“That night.”
“Are you asking me if I think about the night I lost my dad, Gavin? Because that’s a pretty fucked up question.”
She spins her head to look at me, and her brow furrows. Even in the dim lighting in the car, I can tell that this question hurts her somehow, and I cringe when I realize just how deeply I’ve wounded her.
“I’m asking if you think about us.”
“There was never any us.”
My blood runs cold.
Really?
Never?
Never?
“How can you say that?” I ask.
“Because you kissed me and then you never spoke to me again. In fact, if I remember correctly, up until a couple of hours ago, you were dying to make my life miserable.”
“Yeah, well, shit’s changed since then,” I mutter.
“How? Because I stood up to you? Now you suddenly want to be my friend?”
Kind of.
“You didn’t have to cover for me with the principal.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Really? You had to? Why?”
“Because my dad would have done the same thing.”
Her words drop like a fucking bomb because now I actually know what she’s saying. Her father loved mine. I don’t know if they were just very close friends, or if there was something more between them, but Emilia’s dad gave up everything to save my father, and she’s telling me that she would do the same thing for me.
Only, I don’t know why.
And I need to know why.
I’ll ask her later, on a night when it’s not raining. I’ll beg her to tell me all of her secrets, but right now, I want to make her remember.
“I was scared,” I tell her.
“We were both scared.”
“I was scared of kissing you,” I clarify.
“You?” She scoffs. “The great Gavin? Afraid? I don’t believe it.”
“I was terrified. I’d wanted to kiss you for so long and I mean, you were completely out of my league.”
“I don’t believe that at all.”
“You were perfect, Emilia.”
You still are, I think, but I don’t say that out loud.