“Nice dress,” he interrupts me, his blue eyes flicking up and down my body.
“Thanks,” I say, trying to feel relaxed now that we’re talking. “It’s your favorite color.”
“And that’s why you wore it.”
The fact that he knows makes me blush.
It’s not as if it was hard to guess though. That I wore this color for him or that my hair’s framing my face because he likes it that way.
Which makes me realize something super obvious.
In the two years that I dated him, I wore blue a lot. I wore blue more than I wore pink, which is my favorite color. Even when I went out with my friends, I wore his favorite color. And I kept my hair loose even though I’ve always preferred braids.
I knew I did it all to make him happy. He was my boyfriend and I wanted to give him everything. So I wore the color he liked; I listened to the music he’d pick out; I didn’t talk about NYU even though that’s always been my dream school; or about what book I was reading at the time, because early on when we started dating he told me books put him to sleep and he preferred sports.
I never did anything that might bring conflict between us.
Except that night.
When I said no.
Why I’m thinking about this right now or why it feels like such a big revelation, I don’t know, but I am and it does.
“And that’s why you wore your hair like that,” he says, tipping his chin up.
“I… I’m…”
“What do you want, Echo?”
His abrupt question makes me jump. “What?”
“You want something, don’t you,” he says, his eyes and his tone both inscrutable. “And before you say you want to apologize or catch up, I’m going to stop you and tell you that I don’t believe you.”
“I…”
He waits for me to answer but I’m too chickenshit to say anything. “You what?”
I know the answer to his question.
I’ve thought of nothing else but the answer to his question ever since he came back to town. But how do you put it into words? How do you say,hey, I want you to stop screwing up your life and also forgive your best friend who’s always been like a brother to you and so let’s get back together,in a nice and tactful way?
“Did you miss me, Echo?” he asks while I’m still silent and thinking.
And I grab that lifeline like I’m truly dying. “Yes. God, yes. I did.”
He takes a step toward me. “Me too.”
My heart is drumming in my chest with his nearness. “Y-you did?”
He keeps inching closer. “I did, yeah. I loved you, didn’t I?”
Loved.
Past tense.
Because I threw away that love like it meant nothing.Imade that happen and so I suppress the sting I feel at that, the sadness.
“I loved you too. So much,” I tell him, trying to inject all the emotions that I’m feeling into my voice.