and that—that not caring is how I know I don’t love you. It bothered me, it made me feel used, it even hurt a little, but I didn’t want to spend days in bed and cry over any of it, and I should have. And you should have been worried I was and should have been calling and sending flowers and apologizing.”
He takes a step closer to me. “If I could get into Brighton, I could be here,” he tells me again.
I shake my head. “I’m not going to help you.”
“But you’ll help him?”
“It’s different.”
“How?”
“Because he got here on his own. He did all the work and is losing it because he helped someone. And because I love him.”
Matt sighs heavily. “You could love me, too. I know it.”
A part of me wonders if he’s right. If we gave it a valiant effort and invested time and effort, I might be able to love him, but then I think about how hard I tried not to care about Arlo, how long I tried to avoid liking him, and how fast and hard I fell anyways. I shake my head. “It won’t be the same.”
Matt stretches his arms behind him, annoyance clawing at his features, but before he can make a retort, Juliet slinks out the door and freezes as she stares at me.
“Jules,” I say calmly, lowering to a squat. “Don’t move, Matt.”
Somewhere above us, a door slams, and Juliet takes off, running like the dogs of hell are after her.
“Juliet!” I call, trying to keep my voice calm as I chase after her. She sprints faster, nearly getting hit by a car that honks at her before she makes it to the other side and disappears into the narrow strip of forest that remains between the two apartment complexes across from us.
“You should go,” I say, turning back to Matt as I sprint toward the apartment to grab my shoes. “I’m sorry you came all the way here, but you need to go. I have to find my cat and talk to Arlo.”
I imagined this conversation going in a million different directions, all of them ending with us hugging and promising to be friends, but I realize I don’t know that I’ve ever had Matt’s friendship—and maybe that’s why we never made it more than a few months without breaking up.
“Good luck with everything,” I tell him.
Matt nods, shock still blatant across his features. I grab my phone and run toward the sidewalk while calling Rose.
“God, it’s early,” she says, her voice groggy with sleep.
“I know, I’m sorry. Matt showed up, and he kissed me, and Arlo saw, and he left, and he’s angry, and Juliet got out, and I can’t find her.” Tears blur my vision and garble my words.
“I’m on my way,” she says.
I nod, hanging up as my thoughts bounce over the morning. The hurt in Arlo’s eyes and the look of expectation in Matt’s. Thoughts of Juliet getting hit by a car and Arlo leaving for New Jersey—wanting to leave because I didn’t tell him enough about how I felt or what he means to me.
I take a shaky breath and call him, knowing I’m going to get his voicemail. “I don’t know what you saw or heard, but I can’t imagine any of it was good.” I blow out another breath, a tear rolling too slowly over my cheek, tickling my skin. I swipe it away as I try to focus and watch for movement. “I thought I knew everything when I moved to Washington. I knew what friendship and love and pain and loss felt like, and the loss of my mom was so great that it made it really hard for me to focus on anything else except for what I had—what I’d lost.
“Then I met you, and everything changed. I came home because I don’t want to lose you, Arlo. I can’t. I love you. I’m sorry about what happened this morning. I never expected that to happen, and, in all honesty, it was a means to an end. He wants to be at Brighton, but like me, I think he was so used to living in the past that it was hard for him to see a future. But I see my future—I see you.
“I’m sorry I hurt you. But if you’ll call me, I’d really like to talk to you.”
I hang up, tears streaming even faster. I continue walking as it starts to rain, calling for Juliet until Rose