Chapter Thirty-Four
Cooper
Jaden got the green light to train as long as he kept his wrist wrapped, so he was healed and back to having full-use of his right arm again. We’d been putting in a lot of hours on the lake this week getting back to where we used to be. Which was good, since the Spring Festival race was on Saturday, just two days away.
If only I could gather enough strength to care.
My times with Kate weren’t quite as fast, but the minutes between were so much more than rowing. A couple of ducks swam away from the boat as we neared, and I stared at them, thinking of the time Kate threatened to jump overboard to hang out with birds instead of me.
Jaden looked at the stopwatch. “The time’s good, but you’re off, man. This wouldn’t have anything to do with Kate, would it?”
I jerked my gaze from the ducks and gripped my oars until the handles dug into my palms. “Nope.”
“Liar.”
I glared at him and he held up his hands. “I wouldn’t say anything, but I saw Kate this afternoon, and she doesn’t look so good, either.”
“Funny. Every time I see her, Pecker’s all over her.” Toxic bursts of heat traveled through my veins.
“Maybe,” Jaden said. “But her eyes go to you.”
“Oh, so now you’re an expert at girls?”
“Dude, I’ve always been an expert at girls.”
I rolled my eyes, but I laughed. Probably the only time I’d laughed all week, too. Things just weren’t as funny without Kate around. I tried to keep up appearances, going through the same motions I had before she crashed into my life and left her mark.
Everything pretty much went on the same as it had pre–Operation Prom Date, with the exception that Amber had started sitting with us at lunch. A rift had formed between her and Paris’s crew. She’d gone on and on about it, and how she was so over it, so this time she wasn’t going to apologize and try to fix it. Or something like that. Jaden and Alana had paid more attention to her occasional teary rants, because my head hadn’t been right since I kissed Kate.
Our fight only messed me up more, and then there was the tension at home. Dad worked late every night, and the few times we shared the same space, an unspoken heaviness hung in the air. I kept expecting him to push the subject of my major, or to bring up more arguments in favor of becoming a lawyer, but he didn’t bring it up. Almost as if the decision had already been made and written in stone, so there was no point in discussing it further.
Something I desperately wanted to talk to Kate about. I could really use her cheery optimism right now. I maneuvered the boat so it pointed back to shore, but Jaden dragged his oars. Since he seemed to be expecting me to open up and have a big share-fest, I gave him the shortest answer I could get away with. “She made her choice.”
“Did you even let her know she had one?”
That brought me up short.
But what good would it have done? Why pour out my heart when I already knew she’d choose Pecker? If I had to hear her say that she’d rather go with him, it’d destroy the act I put on in the school halls, where I pretended to be okay. Why make a fool of myself and add to the suckfest that losing her in every possible way had brought on?
“You’re really going to go to prom with Amber and just pretend everything’s cool?” Jaden pressed on, because he clearly didn’t know when to stop.
I dug down deep, pushing the oars through the water as hard as I could, since apparently I was rowing solo the rest of the trip to shore. The burn felt good in a way; it distracted from the other parts of me that felt broken. “I told her we could go, but we’d just be going as friends.”
“How magical for her,” Jaden said.
“You wanna go with her, be my guest.”
“Careful what you say. I tend to take people at their word.”
I dropped the oars and turned to face him. “You like Amber?”
He shrugged. Then he ran a hand over his hair. “I like Amber.”
“You liked Kate, too, before I told you not to bother,” I pointed out.
“Wrong. I said Kate was cute, and you looked like you might rip my head off for it, so I knew something was going on between you. But I like Amber. She and I have been talking a lot during lunch while you stare at Kate and pretend you’re not staring at her.”
I wanted to deny it, but I figured at this point, it didn’t matter. “If you like Amber, and she wants to go with you, I won’t stand in your way. It’d be a relief actually.”
“I’ll ask.” Jaden leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees, making it clear he was about to go all intervention on me. “But you need to talk to your girl.”
“She’s not mine.”
“And whose fault is that? And don’t you dare say Pecker’s. Until you make a move, it’s yours. You have to decide if you can live with that.”
…
For the rest of the day, I couldn’t get Jaden’s words out of my head. I couldn’t help thinking it was too late to do anything now, but if I waited and Kate and I didn’t fix things before we graduated, I’d definitely lose her for good.
For some reason, that brought back one clear detail of Amber’s ranting—somewhere in the mix, she said she’d regretted how things had ended with Kate, because she was an awesome friend, but she didn’t realize how awesome until she was gone.
Mom walked into the kitchen, bringing me back to the present and making me realize water was spilling over the top of my glass, onto the floor. I quickly righted it and sipped at the top while kicking at the puddle to dissolve it—hopefully before Mom noticed.
“Why haven’t you brought Kate over again?” Mom asked as she reached for an apple in the fruit bowl. “I didn’t embarrass you that badly, did I?”
“Kate and I aren’t really…” I let the rest of the sentence drop. Not hanging out with her anymore was hard enough without having to say it.
“That’s too bad. I liked her. It does explain why you’ve been as testy as your father lately.”
“Low blow,” I said.
Mom flashed me her no-nonsense look. “I thought it might be more inspirational.”
Great. Evidently everyone in my life thought I should be with Kate.
If only they could convince her, then we could all be happy.
She’ll be at the race, I bet.
My mind started spinning on what I could say to her. On how to undo the crappy stuff and get back to the good—even if friends were all we could ever be.
I thought of when she’d first explained shipping people to me, and an idea started taking shape.
I just couldn’t decide if it was totally genius, or totally insane.