The Unexpected Everything - Morgan Matson Page 0,157
of the fantasy, as appealing as it was. Because everything very possibly wasn’t going to be okay.
I broke away from him and picked up Bertie’s leash. I saw a flash of hurt cross Clark’s face, but I made myself look away from it. I took a breath to yell for Bertie again at the moment he came barreling into the kitchen, nails scrabbling on the wooden floors. Clark reached out for him and so did I, and we managed to corral him between the two of us. I snapped on his leash, then straightened up. “See you in a few,” I said, realizing that it would probably be best to put some distance between us, just so I could try to get my emotions under control and stop this powder-keg feeling that was getting stronger by the minute.
“I’ll come with you,” Clark said, giving me a full-dimple smile. “I could use a break anyway.”
I didn’t know how to tell him that I wanted to be alone, especially since I wasn’t sure that was what I wanted. After all, I’d been alone all afternoon and had hated it. So I gave him something between a shrug and a nod and headed out the front door, half running behind Bertie, who was straining as hard as he could against the leash. We stepped outside, and I was about to pull out my keys, but Clark was already locking the door with his set. I saw him reach down for my hand and quickly transferred Bertie’s leash to that hand. I was feeling that if I really let Clark touch me for too long, if I let myself feel everything I was feeling, I would be venturing into dangerous territory, where if I started to cry in front of him, I wasn’t sure when I’d stop.
“So what’s been happening?” he asked after we’d walked for a few seconds in silence, Bertie bounding ahead, trying to sniff four things at once, then doubling back to smell what he might have missed. “Any change?”
“No,” I said, feeling the weight of the word even as I said it, like a bowling ball dropping into my stomach. I took a shaky breath, then let it out. “I’m not sure,” I started, then had to make myself go on, say the rest of the sentence. “I’m not sure we’re going to come back from this.”
Clark looked over at me, a furrow appearing between his brows. “Of course you are,” he said, but I could hear the worry creeping into his voice as well. “I mean . . . you guys are best friends. You’re not going to fall apart over this. You’ll get past it.”
“We might not, okay?” I snapped, and my voice was sharp and spiky. I bit my lip. “I’m sorry,” I said, looping Bertie’s leash around my wrist and then unlooping it. “I’m just . . .” Taking it out on you flashed through my head before I could stop it.
“So,” Clark said, looking over at me, and I could see the same realization I’d been having all morning was dawning for him, as well, and he looked just as happy about it as I was. “It’s just over? All of us this summer? It’s just—gone?”
I could hear the hurt in his voice, and I knew that he was also losing his friends. But he’d known them for two months, not years and years, and there was a piece of me that didn’t want to accept that he would be hurt by this too. I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak just then. Bertie stopped by his favorite tree, and Clark stopped as well, reaching out for my other hand.
“Andie, I’m here. It’s okay.”
I looked up at him, at the sunlight filtering through the trees and landing across his face, and I wanted to tell him everything I was feeling. I wanted to have someone I could talk to about this, someone who would face this—however it turned out—alongside me. But I couldn’t rely on Clark to help me, just like I couldn’t rely on my dad. Clark was leaving in just a few weeks, and I never should have let myself forget that, not for a moment. Both of them were heading out the door any minute now. I couldn’t tell Clark what I was feeling, couldn’t get used to him in my life like this, because at the end of the summer he would leave, and then I’d be truly alone.