an excuse, a way to make everything normal and fine. It just always seemed like maybe you weren’t actually that into Mason in the first place, Emily had said. “You guys have fun.”
“Meggie,” Emily said, her lip pushing out like a little kid in pursuit of a later bedtime. “Come on, wait a second.”
But Meg was already gone.
Fifteen
Colby
Colby picked Joanna up and they went to Highland Burger Bar, which was new and, Colby thought, a little douchey: exposed brick and soldered copper light fixtures, a live band set up on a low stage at the back of the dining room. The menu had thirty-six different kinds of burgers on it. “You know what you’re going to get?” Joanna asked, setting her purse on the bench, then on the table, then on the bench again. She was wearing a flowered dress and a pair of ankle boots with little heels on them, her jean jacket rolled up to reveal a delicate gold bracelet on one wrist.
“A salad, definitely,” Colby deadpanned, then grinned at her. “I’m kidding.”
Joanna smiled. He thought she was nervous, though he had no idea why anybody would be nervous about a dinner with him at Highland Burger Bar. Especially not Joanna, who’d been one of the prettiest girls in their grade. Now she worked at the front desk of a hair salon, booking appointments and refilling the shampoo bottles and sweeping up huge bags of hair, which she explained with a grimace that was cute instead of actually grimace-y. “What is it about hair that it becomes the grossest thing on the planet the moment it’s separated from your head?” she asked as they shared a plate of nachos.
Colby laughed. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But you’re definitely not wrong.” It was easy to talk to her—about their friends and how ridiculous they were, about their mean old math teacher Mrs. Cornish, whose son had gone to jail for cooking meth. It was different from the kind of stuff he talked about with Meg, sure, but the truth was that sometimes when he got off the phone with Meg it was like his brain was on fire, like he needed to take it out and dunk it in a glass of water overnight like a pair of dentures in that old commercial. It was exciting sometimes, but also exhausting. With Jo it just felt normal.
She was halfway through a story about some car Jordan was trying to buy off Craigslist from a guy she thought was probably a drug dealer when Colby’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He tried to ignore the instinctive, animal thunk of his heart against his rib cage. Meg hadn’t texted back at all last night, or today, either, though he’d spent his entire shift at work sneaking his phone out to double-check like a total chump. It was stupid to get his hopes up now, on top of which Colby didn’t even know if he wanted to hear from her at this point. It was probably better in the long run to put an end to things once and for all.
It buzzed again a couple of minutes later, though, then again ten minutes after that. Colby tried to focus on what Joanna was saying, but as soon as she got up to go to the bathroom he pulled it out of his pocket. Sure enough, it was Meg: Can you talk? she’d texted. Tonight sucked.
Then: I miss you. Is that weird to say? That’s probably weird to say.
Then: Ugh, I’m sorry. You’re probably out having a life like a normal person. Going to eat my feelings and go to bed.
Colby set his phone facedown on the table. Took a long gulp of his Dr Pepper. Finally, he swore under his breath and picked it up again: Give me half an hour, he typed, then shoved the thing back into his pocket just as Joanna came back from the bathroom.
“Hey,” she said, slipping back into the booth across from him. She’d reapplied her lip gloss, the pale pink sheen of it catching the overhead lights. “Everything okay?”
“My mom’s not feeling great,” he blurted, knowing even as the words came out that he was being an asshole. Joanna’s own mom had beaten breast cancer twice already, once when they were in middle school and again the previous fall.
“Oh no,” Joanna said, frowning. “Do you need to get home?”
Colby hesitated. They were finished with their burgers by now, though he’d been thinking about asking if she