Page 54 of Most Likely to Match
She smiles, looking proud.
I want to ask,are you going to tell them about me?Even though that’s not fair either, but our phones’ tandem buzzing and notifications save me from myself.
She pulls her hand from mine to throw it over her eyes. “No,” she whines. “No more people. I can’t take it.”
I shimmy my phone from the back pocket of my jeans. My printed cotton tee rides up my stomach as I do it, and I leave it like that, when I catch Chloe’s gaze following the hair from my bellybutton to the button fly.
“Okay,” I say. Holding my phone over my face, I tap the email icon with a new email. “Let’s see what it—fuck.” The word slips out before I catch myself.
Subject: REMINDER: You’re Voted Most Likely to Reunite! RSVP Today!!!
“What?” Chloe sits up, patting the ground around her, her legs. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing,” I say, closing the email. “Don’t worry. It was just some reminder email.”
“But we both got notifications at the same time, so it’s probably for me, too, right?” She stands, finding her phone face down on her desk. I can tell the moment she sees the email. Her eyes get big and her teeth saw at her lower lip. I look away before I have to see anything more. I don’t want to do any more unnecessary interpretation of body language than I already have.
“Fuck indeed,” she says.
“Are you going?” I ask.
The carpet and her pant legs swish as she walks over, stopping above my head. “Are you?” she asks. “Are Rick and Matt going?”
I huff a silent laugh. “Hell no. Matt doesn’t care, and Rick said he’s already got a surprise baby-moon planned for that week, so…” I shrug.
“I…I was probably going to go,” she says, the hint of a question in her tone.
I sit up and turn to face her, but looking up at her from the floor isn’t helping this conversation. “Are you asking my permission?”
“No,” she says quickly.
“You can do whatever you want, Chloe.”
“I know.”
I can’t tell if the sharpness in her words is from defensiveness or anger. I stand, brushing carpet lint off my butt. “You should go,” I say. “You should,” I repeat when she raises a skeptical eyebrow.
Because even if— in some far-off universe— she did need my permission to go, the only reason I wouldn’t want her to is out of spite, out of some faux sense of ownership over her time and attention. I would want her not to go because I would want everyone who did go to know she was with me instead.
And that’s not forgiveness or friendship or love. It’s toxicity.
“Okay.” She watches me for another moment, doing her own unnecessary body language interpretation. So I make sure to change nothing of my expression, to keep my hands firmly planted in my pockets. She taps at her phone. “Okay. I’m going.”
And I am fine with it. I really, truly am. There’s no bastardized version of buyer’s remorse souring my stomach. Until her phone buzzes in her hand. She hides the screen from me, but not before I see the name gliding across the top.
Lauren G.
That’s when a seed of doubt, of hurt, plants itself under my ribcage, forgiveness too precious a gift to give freely.
10
CHLOE
“Hey, girl.” Lauren’s voice is too loud in my phone’s speaker.
My shoulders hunch around my ears as I turn from Dean and shuffle behind my desk, pretending to busy myself with waking the sleeping screen.
“Hey.”
