren’t entirely out of line. I think maybe—maybe—it’s possible that Nick might have, you know, sorta… let things get closer than they should have.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? It doesn’t change anything. So maybe Nick was being nicer to me than he should have—“

“That’s not exactly what I’m saying.”

“Then what are you saying?” I said, feeling desperate.

“I’m saying… ugh, I don’t even know.” Aisling wrinkled her nose. “Forget it. Because regardless of what happened, I think this is probably the best outcome.”

“What?” I looked at her in astonishment. “How can you mean that? Nick’s never going to talk to me again, I’ve probably made him want to quit being our advisor, and then—and then I might never see him again.“

“Eli, what did you expect?” Aisling gave me a sad smile. “Even if things had gone they way you wanted—I mean, what even did you want?”

That was a fair question. What the fuck had I been thinking? I’d been so caught up in the idea that Nick might feel even the faintest flicker of what I felt for him that I hadn’t stopped to think about the practicalities. I’d been so sure there was something there.

That night at his apartment? And then at the con, the way we’d talked? He’d looked at me like he respected me. Though come to think of it, he’d actually always looked at me like that, which was just one of the billions of reasons I liked him.

I couldn’t think of Nick without a litany of everything I loved about him cascading through my mind. He was considerate. Kind. He treated me like an equal. He wanted to hear what I had to say.

He was incredibly smart, an amazing listener, and generous, and funny, and sweet, and gorgeous, and determined, and even though you’d think he’d be insufferable because he was so concerned with doing the right thing, he wasn’t. He just made me want to be a better person, made everyone want to be better.

And me?

I was hopelessly, completely, irredeemably fucked up over him.

I’d just thought… Well, it didn’t matter what I’d thought. I was wrong.

Aisling was right. What the hell had I thought would happen, even if there had been something there? I was still in fucking high school. I already made his life harder just by existing. Any way that we got closer would only continue to make things worse for him.

“Eli?” Aisling asked gently. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to convince myself. I had to be okay. There was no other choice. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

At least the semester was almost over. We’d be on winter break, soon. No youth group during the holidays. That might give me enough time to get over Nick. If I really tried.

I just had to figure out how to do that.

I skipped youth group that next Sunday. It was our last meeting before we broke for the holidays, anyway. I met Aisling at the front door when she came to pick me up, and told her I thought I was coming down with something. She just rolled her eyes.

“Suit yourself,” she said, turning back towards her car.

“Will you—” I stopped, not quite sure what I was asking.

“What?”

“Will you tell me if he’s there?”

“Eli, he’s gonna be there. We’d have heard by now if he wasn’t.”

“But what if he’s—”

“Avoiding his responsibilities?” She arched an eyebrow. “Unlike some people I know, Nick doesn’t really seem the type.”

“Shut up.” I knew she was right. “If he—I mean, if he is there, will you—will you tell him I’m sorry?”

“Why don’t you come, and tell him yourself?”

“I’m sure the last thing he wants is to see me right now.”

“You’re gonna have to see him sometime, aren’t you? Might as well get it over with.”

“I beg to differ. I think you mean that I might as well put it off for as long as possible, at least until I come up with a way to…”

I trailed off again. Unless I could come up with a way to go back and undo the past, things were pretty much permanently fucked.

“I gotta go, Eli.” Aisling squeezed my hand. “I’ll let you know if he asks about you, okay?”

But he didn’t. Not after Aisling got home from youth group and I grilled her about Nick’s behavior—which had apparently been completely normal—and every word he said—which had apparently been completely not about me.

If Nick wasn’t avoiding me, exactly, he definitely wasn’t trying to get in contact with me either. And the longer I went without talking to him, the more depressed I got. I kept checking the email account I’d set up, just to see if he’d written something to me there. He hadn’t. For my part, I wrote and deleted about a hundred different apology emails, each one worse than the last.

Even getting my college applications turned in didn’t make me feel any better. To be honest, it actually made me feel worse. I used the essay Nick had read, but it just made me regret how I’d ruined everything I had with him. If I just hadn’t pushed, if I’d just…

Well, it didn’t matter. I’d done what I’d done, and now Nick was mad at me, and I couldn’t change it. He’d been so angry in the car that day, and if he hadn’t contacted me since, I could only imagine it had gotten worse.

Caden and his family flew back to Seoul for the holiday to visit his grandparents, and Aisling and her dad were going to France in a few days, but she insisted on dragging me to Marcus Chilcott’s holiday party before she went. She insisted it would get me out of my funk, reminding me that Cory Chilcott would be back from college and that we hadn’t seen her in ages. That was true, as far as it went, but I kind of thought Aisling was mostly inviting me because she needed a ride.

Still, I figured I might as well go. Marcus was one of those parents who didn’t seem too uptight about anything his kids were doing, as long as they were under his roof and safe. Last year, we’d gotten drunk on peppermint schnapps and I’d puked off the side of their deck. I couldn’t drink if I were the one driving this year, but maybe I could just make myself sick on Christmas cookies and puke anyway. The mood I was in, that sounded like a pretty decent option for a Friday night.

So I asked my mom if I could borrow her minivan, and she said I could, as long as I promised it would be ready for her to take to spin class at 8 a.m. the next morning. It had snowed again, the day before, and the drive around the city on I-287 was actually kind of pretty. I was even in a semi-decent mood by the time we arrived, as long as I forgot to remember why I’d been in a bad one in the first place.

The Chilcotts’ party was a huge affair, and we had to park all the way at the end of the block. I followed Aisling down the street past a long line of cars, up the snowy sidewalk, and knocked on the door. Marcus answered, and ushered us straight into the living room with a broad smile. And that’s when I remembered.

Because standing next to a Christmas tree decorated entirely in spoons, was Nick. And he did not look pleased to see me.

“You didn’t tell me he’d be here,” I hissed at Aisling. I’d grabbed her hand and tugged her into the sunroom as soon as we’d finished talking to Marcus. Nick had already disappeared—probably afraid I was going to throw myself at him again. The thought made me feel sick, as did the realization that, from his point of view, his fear was entirely justified.

“I didn’t know!” she protested. “It’s not like Marcus gave me the guest list.”

“You could have asked Julia.”

“And how was I supposed to do that and not look like a total weirdo?” Aisling asked. “It’s bad enough Nick thinks you’re in love with him—I don’t need other people thinking I’m in love with him too.”

“Well, thanks for your support.”

“Ugh, come on.” Aisling pulled me into the kitchen and towards a door in the far corner, tucked behind another Christmas tree, this one covered in snowmen. “Julia blackmailed Cory into bringing a bottle of whiskey back from college and she said they have it in the basement. If you’re going to freak out and complain all night, we might as well drink while you do it.”

I followed her down into the basement, because what else was I supposed to do? I was simultaneously desperate to talk to Nick and terrified of it. Drinking seemed like a good response. There were hours before I had to drive home, anyway. Plenty of time to sober up.

“What’s wrong with you?” Julia asked after we joined her on some folding chairs next to a row of dusty bookshelves and a TV that looked like it had last been used in 1972.

“Just ignore him,” Aisling said. “He’s lovesick and trying to pretend he’s not.”

I glared at her and took another long drink from the bottle that Julia passed to me. It didn’t help that Aisling was completely right. Nick was upstairs, probably avoiding me, and it wasn’t like I could hide in the basement all night.

“Hey, weirdos, stop being antisocial and come up and decorate cookies,” Cory, Julia’s older sister, called down a little while later, proving my point.

Stomach thumping, I followed Aisling and Julia back up into the dining room, and stopped short. There were two trees there, one with colored lights and cheap plastic ornaments, the other all white lights and gold filigree, and a giant table covered in sugar cookies, tubs of icing, and sprinkles, but none of that was the reason I suddenly couldn’t breathe.

That reason was standing on the far side of the room, his eyes suddenly wide and hunted-looking. I opened my mouth, but before I could say anything, Nick ducked out of the room.

Fuck. He was definitely avoiding me.

I tried to concentrate on cookie-decorating and talking to Cory. I hadn’t seen her since June, when she’d left for a pre-college trip. She was telling me something about a Caribbean Lit course she was taking, and I knew I should be paying attention, but then Marcus’s voice boomed out behind us. I turned over my shoulder to see Marcus ushering an uncomfortable-looking Nick towards the table.

“It’s a rule,” he was telling Nick as they reached us. “All guests must decorate at least five cookies.”

“I’m not sure you want me to, though,” Nick protested. “My artistic talents really aren’t that impressive.”

“Come, come,” Marcus said, drawing Nick towards the table and placing him right next to me. “There’s no need to be bashful.”

“Come, come?” Julia snickered. “Dad, who says that? Have you been watching Pride and Prejudice again behind Mom’s back?”

“Listen, what Keira Knightley and I share is something sacred, and your mother understands that,” Marcus said, mussing Julia’s hair.

I couldn’t keep my mind on the conversation. Dimly, I was aware of Julia teasing Marcus some more, and Cory joining in, but I had a much more pressing matter of business to attend to, which was the fact that Nick was standing mere inches away from me, and if I could just figure out how to breathe again, I needed to say something to him.

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” I heard Marcus say. “It’s a word, girls. Just a regular word. You don’t have to make it into anything more than that.”

“The lady doth protest too much,” Cory said.

“Yeah, come on, Marcus,” Aisling chimed in from somewhere across the table.

“Come down off your high horse and stop pretending it’s not a little bit funny,” Julia added.

Marcus looked flustered, and I could see him glancing over at Nick for help, but Nick’s eyes were glued to the table as he fumbled with a butter knife and a vat of green frosting, and I didn’t think he noticed.

“Hey,” I said quietly.

“Hey,” Nick replied, still not looking at me, or anyone else, just at the cookies in front of him.

Dammit. I was desperate to say something, to apologize or whatever it took just to get Nick to talk to me again, but there was no way I could say anything important in the middle of everyone, even if they did appear to be preoccupied trying to remember all the Christmas carols that had the word ‘come’ in them.

“Do you uh—do you need one of these?” I stammered, picking up an unfrosted cookie in the shape of a bell and offering it to Nick.

“Thanks.” He took it with two fingertips, like he was terrified of any bodily contact between the two of us. I wanted to sink into the floor.

“Oh my God,” I heard Julia say halfway down the table. I glanced up to see her looking at Cory, annoyed. “Why can’t you stay longer?”

“Because I’ve got J term,” Cory said.

“Ugh, that’s so lame.” Julia made a face. “Come on, blow it off and stay home. We’ll kidnap Eli and Aisling and make them stay with us, too.”

“Yeah, Cory. You can’t just come and then leave immediately,” Aisling said, sending their whole side of the table into gales of laughter again.

Maybe this was as good an opportunity as I was going to get tonight. I took a deep breath, then turned back to Nick.

“Hey, uh, do you think we could maybe—”

“Alright, I think that’s as good as my art skills are ever going to get,” Nick announced to the table, cutting me off. He set his cookie down on the tray of others that had been frosted, a splatter of red and green and blue, with purple sprinkles. “I decided to go for a kind of Jackson Pollock vibe.”

“Gorgeous,” Marcus intoned. “Now you just need to make four more.”

But it was too late—Nick had already slipped away from the table.

The rest of the night was like that. Anytime I saw Nick, he was gone before I could get close enough to talk to him. When Julia and Aisling pulled me into the kitchen to sneak cranberry vodka shots, Nick passed through and I jumped up—but he slipped into the bathroom before I got halfway across the room.

Later, I literally bumped into him in the hall as I walked around a Christmas tree decorated with tennis balls. This time, at least, I managed to get my mouth open and stutter out some words, but it didn’t make a difference.

“Nick, I need—I mean, I was hoping we could—”

Nick’s eyes slid right past me and latched onto someone at the other end of the hall.

“Oh, you must be Leigh and Jess,” he said, his face breaking into a smile. “Marcus told me to keep an eye out for you guys.”

And before I could say anything else, Nick was walking past me and going to greet Leigh, Marcus’s cousin, who was standing with her wife, Jess, and baby, Zeke. It wasn’t fair. Of the two of us, I was the one who actually knew Leigh. She’d been pregnant during the Christmas party last year, and I’d barely even gotten to meet Zeke tonight, and now Nick was acting like her long-lost best friend.

It was infuriating, and an hour—and a stolen bottle of champagne—later, I was angry enough to do something about it. I was sitting on the porch with Aisling and I could see Nick through the curtains into the living room. I just wanted to apologize to the guy, but how the hell was I supposed to do that if he wouldn’t talk to me?

“I think you’re right,” I said, passing the dregs of the bottle back to Aisling and wrapping my arms around myself to ward off the cold.

“Um, not disagreeing with you, since I usually am, but remind me what I’m right about in this particular instance?”

“That I should have gone and talked to him at youth group last week. I should have apologized to him in person? Nothing’s going to be right until I do that.”

“Okay, well.” Aisling nodded judiciously. “I agree. So what are you waiting for?”

“Nothing,” I said, standing up abruptly. “I’m going to go find him.”

Of course, by the time I got back into the living room, Nick was gone. I wasn’t giving up, though. I searched the entire house. I even stood outside the bathroom next to the kitchen, just in case he was in there again, but eventually Leigh came out and held the door open for me to go in.

I shook my head and sighed. Where the hell was he? My gaze drifted down the hall and outside, to the trees on the far side of the—oh. There was a silhouette out there, standing in the shadows on Marcus’s deck. I couldn’t make out exactly who it was, backlit as they were against the twinkling lights in the snow-covered pines, but I knew it was Nick.

I flew down the hall, took a deep breath, and pushed open the door that led outside. Nick was at the far end of the deck and I was halfway across it, my breath steaming in the cold night air, before Nick heard my footsteps tramping across the boards.

“Eli—what are you—”

“Why won’t you talk to me?”

I regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth. They sounded petulant. Childish. The last thing I wanted Nick to think I was.

“I—what? I’m talking to you now. I’ve talked to you all night. This isn’t—”

“Barely.” I couldn’t stop myself from breaking in. “You’ve barely talked to me. You’re avoiding me.”

I took a step closer, glaring at Nick, and he stepped back, as if he were afraid of what I might do if I reached him. He was probably half-convinced I’d try to kiss him, if I could.

Well, is he wrong?

I shoved the thought away.

“Eli, I’m not avoiding you, I’m being a normal person at a party. I can’t just talk to one person all night, even if I wanted to.” Nick glanced over his shoulder, checking to see if anyone had seen the two of us out on the deck, no doubt, then ran a hand through his hair. “Use your head. We can’t talk here. Think of how it would look.”

“You’re mad at me.”

That wasn’t what I’d meant to say at all, but I could feel something welling up in my throat and I couldn’t get any more words out without crying.

“I’m not mad at you.”

“You are.” I actually stamped my foot, shaking the snow on the deck, before I could stop myself. The last thing I wanted to do was reinforce the idea that I was immature, but dammit, I couldn’t help it. “You’re mad at me and I hate it and I don’t know how to make it stop. I would undo everything if I could, take away this entire fall, if I could just get you to talk to me normally.”

“Eli, please—”

“Stop saying that,” I cried. “Stop saying my name like you’re talking to a child, begging me to be reasonable. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’m not a child. I get it. You don’t want me and that’s fine and I’m not going to be weird or anything. I’m sorry I tried to—I shouldn’t have—ugh, I just want you to talk to me again, and to stop looking at me like I’m dangerous.”

“Eli—fuck,” Nick broke off abruptly and sighed. “I’m sorry. I’ll try not to—to say your name like that.” He studied me in the darkness. “I’m really sorry that things… got this way.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” I protested. “I’m the one who—”

“No.” Nick shook his head, his voice as quiet as the snow muffling the trees around us. “No, I do need to apologize. You haven’t done anything wrong. You’re nineteen. All you’ve done is act like a nineteen year old kid. That’s not a crime. But I should have stepped down as soon as I saw you at Seagrass. I’ll talk to Gwen after the holidays and—”

“Please don’t.” I was actually crying now, not just on the edge of it. The thought of losing him was awful. “Nick, please. I want—I just want to be able to see you. I won’t do anything, I promise. I just—please—I don’t want you to go.”

Nick closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, they looked hard.

“That’s why I have to, Eli. This isn’t healthy.”

I flinched. That was exactly what my mom said, when she thought I was getting too emotional. Nick didn’t know that, obviously. But he didn’t need to. He felt the same way she did, whether he knew it or not.

“Please.” I bit my lip, tears stinging my face in the cold night air. I didn’t know what else to say.

Nick watched me, his features contorting like he was in pain. Because that was how excruciating he found this conversation, probably. I’d clearly done a great job convincing him I could be trusted to keep control of myself.

Nick’s hand darted forward, then stopped, wavering in between us before returning to his side. What had he been about to do? Probably something comforting—because even when he was dealing with a guy who had a major unrequited crush on him, Nick couldn’t fucking stop being perfect. But I must have convinced him I was too dangerous to be touched.

Everything I tried, it just drove him further away.

“I should get back inside,” Nick said, finally. “People might start to wonder.” He gave me a long look. “I really am sorry, Eli.”

He turned and began walking back towards the house.

“No, wait!” I called, and when that didn’t slow him down, I ran to catch him.

I didn’t know why—it didn’t even make sense, since it was only 9 p.m. and I was sure Nick wasn’t planning on leaving immediately—but somehow it felt like if I let Nick walk back in the house right now, that might be the last I ever saw of him.

I caught Nick by the arm, my fingers squeezing the wool of his sweater as I skidded to a stop, the snow sliding beneath my feet.

“Please, can we just—”

“Eli, you’re drunk,” Nick said gently. “And I know you’re upset, but please, please can you believe me when I tell you I’m not trying to make this harder for you? I’m just trying to do the right thing. Something I should have done a long time ago.”

“I’m not drunk,” I said angrily, latching on to the one part of what he’d said that didn’t matter. The part that was easier to deal with.

Nick arched an eyebrow. “Really? And that wasn’t an entire bottle of champagne that you and Aisling split out on the front porch 15 minutes ago?”

How had he even noticed that, when he’d been acting like I carried the bubonic plague all night? I flushed. At least he hadn’t seen the vodka shots before the champagne. I thought.

“I just—I need to—what if you…”

I trailed off helplessly. The words I needed to say, the ones I needed him to know, were guaranteed to drive him away.

What if I never see you again? Please don’t let it end like this.

Please don’t let it end.

My heart was breaking and there was nothing I could do to stop it. If I told Nick how I felt, that would only make him more convinced he needed to get away from me. Even if I just told him I wanted to be friends—well, I had told him that, and look how well that had gone.

It was idiotic, anyway, to think someone as smart and funny and kind and gorgeous and fucking perfect as Nick would want to spend time with me.

What was it he’d called me? A nineteen year old kid. That was how he saw me. Nothing special. Just a kid with an annoying crush who wouldn’t leave him alone. No wonder he was so eager to walk away.

Nick just gave me a sad look and covered my hand with his. It was warm and dry and set every cell of my body on fire in the single second it took for him to remove my hand from his sleeve. He shuddered as he let go—he tried to suppress it, but I saw.

“I’m sorry, Eli,” Nick said, looking over his shoulder before he disappeared inside the house. “More sorry than you’ll ever know.”