Better Off Friends (17 page)

She tried to play it off lightly. “Cook? Yep, this is what I do now, Levi. Call in the detectives!” She laughed, but it was self-conscious, almost calculated laughter. She wanted me to brush it all off and move on.

Unfortunately for her, I wasn’t going to do that.

Enough was enough.

“Come on, Macallan. I’m not an idiot. You’ve been distant. Our parents are talking to each other all the time. What would they have to talk about if it wasn’t one of us?”

“I don’t know. They’re friends — aren’t friends allowed to talk? Stop making it some conspiracy theory. Friends talk.”

“Yes, friends talk. But that’s not what you and I have been doing.” She ignored me and continued to roll out the dough. “Can you stop for a second, sit down, and talk to me? Please?” I moved a chair for her to sit down next to me.

She hesitated. She never used to be so guarded around me.

Macallan sat down with a towel in her hands. She methodically wiped the flour off her hands, still refusing eye contact.

“Macallan, can you please tell me what’s going on? You’ve been acting different since you’ve gotten back, like I make you uncomfortable now.”

She finally looked at me, and she looked scared. “It’s only … I had a lot of time to think in Ireland. And things
have
been different since I’ve been back. I
have
been different. It’s just that, I guess, it’s …” She looked down. “Levi, I think our friendship has been through a lot lately, so I don’t want to add any more tension, seriously. Can we not do this right now? Please.”

I wanted to give her some space, but wasn’t eight weeks in another country enough? Frustration started pouring over me. I’d always been truthful to Macallan, but I couldn’t help but feel that she was lying to me. Again.

I’d been so concerned about Macallan and her feelings, but what about mine? It had hurt me when she went away. I had tried to give her everything I thought she wanted — my time, my attention — and it still hadn’t been enough.

But this time it wasn’t on me.
She
was the one who left.
She
was the one who wasn’t around.
She
was the one who was canceling on me.

I had been there the entire time waiting for her to come back. But I still felt like she was gone.

And I was tired of waiting.

“You abandoned me.” The words flew out so fast I didn’t have a chance to catch them. “I confessed my feelings for you and you just walked out and abandoned me. Do you have any idea how much that hurt me? But I gave you your space and didn’t say anything because I hoped once you got back, everything would be okay between us. But they’re not. I don’t know what else to do because
I’m
not the one acting weird.”

“Oh, really?” Her voice rose sharply. “You’re turning this on me? Yes, you confessed your feelings to me. You left this huge door open. Then I come home to find it slammed in my face.”

“A
door
? What door did I slam in your face? I couldn’t wait for you to get home!”

Instead of yelling back at me, her voice wavered. “The entire time I was in Ireland, I thought of you. You certainly gave me a lot to think about. And I did, Levi. A lot. I wanted to make this work between us. So much. I got off the plane thinking we’d have this happy ending. And then I had the rug pulled from under me. I think all the time about when the plane was landing in Chicago. How different things are now compared to what I thought they’d be. How foolish I’d been. So yes, Levi, I’m not there for you as much, but you’re not here, either.”

“Are you kidding me? I’ve
been here
the entire time, Macallan.
You
were the one who left. Left
me
. And
you’re
the one who’s been ignoring me. I waited months for you to return, and you’re here, but you’re not
really
here. So just tell me what you want from me because I’m tired of guessing and tired of feeling like I can never satisfy you. So please, enlighten me.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Her gaze was transfixed on the floor. She refused to even look at me.

I wanted her to stand up and fight. To fight for this relationship, but I already knew she was giving up on me. And at the moment, I didn’t care. Why was it solely up to me to fix things between us? Especially when I had no clue what more I could’ve done. But nothing I did ever seemed to be good enough for her. She always expected so much from me. And that was the heart of the problem. Macallan didn’t want to share me with others.

I got up and started walking toward the door. Had she said something, I would’ve turned around. But she didn’t.

As soon as the door was closed, the fight left me. I was exhausted by the constant questioning. All the drama.

I began walking home. Putting distance between me and my former best friend.

If this was how it was going to be, it was better to know than to pretend. I felt a newfound freedom with every step.

Maybe Macallan going to Ireland was the best thing that could have happened to me. It proved that I didn’t need her to be around to be happy. Sure, I had missed her. But it was more the memory of her. How things used to be. She had changed, and so had I. It seemed we both were hanging on to someone who no longer existed.

I decided right there that all I wanted was a drama-free junior year.

If that meant it was without Macallan, so be it. I was done with her games.

We both went through the motions on Sunday nights. Fortunately, I only had to put up the act for the first two weeks of school before I started making excuses to get out of the dinners.

It didn’t matter. I had an awesome birthday. The guys came over after the game. Stacey brought some of her friends. Of course, Mom invited Macallan, but, thankfully, she couldn’t come. She didn’t even give me anything. Her birthday was in a couple of weeks and I planned on returning the favor.

If only our family could’ve figured it out and stop forcing us together. Fortunately, I was always free on Saturday nights, so it could be just me and my girl. My
real
girl.

Stacey had been great about the whole Macallan thing — which meant she never really brought it up. She let us be us, which had nothing to do with that. I appreciated it.

That Saturday when she pulled up in her car, she seemed extra excited to see me.

“Hey, handsome.” She bent over and gave me a kiss, her high ponytail brushing against my cheek. “I thought we’d try someplace different for dinner tonight. You in?”

“Sure.” I shrugged. I wasn’t in a great mood. The previous night had been our third game of the season and I still hadn’t gotten any playing time. I could run fast, was getting better with catching, but Coach wasn’t putting me in. I couldn’t show him my frustration, so it bounced onto the other people in my life.

“Where we going?” I asked when Stacey pulled into a hotel parking lot.

“I heard the restaurant here is really good.” She laughed nervously.

I got out of the car. Stacey looked at her phone. “Can you hold on? I have to make a quick call.”

“Sure.” A hotel seemed like a strange place for dinner. But whatever. Stacey usually knew what she was doing.

But then things got weirder.

“Levi?” I turned around and saw Macallan with Danielle. “What are you doing here?”

“What am
I
doing here? What are
you
doing here?”

Danielle looked at each of us and stepped in the middle. “So crazy, right? I guess this is the new place to be.” She laughed as Stacey came over.

“Hey, guys,” Stacey said warmly to Macallan. “So insane that you’re here.” She exchanged a look with Danielle. “Um, I guess we should go in.” She started walking faster, with Danielle keeping step and saying she liked Stacey’s shoes.

This left me next to Macallan.

“Are you following me?” I asked her.

She groaned. “Yeah, whatever.”

“It’s just a little odd that you’re here. I never even knew this place had a restaurant.”

“It wasn’t my idea — it was Danielle’s,” she said coldly.

“How convenient for you.”

Danielle and Stacey led us inside and stopped in front of these giant double doors.

I was so annoyed at this. That I had to be stuck eating in the same vicinity as Macallan. And I highly doubted this was a mere coincidence. She clearly couldn’t handle not being around me anymore.

Macallan stopped and looked right at me as if she could read my mind. “Get over yourself, Levi.” She stepped in front of me.

“After you!” Stacey said as she and Danielle opened up the double doors.

I put a scowl on my face to let them know how much I didn’t appreciate this situation as I began to walk into the room.

“SURPRISE!!!” A loud shout echoed in the large ballroom. It took me a second to figure out what was going on as I saw the faces of friends and family greeting me. Then I saw a
HAPPY SWEET SIXTEEN BIRTHDAY, MACALLAN AND LEVI!
sign.

The secret meetings between our parents had been for a birthday party.

I turned to look at Macallan, who looked as shocked as I felt. So she hadn’t been lying to me about not knowing what was going on. But she was lying about something else.

Mom came up laughing. “Did we pull it off? Were you surprised?”

I don’t think I’d ever been so shocked in my life.

I know, they got us so good.

Yeah, we weren’t speaking and they threw us a joint surprise party.

Like you do?

Man, I was being such an idiot.

Yes, I was being an idiot, a total idiot. Even I wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with me.

Again, I was really confused after
you abandoned me
.