Page 41 of Ready or Not
No. I’d get on, head home, and let Naomi do whatever she needed to do.
Solène could make her move if that’s what she wanted.
Her friend had my number now.
The screeching brakes screamed louder as the train came to a halting stop in front of me. Doors hissed open. People pushed against each other with nonchalance as they filed in and out like cattle—heads down, eyes glossed over, thoughts hidden behind AirPods or cheap knockoffs.
And then, just as I stepped forward to board, a flash of terracotta hair caught my eye through the shifting bodies on the other side of the platform. My breath hitched with a sharpness that felt like swallowing chivo picante down the wrong hole once the person turned—because there she was.
My Butterfingers.
18 /SOLÈNE
1289 Lexington Ave.
Staring at the address in the history of my Uber app, I contemplated whether I was truly about to do what I was thinking about. Though this was the next step that I needed to take after confronting the uncomfortable parts of me, I was still chickening out.
Sitting in a park alone with your thoughts was a lot easier than facing the man who I wasn't sure I even had the courage to confront. It wasn’t just the fear of what he might say—it was the fear of confirming what I already suspected deep down: that I’d ruined something fragile before it even had a chance to bloom.
And the thought of him looking at me with that same mixture of pity and exasperation, Andrew always tossed my way? That was enough to make my stomach twist into tight knots as if it were preparing to implode.
Yet I continued to stare at the address again.
Ready to close the app, a call from Alexandra came instead. I hovered over the green button for a moment before answering, steadying my breath like it might make me sound less on edge.
“Hey,” Alexandra’s voice came through calmly. “You okay?”
I exhaled, leaning back against the park bench as I stared up at the trees swaying gently in the breeze. Their movement felt soothing—a contrast to the storm brewing inside me.
“Define ‘okay,’” I said with a weak laugh, trying to inject some humor into my voice.
“You’re thinking, aren’t you?”
My jaw clenched as I debated denying it, but what would be the point? “How did you know?”
“Lucky guess,” she countered with a knowing tone that made me want to roll my eyes. “We’ve been best friends since middle school, so I know you, Sol. Also, Mimi texted me five minutes ago saying, ‘I betchu Sol sitting somewhere overthinking her life right now instead of showing up to Desi’s door and talking like a normal human being.’”
Damn you, Naomi.
Groaning, I let my head fall back against the bench. “Of course she did.”
“She’s not wrong,” I could feel my best friend smile over the phone as if she could read my mind. “But she’s also not entirely right. You don’t have to do this if you’re not ready.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever feel ready… I don’t even know what I’d say to him.”
“Is this your way of asking me for help?”
“I—I guess so.”
Alexandra sighed, her silence stretching just long enough to make me wonder if the call had dropped before she finally spoke again. “You say the truth. As messy and uncomfortable as it is, you just… tell him how you feel.”
“What if…” I let out a shaky breath, pulling my knees up to my chest as I balanced the phone against my ear. “What if he doesn’t want to hear it? What if he tells me that I’m not…”
“Enough?”
Her words filled the silence I couldn’t bring myself to break. It was like she had reached into my chest and yanked out the one thought I was too scared to voice.
“Yeah,” I whispered, the word barely audible, but Alexandra caught it.
