Page 48 of Deep In Love
“Oh, wow. It’s finally happening.”
“What’s happening?”
“The reckoning,” she whispers. “I’ve been waiting for this day. Oliver, will you grab that binder?”
A worn-down t-shirt replaces his arm, and Amy smirks, focused on whatever’s happening in her room.
“Binder?”
“Hold on.” She flips to the first page and begins reading. “Today, we have witnessed a miracle,” she starts in a monotone voice. “Our beloved Charles has blossomed from a girl in hate into a woman in love.”
My jaw flies to the floor.
What the fuck is this?
“On this glorious day,” she continues, “Charlotte Louise Bowen has conceded that Mateo Alvarez is, in fact, not a ‘pain in her ass’ but the object of her skewed affection.”
“Amy, what is this?”
“I wrote this three weeks after we started living together, and I have patiently waited to be right. I played the long game.” She flicks through the pages. “It has become clear that Charles’s intense, self-proclaimed rivalry is truly a shield for the feelings she harbors for a certain tall PhD student.”
Oliver snickers in the background as I sit stunned, listening to Amy’s speech.
My first instinct is to deny her words, to bury any feelings I have until they fade away, but there’s no point in lying to her or myself.Iamharboring feelings for Mateo, and I was hurt today, enough to call my best friend.
“Say hypothetically, I agreed with your hypothesis, and perhaps have potentially developed a smidge of feeling for Mateo.” Amy beams a victorious smile, and I hiss, “This is all hypothetical!”
“Sure it is,” Oliver chimes in.
I ignore the truth in his annoying British accent. “And let’s say Mateo and I were exploring new territory in our relationship, but now he’s suddenly upset, and I can’t shake the feeling I did something to cause it.”
“All hypothetical?” Amy cocks a brow.
“Yup.” I pop thep,and she gives me a knowing look.
“Did you say anything?”
“I-I don’t think so. We were fine. He’s Willy Wonka, Amy.” I drop the truth bomb, letting it explode between us.
How many times have I jokingly said I would marry whoever was my chocolate fairy?
“Oh.”
“He brought the chocolate on the boat for me,” I whisper. “He’s being so fucking kind that I don’t know how to act anymore! But now he’s turned into this…this different person, and he barely spoke to me after board games, and we didn’t watch TikToks.”
That stings the most. It became a nightly routine for us and the best part of my day, when Mateo is mussed and ready for bed. I like when it’s the two of us.
“So you’ve been watching TikToks, and now…?”
“Nothing,” I say. “And when I asked him if he was upset with me, he said, ‘Do you see me, Charlie?’ What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Oh. That is not good.” Amy shakes her head.
“What do you mean, it’snot good?”
“Do you see him, Charlie?” Oliver asks.
“I don’t know what that means,” I scream.
