Page 48 of Getting Over You

“Ms. Social Butterfly, spreading her wings,” Mom replies lovingly as we hang up.

I walk with trepidation to the front window, looking around to see if there’s anything I can throw or bludgeon someone with, should I need it.

I pull the curtain back gingerly, and on the front porch, holding two coffees from Beach Brew, is Cade. When I pull the front door open, he silently hands the cup over.

“What is this?”

“Our drink of choice,” he tells me. “It’s an ‘I’m sorry’ coffee.”

“‘I’m sorry’ coffee?”

He shakes his head, pinches the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know, Gigi. I’m not good at this.”

“Good at…?” My heart stutters.

“Apologizing,” he sighs. “I don’t know what I said to you. I vaguely recall stumbling my way to the boardwalk. And I wakeup the next morning to a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen. But then you don’t text me.”

“Come in,” I say, stepping aside. “Do we talk?”

“I don’t know,” Cade mutters. “I don’t know what comes after the ‘I’m sorry’ part.”

I roll my eyes. “Come in. It’s just me. Belinda has a date.”

As Cade settles into the couch, I reach for my phone.

“My mom,” I supply when he looks at me expectantly. “I had a weird moment with Belinda before her date. I needed to talk to somebody.”

“You could have called me,” Cade says gently.

My heart clenches. When he says things like that, it’s hard to not imagine a world where he’s this caring all the time. “Why are you here, Cade?”

“To apologize,” he says.

“You did that already.”

“To apologize extra for ignoring you for days, then.”

“I ignored you, too,” I admit. Because I was afraid that if I didn’t, I’d make a mistake that I couldn’t undo. He’s all I can think about since then, my chest tugging whenever I remember how he said he didn’t want to destroy me.

I’m more upset that Cade thinks he’s capable of destroying anyone, that he’s solely responsible for ruin left behind. He’s not.

“What happened with Belinda?” Cade wonders. “Was it bad?”

“I started to tell her she wasn’t my mom,” I say, sighing. “Then I chickened out.”

“Oh, princess. No.”

I shake my head. “Backtracked completely.”

“That sucks,” Cade decides. “Better luck next time?”

“There won’t be,” I sigh, reaching for a couch pillow to pull close. “I know there won’t. But then I got sad about it for an hour.”

“Which is why you were talking to your mom,” Cade realizes.

I nod, tears welling as I recall it. Cade stands abruptly, holding a hand out. I narrow my eyes at him, but take his hand for him to pull me up. “What are you doing?”

He reaches into his pocket, frees his keys. He shakes them at me. “Ice cream,” he says. “Come on.”

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