Page 200 of We Can't Be Friends

Never having to make a coffee because he perfected my favorite. Playing NYT word games, trying to see who gets the Wordle faster. Scaring him by jumping into his post-run or yoga shower. Bumping elbows while brushing our teeth. Making the bed only for him to fix it because he’s particular—really I mess it up on purpose and slow so he has to put his hands on me to move me out of the way.

I miss him, and he was right next to me.

Is that what love is like?

“We are having lunch, then picking her up. Are we interrupting?”

Emerson cocks her head, silently asking me. “Nope.”

They order, George replaces my side of fries, dipping his own cluster into ketchup.

“When are you coming back to London, Chloe girl?” George asks. “I’ve loved having my mate home. . .”

I don’t hear anything after that. My mind stops. Won’t let me pass ‘home’.

Home.

Home as in London.

Home, as in not Chicago. Not me.

Callum’s my home, but what if I’m not his? What if that’s what he realized while we’ve been here?

I fight off my thoughts as they throw punch after punch.

I’m better than this. Stronger than this. So why does it feel like I’m walking on a tightrope one step away from falling back into the pit of my fears?

I need a shower. . .

Lunch carries on. I carry on with my thoughts.

57

CALLUM

Pushing through a brutal run, the pavement and rain do little to ease the pain that has taken over mentally. Mindlessly, I end up at the office. No one is here—it is Sunday, after all.

I don’t know how I ended up here, but my feet carried me here.

I sat behind my old desk for minutes, maybe hours.

The sky is fading when I emerge from the building and head back to the hotel.

Chloe is sitting on the bed, folding her clothes, humming. Her hair is wrapped in a towel and she’s in one of my old shirts.

She’s beautiful.

I lean against the wall, watching her, memorizing her. Memories are a fickle sort of thing. You don’t have a choice in what your brain decides to remember forever. It either hands up a memory in the museum of your life or trash it. How do I tell it to keep her memory?

Hastily, I move to her. Spin her in my arms and cup her cheeks. Kissing her. Burning the feel of her in my arms into my brain, not that it isn’t all over my body.

The towel falls from her hair. I comb my fingers through the darkened strands.

“Long run?”

“For some.”

“How many miles?”

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