actually you, Codi, and how much of it is you thinking that it’s you? It’s not like you’re some defective, half-alive seventeen-year-old who can’t make friends or talk to people. You’ve been doing it all fucking summer! You have an incredible opportunity with Lydia right now, and you’re blowing it because you can’t get over yourself and stop imagining that you’re so different from everyone else!”
His words knocked the breath out of me. For a minute all I could do was sit there and let everything crash over me, my stomach chilled and my throat blocked up.
Ricky was looking straight out the windshield, breathing hard. He was more agitated than I’d ever seen him.
“I’m not trying to tell you who you are and what you want,” I said roughly. “Not like you just told me. But something’s bothering you, and whatever it might be, I’m your friend and I just want to be here for you.”
“I don’t need you to be,” Ricky said, jamming his key back into the ignition.
That hurt worse than anything; it felt like another way of him saying I wasn’t truly his friend. All I wanted was to be there for him like someone he’d known since kindergarten, when every feeling shared was pure and guileless and true. But none of that mattered; the conversation was over.
We drove back to our neighborhood with no music and no apologies. When we pulled up to my house, my brother was in the driveway, shooting hoops by himself. He looked up, his eyes widening at Ricky’s truck, but I slammed the car door and stormed into the house before he could ask me any questions.
* * *
I was off-balance for the rest of the day. Ricky’s words latched on to my skin, scratching away at me until my whole body felt like an exposed nerve. I shut myself in my room and paced around like a crazy person, huge adrenaline rushes surging up through my chest every time I thought of another cutting retort I should have thrown at him.
Then I lay on the floor and stared at the ceiling. I grabbed my phone and turned on some music, closing my eyes and replaying every moment of this summer in my mind, trying to understand how I’d gotten to this place.
My little pity party was interrupted by the sound of a text message. My heart leapt, hoping for Lydia, hoping for Ricky, but it was neither one of them.
Maritza Vargas: Can you come over?
I stared at the message. I hadn’t heard from Maritza in days, and the last thing I wanted right now was to try to make sense of where we stood with each other.
What’s wrong?
She started typing, stopped, and started again. I waited another two minutes before her message came through.
Maritza Vargas: You were right about Rona.
I sighed. I was still upset with Maritza for the way she’d talked to me last week, but I knew something pretty bad must have happened for her to admit to being wrong. For a long minute my anger battled it out with my deep-seated loyalty, and finally the loyalty won out.
Give me 15 minutes.
* * *
Maritza’s garage doors were shut; the house was all locked up. I wasn’t sure why until I remembered that her parents had left for Panama the day before. A stab of guilt dug into my stomach. The old Codi never would have forgotten about Maritza’s parents leaving her alone; I would have invited her over in a heartbeat.
I knocked on the back door until Maritza answered, a fleece blanket draped around her shoulders and an exhausted expression on her face.
“Hey,” she croaked.
“Hey.”
It was strained between us. For a second we hovered there on the threshold, merely looking at each other. Then Maritza stepped back and gestured me inside.
I followed her into her parents’ elegant, renovated kitchen with its cold floors and marble counters. There was no sound except for the ticking of a clock. A bowl of her mom’s arroz con pollo sat half-eaten on the table.
“Thanks for coming over,” Maritza said, not quite catching my eye. “I felt like I was going crazy sitting here by myself.”
I studied her; it looked like she might cry at any second, which was something I’d only seen twice in the six years I’d known her.
“What happened?” I asked softly. “Does Rona not feel the same way?”
She swallowed and looked at me, but her response had nothing to do with Rona.