Page 15 of You Say It First

“No, no,” Meg said, holding her hands up and shaking her head quickly. “I mean, I gave him my number.”

“What?” Emily repeated. “Why?”

“Because I felt so bad? I don’t know.” Meg felt her cheeks getting warm. “It just kind of came out. But what I’m trying to tell you is we wound up talking for, like, a million hours.”

“Seriously?” Emily raised her eyebrows. “About what?”

Meg shrugged. “All kinds of stuff. I don’t know.” Suddenly, she felt embarrassed about it, like telling the story out loud had broken some kind of spell. “Our jobs. Vacations. What we watch on TV.”

“What does he watch on TV?”

“That’s not the point!” Meg blew a breath out. “It was just, like, this super long, intense phone conversation, that’s all. I’ve definitely never talked that way to a stranger before.” She thought about it for a moment, the back of her neck getting dumbly warm as she remembered the sound of his laugh. “I guess it felt like I could talk to him that way because he was a stranger, you know? Like: judgment-free zone, or something.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense.” Emily snapped the lid back on her empty salad bowl. “It’s just... I don’t know, man. I mean, I love you, obviously. But that’s, like... kind of super sketchy, no?”

Meg blinked. “Thanks a lot,” she said, holding her hand out for Emily’s container and getting up to toss them both in the bin. She knew it was silly to feel protective of a person she’d had two conversations with—to feel protective of the person she’d been on the phone—but she couldn’t help it. She wished she hadn’t said anything to begin with.

“I’m sorry!” Emily said, rattling the ice in her straw-free cup of raspberry lemonade. “I’m not trying to yuck your yum, I just—who even is this guy? He could be, like, fifty-five.”

“He’s not fifty-five! He’s exactly our age.”

“How do you know?”

I Googled him did not sound like an answer that was going to win any points with Emily, so Meg just shrugged again. “I just know.” Ugh, this had been a mistake. Best friend or not, there had been plenty of things she hadn’t told Emily about over the years—the time she’d gotten her period in line for iced tea at the Short Hills Mall and bled right through her white shorts; that she’d made out with a girl named Riley the summer she’d been a camp counselor in the Poconos and could see herself doing it again if she met the right person; her parents’ divorce until two weeks after her dad moved out and Emily was coming for a sleepover and she couldn’t hide it anymore. Sometimes it just felt safer that way. Their sameness was comforting, yes—their sameness had always been comforting—but the flip side of that was that sometimes their friendship felt a little bit like the persuasive essays they’d written last fall in AP Lit Comp, where Meg had purposely left out any evidence that didn’t support her argument for fear of the whole thing collapsing entirely.

“Look, you’re right,” she said finally, digging her car keys out of her backpack. “It was totally random. And it’s not like it’s going to happen again. I just thought it was a funny story, that’s all.”

“Wait,” Emily said, “are you mad, though?”

“No,” Meg promised, and she wasn’t. It was more like she felt kind of empty. She felt dumb. It had been weird, that phone call with Colby. But it had also made her happier than anything else had in a really long time.

“I’m sorry,” Emily said again as they headed out into the parking lot. It was starting to drizzle, a raw trickle slipping into the neck of Meg’s denim jacket. “I didn’t mean to rain on your parade. You know, your slightly-sketchy-phone-call parade—”

“All right, thank you.” Meg laughed. “You’ve made your point.” She bumped Emily’s shoulder when she said it in a way she knew would smooth things over, make it into a joke instead of a fight; even as she did it it felt like another betrayal, though this time she wasn’t sure of who. “Come on,” she said, getting into the car and glancing at the clock on the dashboard. “We’re gonna be late.”

Ten

Colby

Colby’s mom texted to tell him they were out of dog food and milk in order of importance, so he stopped by the Giant Eagle on his way home from work. Colby loved the supermarket, weirdly: the chilly, brightly lit order of it, the dumb ’90s Muzak tinkling overhead. His dad used to let him hitch a ride on the back of the cart.

He got the stuff his mom wanted, plus some extra treats for Tris. He was standing in the snack aisle debating garlic Cheez-Its versus Extra Toasty when Keith Olsen appeared beside a cardboard display of Tostitos. “Hey!” he called, sounding genuinely excited by the sight of Colby standing there in his dirty warehouse clothes among the Wheat Thins and barbecue chips. “Colby, dude. I’ve been looking for you.”

“Uh, really?” Colby asked, trying not to sound too outwardly suspicious. You know where I live and work, he didn’t say. “You have?”

“I mean, not in a professional capacity,” Keith clarified, motioning down at his tan sheriff’s uniform. A silver wedding ring glinted on his left hand. He was married to a girl who’d broken up with Matt back in high school, which Colby knew drove Matt crazy and therefore kind of appreciated. “Well, kind of in a professional capacity, I guess. But you’re not in trouble. I just wanted to see how you were doing, after the other night.”

For one demented second, Colby thought Keith was talking about the phone call with Meg from WeCount. Then he blinked and realized he meant the water tower thing. “Oh,” he said. “I’m fine, thanks.” In fact, he felt a little guilty over how easily he’d gotten off for the whole thing—he knew his dad would have had him make it up somehow, picking up trash or donating to a charity or something—but that sure as shit wasn’t the kind of thing he was going to say out loud.

Keith nodded eagerly, either oblivious to Colby’s tone or completely undeterred by it. “Good,” he said. “That’s good.” Then, motioning at Colby’s dirt-streaked polo shirt: “You just come from work?”

“Yup,” Colby said in a way he hoped didn’t invite any further questions, tossing the Extra Toasties into his cart.

Keith kept nodding. “You like it over there?” he asked.

“It’s fine,” Colby said. God, what the fuck did Keith care if he liked it or not? It was like just because he had a badge and a gun he’d decided he was Colby’s honorary guidance counselor. “It’s a job.”

“Yeah, no, I get that.” Keith smiled. “You ever think about doing something with a little more room to grow, though? I mean, you’re a smart guy. Your uncle would hire you in a second, I bet.”

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