I told her I’d never want her to choose sides.
But honestly, I didn’t want it to even feel like a choice. I wanted her to know where she stood. The problem was, she wasn’t my best friend anymore. She and Cooper were our best friends.
They were a unit, and we were another, and that was how we’d fit.
I couldn’t remember the last time we’d done something just the two of us.
And in those days when I was mourning in a puddle, Peter was doing damage control. So if our breakup wasn’t a basketball game, maybe it was a race, and I was too slow.
Sadie and I have barely spoken since that call, and I grieved that loss as much as or more than the end of my romantic relationship.
“Not Richmond,” I tell Miles. That might feel even worse than being here, which was saying something. “Maryland, hopefully.”
Miles does that Labradoresque head tilt of his. “What’s in Maryland?”
“My mom,” I say.
“You’re really close,” he says, half observation, half question.
I pull my knees into my chest and loop my arms around them. “She and my dad split up when I was really young, so it’s always been the two of us. Not in a sad way. She’s the best. What about you? Are you close with your family?”
He scratches the back of his head and gazes out across the water. “My little sister, yeah. We text basically every day. She lives in Chicago.”
“And your parents?” I ask.
“An hour outside of Chicago.” He offers no more. It’s the first time I’ve felt like there’s something he’d rather not talk about.
I feel the tiniest bit disappointed. He makes it so easy to open up. I wish I knew how to do the same.
“Anyway,” he says, “I don’t think you should move to Maryland.”
“I won’t go until you find another roommate,” I say.
“It’s not about that,” he says. “You moved here because of Peter. Don’t let him make you move away too.”
“So you’re saying I should stay, out of spite,” I say.
“I just think it would be shitty to uproot your whole life for this guy twice,” he says.
“Miles,” I say. “I just recounted what my whole life looks like, and I watched a piece of your soul die behind your eyes.”
“That’s not what happened,” he says.
“It is,” I say.
“What about your job?”
The ember in my chest flares. “What about it?”
“You’re constantly, like, teaching kids to make bird feeders and running costume contests. It clearly means a lot to you.”
“It does mean a lot to me,” I allow. “Sometimes when I’m running Story Hour, I literally remember partway through that I’m getting paid to do something I love, and it feels like I’m dreaming. Like I might wake up and realize I’m late for my shift at the Dressbarn.
“And there’s this girl Maya, who comes in once a week. Twelve or thirteen. Perfect little weirdo. She reads everything—goes through like five books a week. And we have an informal book club, where I pick something out I think she’ll like, and it goes in the stack, and then she comes back a week later and we just talk about it for an hour while I’m doing admin stuff. She’s supersmart. Has a hard time at school, but you can just tell she’s going to be some great novelist or, like, film director someday.”
“You love it,” Miles says.
“I love it,” I admit. It’s the piece of my life that still feels right, even with Peter excised from the picture.
“Then don’t give it up,” Miles says. “Not for him.”
“Of course, there are also days when I have to spend an hour on the phone with one of our regulars because he wants me to look up a love poem and spell every single word of it for him,” I say.
“Why?” Miles says.
“Sometimes the job of a librarian is to simply not ask. Anyway, I’m keeping an eye out for job postings in other cities, but I can’t leave for eighty-five days.”
“That is . . . extremely specific,” he says.
“It’s when the Read-a-thon happens,” I explain.
“Ah.” He flashes a teasing grin. “Read-a-thon Prep Meeting: Tuesdays from two to three p.m.”
“Do you have a photographic memory?” I ask.
“Sure,” he says. “Also, it’s been a standing appointment on your calendar since you moved in.”
“You’ve been reading it,” I say, unable to hide my glee.
