this whole time when possibly there was a whole other perspective she’d never stopped to consider. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking across the table. “I didn’t realize.”
“I’m not saying you stole him or anything like that,” Emily said, sitting back in her wobbly coffee shop chair. “I never actually came out and told you I liked him. And, like, I know nobody can steal a boy who doesn’t want to be stolen. I’m not Taylor Swift from ten years ago.”
Meg snorted. “I had literally that exact same thought about you,” she admitted. “The Taylor Swift thing.”
“Yeah, well.” Emily smiled, just a little. “Brain twins, et cetera.” For a long time, she didn’t say anything, running her thumbnail back and forth along the edge of her plastic cup. Then she looked up. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know it was messed up, how we handled it. And even if we handled it perfectly, it probably still would have been messed up, and we can talk about it, or not talk about it if you don’t want, but—”
“It’s okay,” Meg said. “I mean, it’s not really, but it’s not like I want you guys to break up, or I want him back or anything like that.” She shrugged, thinking again of Colby and wishing she weren’t.
“I’m sorry I was a bitch about Colby,” Emily said, as if she were reading Meg’s mind. “And I’m sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t tell me the truth about things. I think maybe when everything was happening with your mom and dad, I got kind of used to being, like, the boss? I felt like I was doing the right thing—like that was what you needed from me. But I can see how eventually that would translate into just being overbearing and, like, hard to talk to.”
“I did need a boss for a while,” Meg admitted, remembering how effortlessly Emily had cruise-directed their lives back then, casually reminding her about student council meetings and curating their plans for the weekend and deflecting friends who asked too many nosy questions. She thought of how Mason had been back then, too—how he’d kept their routine going, but carefully. How he’d never pushed. He’d been trying his best, even if it hadn’t ultimately been enough for either one of them. It occurred to her that possibly she owed him an actual conversation about that. “I get what you were doing, and I really appreciate it. But now . . .”
“Yeah,” Emily said, nodding. “I get it, too. And I know it probably felt like I was putting all this pressure on you about Cornell. But I never wanted you to feel like you had to hide who you were or what was going on with you or how you felt about something just to keep being best friends with me.” She stopped, and all at once Meg realized she was on the verge of tears. “And I really want to keep being your best friend.”
Meg nodded, her own throat closing up a little. “I want that, too.”
“That totally sucks about your mom,” Emily continued—wiping her face with the back of her hand, businesslike. Meg hadn’t seen her cry in years. “And I feel like crap that you thought I would give you a hard time about it or think less of you or something, because it must have been really miserable to have to handle it by yourself. God, Meg, I am so, so sorry.”
“I wasn’t totally by myself,” Meg promised, thinking of Lillian in her baseball cap and Maja’s lemon bars—thinking of Colby, even if he wasn’t around anymore. “But I missed you.”
“I’m here now, if you want to talk about it,” Emily said, wrapping her fingers around her coffee cup. “I mean, I get if you still don’t feel comfortable, or—” She broke off, waving her hand vaguely. “But I’m here.”
Meg smiled at her across the table with relief and exhaustion and gratitude. “I’m here, too,” she said.
“Why did you break up with me?” Meg asked, standing unannounced on Mason’s front porch later that afternoon.
Mason blanched. He was barefoot in a pair of khaki shorts, a can of LaCroix in one hand and his glossy dark hair sticking up all over his head. “Meg—”
“Like, was it honestly just that you wanted to date Em instead?” she asked. “You can say if it was. I’m not here to give you a hard time about it. I’m just curious.”
Mason looked totally gobsmacked, and Meg guessed she couldn’t