“So?”
“I just…I’ve never heard you call him that before.”
“If you don’t want to talk about it…don’t. No need to make random comments to avoid talking about him.”
“I wasn’t…” Maeve sighs. “Whatever.”
Feet pounding pavement is the only sound for a while.
“I don’t want him to transfer to Arlington,” she finally says. “And I can’t really explain why—to anyone, but especially to him. I like that we go to separate schools. Of course I miss him. But it’s also, I don’t know. It makes me feel like I can be me, you know? That I don’t have to go to parties and see girls all over him. That I can focus on soccer and not feel guilty for missing a football game. That people aren’t watching me every time I’m in the dining hall. He has to deal with that, no matter what. But I don’t.” She glances at me. “Does that make me sound like a terrible person?”
“Yes.”
She shoves my arm. “Shut up.”
“Maybe it means something. That you’re okay with distance, and he’s…not.”
“I think I’m trying to prove something to myself, more than him. When you fall in love, you’ll get it. It’s scary—wrapping so much of your happiness up in someone else. I feel like I need to keep proving to myself that I can be on my own without him.”
“You can’t stand with one foot out the door, Maeve. Either you’re in or you’re out.”
“That’s surprisingly insightful of you.”
I smile. “Don’t sound so shocked.”
“I figured you’d be celebrating because things aren’t good between us.”
“Happy you’re sad? Come on, Maeve. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, let alone my sister.”
“I thought Weswasyour worst enemy,” she replies.
“You could do worse.”
Maeve stops running. It takes me a few strides to realize, and then I circle back.
Her face is all shock. “What did you just say?”
I roll my eyes. “You heard me the first time.”
“Nope. I’m pretty sure I had a stroke.”
I huff a laugh. “Better than Fields, I guess.”
Maeve shades her eyes and squints at me. “What is it with you and Chris?”
I scuff my sneaker on the sidewalk. “I just don’t like him, is all.”
“Well, duh. He’s from Alleghany.”
“So are lots of people.”
Eyes the same shade as mine narrow. “What does that mean?”
I raise my arms and fold my hands behind my head. “My feelings didn’t matter when you started dating him, Maeve. Why do they matter now?”
Maeve looks away with a sigh, out at the pier we’re nearly past. “It’s not that they didn’t matter, Liam. Of course, I felt guilty. Of course, I hated hurting you. It just…I couldn’t help how I felt. And I tried to. I really did.”
Something in her earnest words resonates.