Chapter Twenty-Eight
–Haley–
The doorbell rings at seven in the morning. On a Saturday. I’m not wearing enough clothes to answer it, so I wait fifteen minutes and then walk outside to see if it’s the hair ribbon I ordered from Amazon a few days ago. There’s a tiny box at my feet, but it’s not from Amazon or even the UPS man. I glance around, looking for the owner, but no one is nearby. I take the box into the kitchen and pour a glass of orange juice.
There’s a folded-up note taped to the outside. I open it first and recognize Fletcher Scott’s perfect print right away.
Haley,
Okay so maybe I can’t wrap my head around your idealistic views on love and relationships, but this UCF thing? I would hate myself if you applied my cynical views on love to something like this. I did some research on the school and the cheer squad, and I really think you should give it a shot. In fact, you should probably visit the campus soon. Hope you like the gift.
Your friend,
Fletch
My forehead scrunches up. I’m more confused than ever by this note. Did he give me his research in a box? I pull away the strip of tape and remove the printed pages inside. After a quick glimpse, my heart does a little flip.
Plane tickets. Fletcher got me nonrefundable, use-in-the-next-six-months, fly-anywhere-in-the-continental-U.S.-on–United Airlines, plane tickets. Two of them.
I blow out a long sigh and reach for my phone. I want to call, but at the same time, I don’t want to have any hesitancy in my voice.
ME: u r amazing. But I can’t take these. My parents would never let me accept a gift this big from anyone
FLETCH: ok, well good thing it wasn’t a big gift then
ME: um…right. I just price searched. It’s $250 round trip to fly to Orlando right now so $500 for the pair
FLETCH: I didn’t pay $500
ME: how much did u pay? I know it’s rude to ask but I have to know
FLETCH: $30 each. My mom recently developed a phobia of flying. She gave me all her airline miles a while back. She had enough to cover most of it
ME: wow. I don’t know what to say
FLETCH: go, have fun. Take one of your parents or Jamie or Leslie or whoever
ME: ok, you’ve talked me into it! I’m gonna do it! After Civics is over in 2 wks of course.
FLETCH: can’t wait to hear how it goes
I’m too stunned by this development to even think straight, but after a few seconds of processing, trying to decide if I should talk to my parents or my cousin first, I type one last text to Fletch just to be sure where we stand.
ME: you could come with me?
FLETCH: Haley…
ME: It’s fine. I get it. Too much too soon. Just being spontaneous. You did tell me we could do anything I wanted
FLETCH: Yeah, in my bedroom
I stare at my phone, a bit shocked by the words, and then it rings, Fletcher’s name flashing on the screen. I pull myself together and fake calm when I answer. “Hey, Fletch.”
“Haley,” he says with an edge to his voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. And that day I really meant anything—watching TV, reading, sleeping.”
“Just not leaving the state,” I say for clarification purposes and to make sure he doesn’t think I’m crushed, even though I am just a little bit.
“Right,” he says. “And just so you know, I really like hanging out with you—”
“But I’m Haley Stevenson, Princess of Juniper Falls, and you’re Fletcher Scott, a guy who doesn’t want anyone to talk about him. Like ever.”
There’s only silence on the end for a long time, and then he clears his throat. “How did you—I mean where did you…”
If I weren’t feeling like I just got punched in the stomach, I would probably smile at the surprise in his voice. “You’re not that hard to figure out, Fletch. But don’t worry, I’m keeping your secrets.”
“I don’t want it to be like this,” Fletch says. “I mean I still want—”
“To be friends?” It’s rude to cut him off, but my pride can only take so much. “Done.”
“Haley—”
There’s something in his voice that almost stops me from ending this, something that says he might be falling as much as I am. But again, pride. It’s a necessary evil. “Hey, it’s fine. It’s all fine. I should probably go and call my mom and my cousin.”
We hang up shortly after, because I don’t let him get another word in besides “okay” and “bye.” And I give myself a couple of minutes to feel crushed all over again, and then I shut it down. This is why I said no guys until college. This is exactly why. Imagine if things had gone further, if we were in deeper. I definitely don’t need that kind of heartbreak in my life right now.
I actually have the day free, so I take my time, calling my mom and asking if I can use the tickets to visit my cousin. I’ll have to ease them into the UCF thing, though visiting a college is something they always want me to do anytime we go anywhere. I mean they are teachers, so yeah. That’s all this is. A campus visit. And maybe I can meet the cheer coach.
Before I can even get all upset or weird about Fletcher’s gift and slight dismissal, I’m whipping up a mega to-do list.
Saturday To-do List
1. Call Serenity about visiting.
2. Civics! Civics! Civics! Test on Monday. Study note cards.
3. Jamie! Civics!
4. Email UCF cheer coach.
5. Ask Jonas to double up on private lessons.
6. Ask Mom/Dad, Grandma, Aunt Cathy, and whoever else for b-day and Xmas advances to pay for extra privates.
7. Figure out something I can give Fletch as a thank-you.
8. Google cooking for ppl with food allergies.
9. Make thank-you notes for Junior League board (pre-sucking up for college letters of rec).
10. Google ADHD.
I start at the bottom of my list and quickly find an ADHD checklist online. Before I read it, I make myself promise to look at it objectively, like an outside party.
Runs or climbs excessively.
I mean, I did climb on Fletcher’s barn roof. And I have been forcing my cheerleaders to run three mornings a week.
Unable to play quietly.
Play what quietly? Poker? I did that just fine the other day at the nursing home when I volunteered.
Has difficulty waiting his or her turn.
Like when I’m in line at the Sparkplug waiting to get fresh muffins? I guess that’s true.
Easily distracted by extraneous stimuli.
Is it me or does this list sound really dirty? Maybe the fact that I’m thinking this means I’m distracted by extraneous stimuli.
Fidgets with or taps hands or feet.
The image of Fletch grabbing my pen during that first day of summer school pops into my head. Check for that one.
In the sidebar of the web page, I notice a link to “ADHD checklist for Adults.” Okay, that explains a lot. I click the new link and begin reading this list.
History of academic underachievement.
Check. I swallow a gulp of orange juice and scroll further down through the list.
Poor ability to complete household chores, organize things…
I glance around my cluttered room, and my stomach drops. Even my underwear drawer has returned to its previous I-can’t-find-the-pair-I-want state.
Reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort.
The bookshelf and pile of novels on my messy desk call out to me. I can handle a million tasks in one day—babysitting while baking cookies and talking Leslie down from a crash-diet ledge, but I can’t seem to get myself to read any of these books. Books I’ve bought or asked people to buy me. I’ve started many of them. Some I’ve even made it past the midpoint. But I can’t remember the last time I finished an entire book.
Relationship problems due to forgetting important things or getting upset over minor things.
This item hits a little too close to home, and part of me wants to slam the laptop shut, while the other half of me is leaning closer, wondering if I’m about to find my mothership full of people like me.
Chronic stress and worry due to failure to accomplish goals and meet responsibilities.
Check.
Chronic and intense feelings of frustration, guilt, or blame.
Check.
I close my laptop and pull my knees to my chest, the weight of being disordered or whatever hitting me all at once. But really, what does having this knowledge change? I still need to accomplish all the goals I’ve created for myself, so what has the research done besides tell me that it’s possible I may be destined for a lifetime of relationship problems and many different varieties of inabilities and poor abilities? I guess I could use this as an excuse if/when I fail at anything. But again, what good does that do? Excuse or not, I’m still not getting what I want in the end.
And it isn’t like I haven’t come to realize that I drove Tate crazy when we were together—though I never forgot important things; quite the opposite, I made a huge deal out of every little thing. And I’m aware that I’ve occasionally been a pain in the ass to Fletch, as well. I know my grades would be better if I studied longer, took better notes, paid attention more in class. But my grades aren’t terrible, either. I get by. My ACT score is a different story…23 is not exactly winning me any merit scholarships or acceptance to selective schools. Maybe not any out-of-state tuition waivers, either. Mr. Smuttley, the guidance counselor, said that he’s sure I can do better. I’d planned to do a small number of practice lessons from the ACT study guide every day this summer, but we’re three weeks in and the ACT prep book my dad bought me has yet to be cracked.
Okay, this is unbearable. I can’t sit here and let myself melt into a big puddle of failure and doubts and more doubts.
Chronic stress and worry due to failure to accomplish goals.
I jump up from my bed and dig in my laundry for a sports bra and shorts. I change quickly, scarf down a banana, and then grab my cell and headphones before hitting the pavement.
Runs or climbs excessively.
…
“Haley!” A hand reaches out and crosses in my path.
I stop quickly, breathing hard, sweat running all over me. After assessing my surroundings, I panic for a second. I’m standing on the sidewalk that crosses Tate’s driveway. Oh shit. Did my subconscious send me to the house of my ex in order to repair our failed relationship? God, this is so Dr. Phil.
I yank the headphones from my ears and force a grin at Tate. “Hey, what’s up?”
Tate returns the smile. I feel a little better after seeing that he’s also sweaty and covered in smudges of grease. His hands are practically covered in black stuff.
“Not much. Where’d you run from?” He lifts his T-shirt to wipe sweat from his forehead. Don’t look, don’t look. I turn my attention to the open garage. Tate’s stepdad, Roger, appears to be beneath an old beat-up car. I know it’s him because I recognize his battered work boots.
“From home,” I say in response to Tate’s question, but when I glance at my phone and see that it’s ten in the morning, I know I’ve done more than the two-or-so miles between our houses. I can’t even remember where I’ve been. “But also around…I think I got a little too into the run.”
I bend over after feeling a rush of dizziness.
“Need some water?” Tate asks, concern on his face.
“Yeah, that would be great.” I stand upright again and walk toward the garage in an attempt to get out of the sun. “Maybe some sunscreen, too? I totally forgot.”
“Got it,” Tate calls over his shoulder.
“Maybe a granola bar or something if you have it,” I add.
Tate turns around before going inside. He’s laughing. “Anything else?”
I scrunch my nose up, slightly embarrassed. “Nope. I think that’s all.”
He finally goes inside, and I give Roger’s boot a tap. “How’s Midlife Crisis? Surviving without your drummer?”
Roger started a band last winter and invited my dad to join. Despite my original hatred of the idea, they are surprisingly good.
“It’s not bad.” He slides out from under the car and sits up on his wheely-thing. “Your parents having a good time bird-watching?”
I’m still sweating like crazy, but I’m breathing normally now. I show him a few of the pictures Mom and Dad have texted me recently. They’re heading across middle America.
“I’m supposed to be checking up on you,” Roger says. “I’ve failed at my duties. Have you been staying out of trouble? No big parties every night?”
“Trouble and parties. That’s basically all I’ve done since they left.” I find a folded-up lawn chair against the wall and pop it open before sitting in it. I know this isn’t my boyfriend’s house anymore, but I can’t help it if I’m beat and I happen to know where things are. “Last night, I partied until 8:20 and then passed out on my couch with a baby beside me. It was wild.”
“Andi?” Roger guesses, and I nod. “She’s getting so big, isn’t she?”
Tate returns and dumps a pile of stuff in my lap—three water bottles, a box of cereal bars, two apples, a couple of string cheeses, and a giant bottle of SPF 70.
“Are you trying to win the pit-stop-of-the-year award?”
“No.” Tate grabs one of the water bottles and a cereal bar. “But I decided that I’m hungry, too.”
“What’s Claire up to today?” I drink the water first, downing half a bottle in no time.
Tate finds another chair and sits down in it across from me. “She’s practicing something for an audition. I don’t know what it is because she won’t tell. But it requires several hours of solitude and nonjudgment.”
He attempts to add some sarcasm into this, but I’m not fooled. He’s all about supporting Claire and her big dreams.
I dump sunscreen into my hand and spread some over my nose. “Actors are very superstitious. She probably doesn’t want to jinx anything.”
Tate opens his mouth to reply, but we’re interrupted by Olivia, Tate’s six-year-old stepsister, bursting into the garage dressed in a two-piece polka-dot swimsuit.
“Who’s taking me to the pool?” she sings. “I ate my beanie things, and someone is taking me to the pool!”
“You did not eat those beans, did you?” Tate asks. “After they sat out all night?”
“Beans?” I ask.
“I bribed her with a trip to the pool last night,” Tate explains. “If she ate all her black-eyed peas.”
“Add babysitter of the year award to your accomplishments,” I say.
Bribery is Tate’s style. He used to offer me all kinds of things while we were studying. I shake those thoughts from my head. It’s weird to think about us together like that. And for a long time, I had the opposite feeling—it was strange to think of us not together.
“I’ll go to the pool.” Roger pushes up to a stand. “You stay here and hang out.”
“You sure?” Tate asks. “I don’t mind as long as Livi doesn’t ask me to take her to the bathroom. I had to blindfold her last time.”
I roll my eyes. Amateur child-watcher in the room. “Just ask another mom around to take her in the women’s restroom. I’m sure you can find someone you recognize at the only public pool in town.”
“I’ll go, it’s fine.” Roger says to Tate, and then he looks over at me and scratches his head. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
I reach for Olivia and pull her in front of me. “Stand still. I’ll do your sunscreen.”
“Get under my straps.” Her blond curls flop around while she manages to keep her feet planted but still bounces up and down. “Last time, Tate forgot and I got burned and now I’m all peely and itchy.”
Tate lifts his hands. “I can’t do that. It’s creepy, right?”
I try really hard not to laugh while giving Olivia a thick coat of sunscreen. Minutes later, she and Roger are climbing into the van, towels tucked under their arms. I finish off my water bottle and wait for Tate to say he needs to leave or something. But he’s relaxed in his chair, looking completely at ease.
“So, the whole stepfamily adventure is going okay?” I ask. This is something I should have talked to Tate more about when we were together. We broke up literally days after he and I were witnesses to his mom and Roger’s courthouse wedding. We signed the marriage certificate and everything. I made a huge deal out of that, too. Well, a huge deal out of the fact that Tate didn’t think it was monumental and life changing like I had.
Relationship problems due to getting upset over minor things.
“I can’t believe she ate the black-eyed peas.” Tate shakes his head. “Those things are nasty.”
“I see.” My eyebrows rise up. “So, you weren’t encouraging your little stepsister to eat healthy, you were daring her to swallow something nasty?”
“When you put it like that…” He grins and reaches over to snatch an apple from my lap. “But yeah, things are okay with them.”
I’m honestly happy to hear this. I know Roger really cares about Tate. I’ve seen that with my own eyes. He’s not in this family just to be with Tate’s mom. I set an empty water bottle on the ground and go for one of the cereal bars. I’ve recently developed a label-reading habit—not because of the calorie counter app I downloaded and rarely remember to use—but because of Fletch. Every time I eat something that has a label, I’m curious to see if it’s on his do-not-eat list. From what I’ve gathered, more is off-limits than on for him.
Contains: wheat, milk, and soy ingredients.
Soy is one allergy that was mostly cured when he did that trial thing. But I asked him about it the other day, and he said he still mostly avoids it, just in case. Soy is apparently in a lot of processed foods, and after much prodding, Fletch reluctantly admitted that he avoids processed food because he gets random unidentified reactions from them and can’t pinpoint the cause. I can’t imagine being scared every time you ate something.
I squeezed all that out of him in less than ninety seconds before we began studying yesterday. But then he got uncomfortable and changed the subject.
“So…what’s going on?” Tate says after I unwrap the cereal bar and begin eating it.
I shrug. “Not much. Just running and, you know…doing stuff.”
He looks me over and relaxes further into his chair, like he’s planning to be here a while. “I meant what’s wrong? You’ve got your pretending-to-be-okay look on.”
Not a very good make-believe face, apparently.
I pick at a loose string on my shorts, my eyes on my lap.
“Haley?” Tate presses.
I exhale and look at him again. “You look comfortable.”
“I am comfortable.” He refuses to break this eye contact he’s got going on. “Why wouldn’t I be comfortable?”
I shift in my seat. “I don’t know. It’s kind of a chore dealing with me now. Maybe it’s even a little weird.”
“It was weird.” His gaze travels to the ceiling. Finally. “At first. But now that we’ve had time and…I don’t know, it’s just not weird, okay?”
I laugh. “Okay. It’s not weird.”
He flashes me a grin, and then next thing I know, he’s swiping my phone from my lap. “You’re about to reveal your deep, dark angst to me. If I know you well—and I do—then you took off running because you were stressed about something, and then you decided to make a playlist of whatever songs pop up that represent your current angst.”
I glare at him and fold my arms across my chest. I don’t think he’s referencing the most humiliating playlist I’ve ever made intentionally, but that’s the first thing that comes to mind. And yes, I did this today, but I don’t remember what all I picked. However, it feels so random and displaced inside my head, Tate’s not going to hit anywhere near the mark. My secrets are safe.
“Aha!” His eyebrows shoot up. “Playlist made Saturday, June twenty-first.”
“‘Nirvana’ by Sam Smith,” he reads, then he pauses and eventually moves on. “‘I’m a Mess’ by Ed Sheeran, ‘Halfway’ by Parachute, ‘Crazy for You’ by Scars on 45, ‘Stolen Dance,’ ‘Sleeping With a Friend’…”
I watch as his forehead wrinkles, his thumb scrolling farther down. Eventually, he sighs and tosses the phone back into my lap. “I got nothing from that list.”
A satisfied grin spreads across my face. I’ll take it as a sign that Shallow Haley is still stuffed in a far corner inside my head.
“Unless…” Tate says, assessing me again. “Sleeping with a friend…maybe you and Jamie—”
I throw the box of cereal bars at him.
“I’m kidding.” He retrieves the loose packages that spilled from the box and sets it all on the ground. “Jamie would tell me.”’
“He would not.” Okay, maybe he would. Tate and Leo are kind of his people to go to when he needs to talk about who he’s sleeping with.
“You could just tell me what’s going on,” Tate suggests. “Then I don’t have to make up false accusations.”
We’ve come a long way since our breakup last fall, but I can’t lay all of this tangled web of things on Tate. I bring my knees to my chest and hug them. “Can I ask you something? And by that, I mean will you answer honestly?”
The amusement drops from his face. “I’ll try.”
“You and Claire…” I keep my eyes trained on the old lady across the street watering her garden. She’s in the Juniper Falls Women’s League. She’s probably going to tell all the ladies at bridge club tonight that I was hanging out with Tate in my bra today. “Do you ever think about, you know, like the future? Where you guys will be in several years?”
He grips the arms of his lawn chair, looking less comfortable now. “You mean, like, separately or together?”
“Both, I guess.”
“I think about all of that,” he admits. “More like, I worry about it.”
“Because you’re here and she’s at Northwestern?” I ask. This is a side of Tate I’ve never seen before—attached, insecure…
“That musical Claire was in this spring?” he says, and I nod. “A producer for a Broadway show that’s currently in Chicago saw her and wants her to audition for something new that’s being workshopped to maybe open up in New York City next year—”
My feet drop to the ground, and I sit up straighter. “Oh my God. That’s incredible.”
“Please don’t repeat that,” Tate warns. “Claire’s all worried about jinxing it. Anyway, I’m applying to Northwestern, but Claire might not even be there when I would start. And then there’s the Rangers—”
My jaw drops. “The New York Rangers want to draft you? They want you to play for them?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “For their junior team. I’d rather play college than juniors, I think. But some players go to juniors after high school, and then college, and then pros.”
“Can you imagine if you and Claire were both in New York City?” I sit back again and let this sink in. “Two kids from Juniper Falls making it big in New York. That’s just…wow.”
“Or she could get really into her career and not have time for a relationship, especially with an athlete who lacks artistic integrity,” he says.
“So, you worry about that, too?” The weight of all the impossible falls back onto my shoulders. “But you love her, right?”
“Yeah.” He looks down at his hands. That can’t be an easy thing for him to tell me. “But I love her being out there, doing what she does best, too. So, I don’t know what will happen.”
“Well, I’m not gonna lie,” I say. “I want to go to New York and see Claire on Broadway and tell everyone in the seats nearby that she’s my friend, so you’d better not do anything to stand in the way of my dream.”
We sit in comfortable silence for several minutes, and then my mind drifts to one of the rehearsals we had for the ball. “I still get goose bumps thinking about Claire singing at the ball. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything like that.”
“Like what?” Tate asks. “Sing? I’ve heard you sing; you’re not terrible.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not Claire, either. But not singing, just something—anything—where I put myself out there completely. Something uncalculated and from the guts, you know?”
“You mean from the heart?”
I shake my head. “The heart is pretty. Guts are raw and ugly. It’s different.”
His eyes lift to meet mine, and he stares for a long moment, like I’m someone else right now. “Yeah, it is different.”
“I should probably get going.” I untangle my headphones and start to stand up.
“Haley?” Tate says, letting out a breath. “I just want to…I mean—”
I adjust my shoelaces and then look down at him. “What?”
“We never had that chat I promised you, and…” He rubs his hands together, and I’m already shifting, uncomfortable with where this is headed. “From your perspective, it probably seems like I never confided in you and then I went and told Claire everything…but honestly, it wasn’t like that.”
I nod. “What was it like, then?”
“What I’m trying to say is that I was happy most of the time with you. You made me happy. It was fun. We were fun.” He gives me that famous Tate Tanley smile. “I never got nervous around you. You’re competitive like me, not afraid of a challenge, you were always fine playing video games or touch football in my yard. It wasn’t all bad.”
“It wasn’t?” A lump forms in my throat. How did he know that I really needed to hear this? Am I wearing a sign that says please tell me if I’ve ever done anything nice for you?
“I think it was mostly good, if I’m being honest.” Tate has finally dropped those walls he’d put up during the last couple of months of our relationship. “You were kind of my best friend for a while.”
I look down at my fingernails. “Maybe that’s what we should have done. Stayed friends.”
“Maybe.” He shrugs. “But then everyone would have said we were dating anyway if we hung out all the time.”
I shake my head. This is so true, but I’ve never thought about it that way. “Toss in some hormones and sexual curiosity, and basically we were doomed.”
“Exactly.” Tate laughs, his cheeks flushed a little. “I don’t think we’d have any trouble with that now.”
“Maybe not.” I take another drink of water. I’m going to need it for the run home. “Can I ask an extremely intrusive question?”
He rubs the stubble on his cheek. “Sure?”
“You and Claire…” My face heats up just thinking this question. “Are things better with her? Like, things.”
“Oh.” His eyebrows lift. “Things.”
“I mean have you guys—”
“Yeah, we have.” He looks down at his lap. “I wouldn’t use the word better.”
“You mean you’re afraid to use the word better,” I laugh.
He lifts his eyes again, forehead wrinkled. “I’d say evolved. It’s evolved. Which has a lot more to do with experience than the actual person.”
So most likely, a person who is awarded multiple pairs of panties on a weekly basis from various women and who can practically unravel me just by standing close and barely touching me would be considered sexually evolved.
Though, now that I think about it, Fletch never actually answered my virgin question yesterday.
“But I’d say it’s definitely a different experience than, say…” Tate pauses, searching for a word “…sleeping with a friend. In case you’re contemplating anything in that realm.”
I snort back a laugh and toss my water bottle at him. Why is that even on my playlist? I’m about to throw a few choice words his way when Claire pulls up in front of the mailbox. My whole body tenses, my face flushing brighter. Why didn’t I wear a T-shirt? What is she going to think about me sitting here in a sports bra, laughing with her boyfriend?
Claire is practically skipping up the drive. When she spots the two of us, she stops and then makes a big show of tiptoeing backwards. “I can come back later.”
I jump to my feet. “It’s fine. I was just…” In the neighborhood? Which is the truth, but it’s way too cliché to say out loud.
Tate looks over at me. “I told her that I wanted to talk to you. She’s probably thinking we’re in the midst of a serious chat.”
Guess we sort of were, but I think he’s said what he needed to already. “It’s fine, Claire. Seriously, I’m heading home.”
“She’s been going to my therapy sessions,” Tate explains, though I’m still hovering over the realization that Tate is in therapy. I didn’t know. But I guess it makes sense with all the stuff with his dad. “I just didn’t want you to think I sit around talking about you to other people,” he adds in a hurry.
“Oh, well, I’m quite fond of being on everyone’s minds.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’ve still got a lot of pieces to sort through. We’ve made good, bad, and gray-area piles. You’re in the good pile, by the way. Even my mom didn’t make the cut for that one.”
My mouth falls open, but I have no idea what to say. Jesus Christ. Things were even worse for Tate than I realized.
Claire is in the garage now. She’s heard Tate’s comment about his piles and his mom. She lays a hand on the back of his neck, rubbing it gently. The lump in my throat grows bigger. I don’t want them to end up apart somewhere. I don’t want Tate to feel the terrible weight of heartbreak after everything he’s been through. Or Claire. She’d have never gone through with that audition if it weren’t for Tate. And she was in a pretty bad place last fall, too. After her dad’s surgery and all the stupid town rumors about her and Luke Pratt.
I’m about to turn around and take off, but a few tears leak from my eyes before I get a chance to. Which is just great. Now it’s gonna seem like I’m crying over them. I mean, I am, but not like people will think.
I swipe the tears away with my hand, but Tate is already out of his seat, walking my way. “Haley? What?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head. “Nothing bad. I mean, I was having a bad day, but this is good.” I take a deep breath, pulling myself together again. “Thank you. For what you said. I needed that.”
“Yeah?” He looks skeptical still.
“Yeah,” I say as earnestly as I can. Tate moves closer like he’s going to hug me, but I step back. “Don’t. I’m all sweaty.”
Tate gets his arms around me anyway, and my cheek is suddenly pressed against his grease-smudged T-shirt. When I finally escape Tate’s hold, Claire looks like she might hug me, too. I say good-bye and leave before that happens. I don’t want to take a chance of breaking down. And with all those new developments, I really need to run again.
Maybe I didn’t screw up my and Tate’s relationship? Maybe lots of people have a Tate. The question is, how many get to have a Claire? I’m not desperate to fall into an intense relationship or anything—quite the opposite—but I want to know if, by chance, it does happen, am I destined to ruin it? According to Tate, I didn’t ruin us. We just grew up. We became the people we’re going to be forever.
Which brings me to another problem: Tate is destined for hockey greatness, Claire is headed for Broadway. Fletcher is…well, I don’t know what he’s going to become, but I’m sure it will be amazing. He’s really smart, and he works really hard. Jamie and Leo are headed off to play college hockey. Jake Hammond will be our next NHL star, probably an Olympian, too.
And me? Well, it’s quite possible that I’m destined to be the girl who peaked junior year of high school when she won Juniper Falls Princess.