Cassie wasn’t sure what felt worse—losing Logan or finally agreeing to help her dad.

Her parents had at least waited until the next day to come talk to her. They must have been scared off by the wails coming from her room the night after dropping off Logan (in a freaking thunderstorm, her crushed heart reminded her daily). But the next morning they’d been waiting for her at the breakfast table, a united front ignoring every other pain than the one directly affecting them.

Did she realize the best way forward for everyone was for the family to stick together?

Yes, she saw that now.

Did she understand what they expect from her from here on out, if she still wanted to go to Columbia?

Yes, she understood.

But it still felt wrong. She had her parents back by her side but had lost something so much bigger. Her escape from this life and from who she didn’t want to be was gone forever. She was still going to New York, but she’d be alone. Until she ran into whoever her parents had decided she needed to end up with, that is.

In the end, she decided it was just easier to not fight it and learn to deal with the unsettled feeling that clung to her day in and day out.

Exactly sixty-two hours and seven minutes after Logan had walked out of her car and into the rain (not that she was counting), Cassie was curled up in a ball in her bed, struggling to deal with an ever-present unsettled feeling, when her phone rang. She moved faster than she thought possible, hoping it might be Logan but knowing there was no way he’d ever talk to her again. She didn’t even look at who it was, just swiped the phone open.

“Hello?” she cried, her voice cracking desperately.

“Cassie?” A teary but familiar girl was on the other end of the phone.

Cassie shot up in her bed like she’d been electrocuted.

“Marissa? What’s wrong?”

“Can I come over? I really need to talk to you.”

All thoughts of Logan were pushed aside in an instinctive reflex of helping her best friend. However, her concern was tainted by lingering annoyance. Seven weeks without a peep and Marissa calls her crying? Cassie wasn’t going to make it that easy.

“About what?” she said slowly, sliding off of her bed to start pacing around the room. It was kind of a mess, now that she was the one in charge of cleaning it. Which she most definitely had not been doing over the past few days.

“Sp-Spencer,” Marissa sobbed into the phone. She tried to say more, but the words weren’t coming out. Cassie held the phone away from her ear for a minute, wondering why Marissa hadn’t just sent a text if she was so upset. She’d probably wanted Cassie to hear her crying to make her more sympathetic. With an annoyed huff, Cassie bit back her irritation. Two could play at that game.

Just as she was about to say something dismissive and appropriately rude, she stumbled. Her things were strewn about the room so haphazardly, it could have been anything. But she looked down and it was Logan’s green hoodie. The one that he’d let her keep after the Fourth of July. The one he thought she looked really good in. The one she’d been sleeping with in her arms before tossing it aside every morning in a new half-hearted attempt to forget about him.

Tears formed in the corner of her eyes as she scooped it up with one hand and brought it to her nose. It still smelled like him. Everything did, the gingery citrus scent clinging to everything he’d touched, even her sheets. She’d even crawled under her bed to see if the floor smelled like him.

It was definitely getting ridiculous. She needed her best friend. It didn’t matter if this was Marissa’s big goodbye or some lame attempt to explain herself. Cassie needed to see her. She missed her.

Plus Cassie’s house was full of all sorts of tension. Satisfied that Cassie was on their side now, her mom had left the day before, saying there were things to arrange back in Helena before Cassie left for school and in advance of their annual end of summer party. It was only Cassie and her dad again, like it had been in June.

But the mood was completely different. When her dad wasn’t off fishing, he was strolling around the house with a satisfied swagger that made Cassie slightly ill to witness. She didn’t need Marissa bringing even more drama into her house.

“I’ll come to your place,” Cassie said. “It’s kind of a mess here.” It wasn’t the best excuse, but Marissa bought it, thanking her before hanging up with another exaggerated sniff.

As Cassie pulled out of her driveway, she worried what she would say to her former friend once she got to her house. Everything that had happened seemed so far away now. Had it really only been two months since Marissa had driven up to visit with Spencer in the car? It felt like years.

Without Logan taking up nearly every waking second of her day, Cassie realized just how alone she was this summer. Her sister was busy with her internship, and wouldn’t be back until late August for the big annual golf tournament in the next town over. Their parents hosted another party, even more important than the Fourth of July, because all the players attended. There’d be other families from Helena, just like there had been in July. But in all the weeks that Cassie had been stuck here at the lake, no one from school had reached out to her. She was totally alone.

Sure she got messages and was tagged online in stuff, but she hadn’t seen anyone face to face in what felt like months. Was she so forgettable? Without school or cheerleading or any other reason for people to see her, apparently she wasn’t as important as she thought she was. Maybe they’d all seen through the fake facade as well, and now that high school was over, they didn’t have to pretend that they actually liked her anymore.

Maybe she needed Marissa back in her life for more than one reason.

“Cassie, I am so sorry!” Marissa fell into Cassie’s arms the second she opened the door. While she was happy to hear it, the gasping sobs coming from Marissa seemed a little over the top.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Cassie said, patting Marissa’s back. She’d already decided to accept whatever Marissa presented as an excuse. “I get it. He’s hot. I dumped him. He was fair game.”

“I got what I deserved. He dumped me!” She dissolved into a slobbering mess right before Cassie’s eyes.

Steering Marissa towards her bedroom, Cassie held back the tiny bit of glee at this unexpected revelation. But she quickly turned her focus to her miserable friend. If this had been any other boy, what would she do?

“Pit stop,” Cassie said, and steered her into the kitchen to grab a pint of ice cream from the freezer. She didn’t even look to see what it was; all that mattered was it contained the sweet sugary coldness that would soothe the worst kinds of pain.

Curled up on Marissa’s bed, Cassie waited patiently for the crying to stop, smoothing back her friend’s dark curls from her face. It took another few minutes, but finally the sobs quieted, and she took a few gasping breaths before launching into the story.

“I should have gone with you that night at the restaurant,” Marissa started. Despite her resolve to forgive her no matter what, Cassie didn’t offer any sign of disagreement at this declaration. “We went out to some house party. It was super boring but I was just so happy to be with him, without you around. What a bitch thing to do.”

“Well, it wasn’t the nicest thing you’ve ever done,” Cassie acknowledged, trying to keep her tone light but the hurt still shining through.

Marissa looked up at her with red-ringed eyes.

“We made out on a couch, but he was so drunk, it was like kissing a fire hydrant.” She gave a shudder. “He fell asleep; he was totally out of it. I had to drive him home in his car and then call my mom to come pick me up. She was super pissed.”

“Sounds about right,” said Cassie. Though when she’d been in those situations she’d avoided any parental involvement, thanks to Marissa.

“But my mom was kind of happy to hear that it was Spencer.” That also sounded familiar. “She didn’t really punish me, and when he came over the next day to apologize, my mom let me go out with him that night.”

“Spencer, apologize?” That was not something Cassie had ever experienced.

“I know, right? He was being so sweet at first. I thought…” Marissa sat up and started blinking back more tears. She looked down at her hands. “I thought maybe it was because he liked me better than you.”

Cassie took a deep shaking breath.

“I wanted him to like you better than me, too,” she admitted. “I’ve been trying to get you together for months.”

At this, Marissa stopped crying and looked up, her eyes wide with shock.

“Why?”

Cassie shrugged.

“I knew how much you liked him. I was kind of over being his girlfriend after about two months of it. I thought you would be better together and we could all still hang out.”

“You mean you’d really want to hang out after we…”

Cassie gasped.

“You didn’t!”

Marissa nodded miserably, hand covering her mouth. Tears started to form again in her eyes.

Well this conversation just got a little awkward.

After hearing Cassie complain for so many months of putting off Spencer’s requests for more, she wondered if Marissa had figured that’s what would keep him interested. It broke her heart a little to think it was probably true. Marissa did what people expected of her, too.

“I’m not mad!” Cassie said, trying to reassure her. “Really! Just surprised. Was it…everything you wanted it to be?”

Marissa shrugged and wiped her nose with the sleeve of her hoodie. It was stained and the sleeves were baggy, like she’d been wearing the same clothes for days. Cassie looked down at her own messy ensemble of old leggings and a huge Stanford sweatshirt she’d swiped from her sister’s closet and started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Marissa asked with a hopeful smile.

“Look at us! We used to never even let anyone in our bedroom if we weren’t fully made up and our clothes perfectly matched!”

Marissa looked down at her baggy sleep shorts and unshaved legs. She let out a giggle.

“Practice for college, I guess?”

Cassie laughed harder.

“The clothes or the breakups?”

“Both?” Marissa sniggered. Cassie hugged her tight.

“See, we don’t have to go to the same college to go through this kind of stuff together. I’ll still be here for you, even when I’m in New York.”

Marissa nodded and returned the hug. Cassie handed her a spoon and the ice cream, now nice and melty after waiting patiently on the side table for them to finish talking.

“Here’s to college being different!” cried Marissa, clinking her spoon with Cassie’s. “No more setting our alarm at 5 a.m. to look perfect for assholes who don’t even care about us!”

“Hear, hear!” said Cassie, as they both dug in.

As the ice cream slowly disappeared, Cassie felt her heart start to mend. It was still broken beyond repair in so many ways, but at least this tiny part of it that belonged to her best friend was on its way to being whole again.