Page 94 of Reggie and Delilah's Year of Falling

His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, looking everywhere but me in the room. I can tell he really took that in, and now we’ll see if he slips into how it always is and laughs at me for being too sensitive... or does something else. Nothing about this conversation has been going the way I expect, so I really don’t know which it will be.

“I—I didn’t...” he finally starts, his voice quiet. “I didn’tknow you were so bothered by all that... well, until Thanksgiving.”

I glare at him, raising an eyebrow, and he puts his hands up. “Okay, okay. You right, you right. Maybe I did. But I mean...” He lets out a long breath and rocks forward on the chair again, thinking. Finally he says, “I think I was just trying to help you in a way. Or I don’t know, like... make things easier for you? I know that sounds real wild, but all that board game and fantasy stuff you like?Someone’sgoing to have something to say, and isn’t it better to hear it from me first? To, like, get ready for it. Because you already know I love you anyway. It’s, uh... preemptive, or whatever.”

I’m already shaking my head. “But by doing that,youare the one who’s making it hard. And in front of your friends, other people—it’s like you’re giving them permission. Like Tyrell, he’s anassholeto me, even when you’re not around. Youknowthat. I don’t think he would pull that shit if you didn’t do it first.”

He purses his lips and rubs his chin, taking it all in. And then he starts nodding. “Yeah. I can see that. I can. And I’m sorry.”

And with those words, it’s like the deep wound between us has a thin scab over it, just like that.

“Why couldn’t we have just sat down and had a conversation about all this sooner, instead of you hating me and roasting me for years?”

“Ha!” He throws his head back. “’Cause that would’ve been too easy!”

He claps his hands, grinning at me, but then his expression turns serious. “And for the record, I’ve never hated you, Reggie. You’re my baby bro.”

“Baby bro” usually sounds like an insult coming from him, but this time it feels like it used to when we were kids—paired with an invite to walk down to RiteAid for ice cream, or a PlayStation controller handed over to me on the couch.

“Well, I don’t hate you, either.” I smile at him, probably the first genuine smile I’ve sent his way in a while.

“Good,” he says with a nod. “But, listen, I’m still never going to get this whole dragons thing.”

I laugh. “That’s fine, ’cause I don’t think I’m ever going to get this whole sports thing either. Like, baseball! They stand there for, like, eighty percent of the game. How is that interesting?”

He shakes his head and starts laughing too. “Maybe we can teach each other.”

There’s a beat of silence as we both stare at each other, testing the waters, and then at the same time: “Nah!” “I’m good!”

“So what are you going to do to fix this with your girl?” he asks me later, like this is a totally normal thing we talk about, and maybe it will be now.

“I don’t know yet. But it’s gotta be big.”

Delilah

It’s so much easier not going to the same school with Reggie or any of our mutual friends. Because there’s no one to hide from, no one I have to give an explanation to. I’ve canceled hanging out with Ryan and Leela twice now, and if they knew why, they didn’t say.

But I can’t avoid Georgia. She gives me less than a week of moping before she throws herself on my bed and pulls the covers off me. “Do you have a migraine?”

“No.”

“Then, okay, we’re doing this now.”

“I’d... rather not.”

“Uh-uh. Nope! You missed school today and have listened to ‘All Too Well’ twenty-one times just since I’ve been home from rehearsal. I mean, yes, this is the best song in the world and you know I fully support the drama—but this is disturbing, even for me, D.”

I roll my eyes at her to communicate just how annoyed I amby her presence. But then I fill her in on all the messy details of the breakup anyway. I don’t have a choice.

And by the end, even though I’m trying to hold it together, I totally fall apart.

“I felt so blindsided, like he had this whole other side of him,” I cry. I can feel my eyes puffing up and the snot dripping down my face. It’s ugly. “And it wasn’t, like, earth-shattering, what he did, I know. I could have just forgiven him, but, but I don’t want to be that chill girl anymore that lets everything go. I’m not her anymore. I’m not chill!”

“So not chill,” Georgia echoes, rubbing my back in small, soothing circles.

“And if I did just shrug and smooth it over, wouldn’t he always see me that way? As passive? I don’t want to be passive anymore in my own life!”

“You don’t have to be—”

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