her favorite clicky pen. We both watched her thumb wedge its way under the pocket clip and turn red.
“Quinn,” she said. “I didn’t even apply to NYU. I haven’t wanted to go there for more than a year.”
“What?” I said dumbly. “Since when?”
“I just told you—”
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “I got it.”
I ran through my memory, certain it was full of Jamie-made proclamations like “Next year at NYU” or “When I’m a freshman at NYU, not long from now” or “I, a seventeen-year-old, can’t wait to go to college in New York.” But I couldn’t find one. How was this possible?
“We talked about this,” I said. “We were both going to be on the East Coast.”
“You talked about it,” Jamie countered. “If I agreed with you once in a while it was vaguely, and it was only because I didn’t know what I was going to do, and it was easier to go along with your imagination than to tell you mine was blank.”
“So you just let me believe something that wasn’t true.”
Up until that point I’d felt mostly sorry, and confused. I was willing to admit I’d spent too much time in my head, but at least I’d been honest about where I thought I was going. How was that so much worse than what Jamie had done, pretending that what I imagined for us was still possible? Suddenly it all felt like her fault: not just the dumping-me part, but me not getting into UNC, and me failing to properly move on with Ruby. In that moment even Triple Moon’s money problems fell under Jamie’s terrible, dream-killing reign.
“It wasn’t untrue,” Jamie said gently. “I just wasn’t as sure of everything as you seemed to be.”
“I get it,” I snapped. “I’m delusional.”
Jamie sighed, giving me a look I couldn’t quite read. “You’re a romantic.”
I felt my face reddening, but I pressed on, determined not to let her lessen my anger. “And that’s a bad thing?”
“It’s not inherently bad or good,” said Jamie. “It’s just a thing about you.”
A dull throbbing had started on the right side of my head, and I pressed uselessly at it with my fingers. Maybe I am starting to get migraines, I thought. Great. I dug in my bag for my travel-sized aspirin bottle and swallowed two with what remained of my water.
“I’m not feeling very well, so maybe we can talk about this later,” I said.
“Oh,” said Jamie. “Uh, okay. Are you okay driving home?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just a headache.” I got up to put my water glass in the dirty-dish bin and returned to the table, not sitting but standing over it, willing myself to say what I knew I needed to. Jamie watched me expectantly.
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen,” I started. My voice shook a little, and I hoped that somehow Jamie didn’t notice. But of course she did. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it clear that you mattered more to me than UNC did, or soccer in general. Because you did. I mean, you do.” As I corrected myself, Jamie’s eyes dropped to her hands, fidgeting with her pen. “I’m sorry I held on too tight to something that didn’t make sense for you,” I continued. “I didn’t know there was more than one way for things to turn out okay, in the end.”
“It’s okay,” Jamie whispered. Finally she looked up from her pen. “Thank you.”
“Well, I’m gonna go, but we’ll talk later,” I said. I turned to leave and then turned back. “Where are you hoping to go next year?”
“Berkeley,” said Jamie. “I should find out next month.”
I nodded. It wasn’t the first time she’d mentioned it as a possibility, but Berkeley had long been background noise for Jamie, the school to which her AP US History teacher had suggested she eventually apply based on her very evident interest in political science. At the time, we’d rolled our eyes, mortified at the idea of staying in state. Or at least that was how I remembered it. The idea