Page 110 of Level Up
“Yeah—Wait, no! What? I was the one who—Ihad a thing forhim!” I tell him, flustered. “He thought I was repulsive!”
Damien looks at me like I’ve just said something ridiculous. “That’s impossible.”
“Uh, no, it’s extremely possible and factual.”
“Well, he doesn’t think you’re repulsive now,” he scoffs.
“What?”
“It doesn’t take that long to read a t-shirt with no text on it,” he says, and his eyes flick down for a second.
I pull my grandpa cardigan closed self-consciously. “He was not.”
“I couldfeelhim shooting daggers at me. Like some possessive asshole.”
“He can’t bepossessivewhen I was neverhisin the first place.” I laugh sarcastically. “He made it very clear that wasneverwhat we were.”
“Did he know…how you felt?”
“I…told him that I liked him,” I say, taking time with my words. “As more than a friend. And he…”
“He what?”
“Didn’t.” I shrug, though remembering the pain of all of this makes me want to cry all over again, even though I’m over it. “He said that if we dated, people would think he was too pathetic to get arealgirlfriend.”
Damien looks horrified on my behalf. “What does that even mean?”
“I was some weird loser obsessed with video games, who was too terrified of mascara wands to ever put on makeup.”
“That’s fair; they look terrifying.” He manages to get a laugh out of me with that.
“People always thought we were dating anyway, I guess,” I continue. “We spent all our time together for years. And then he spent less time with me at school, so people would stop thinking that. And then he stopped spending time with me altogether.”
“What a dick.”
“The worst part of it was that he—” I stop myself before I tell him the thing I’ve never told anyone, not even Victory. ButI want him to know. “He did kiss me when I first told him I wanted to.”
Damien’s eyebrows pinch up in concern.
“It was just one time, but it was for…a while. I thought it meant… I thought he liked me, too, but then later he said he’d just felt bad for me and that’s why he did it. It was a pity kiss. And then afterthatwas when he stopped hanging out with me at all. So, I guess he is a dick, yeah.”
“Actually, now that I think of it, calling him a dick is an insult to dicks,” Damien says, completely deadpan. “At least I feel better about tanking that group project, though.”
I laugh again, softly, and shrug. “Well. It’s not like we’re actually going to see him again, so it doesn’t really matter. Plus, I basically did the same thing to Shawn, but for like a year, so I’m no better.”
“You told him that you were pity-fucking him and didn’t want to be seen together because he was beneath you?”
“God, no! Why would you even?—”
“That’s my point. It’s not the same. You were figuring shit out,” he says more seriously. “And yeah, maybe this guy”—he juts his thumb at where Cameron had been standing, even though he’s no longer there—“was also figuring shit out, but he made ityourproblem. And I know none of us have it figured out, and we all screw up sometimes, so I’m not going to make him the literal devil here, but he was supposed to be your best friend and hediscardedyou, so I don’t have to be too sympathetic about it.”
“Oh.” I don’t know what to say to that. I mean, I always knew it was a sucky thing for Cameron to do to me, but I figured it was my own fault. My fault for falling for him, my fault for telling him, my fault for not being good enough.
And maybe I did screw up sometimes, with Cameron and with Shawn, but it didn’t mean I deserved to lose my only friend over it.
“Well,” I add after another minute, contemplating all of this. “I probably dodged a bullet, in any case.”
“Yeah?”
