Page 43 of Wasted On Us

“Well…” Swallowing hard, I push my idea out into the air between us. “My father is having a cookout this weekend.”

“Mine too.” She nods, missing my point.

“Come over.”

“And miss my father’s? I’ll be disowned.” She laughs with a shake of her head. “You should come to mine instead.”

Letting the idea marinate for a moment, I pause, watching as the dotted white line rolls ahead of me on the road. Then, it comes to me. An idea so outright foolish, it swings right back around into making perfect sense. At least, I hope.

“Let’s do both.”

Eden stares at me, unblinking behind her dark frames. Her mouth hangs open in shock, a Twizzler dangling in the air an inch below her lip. “This is a terrible idea.”

“No, it’s perfect.” Somehow, her denial only serves to convince me. It switches me into full-on salesman mode. “It’s low-key. Your father will be so busy working the grill, he won’t even have time to realize who I am. And my father…”

“Will see that you’re hanging out with the temp.” She waves a fresh Twizzler at me in defiance. “He’ll be annoyed. It’s not like he warmed to me when I worked there.”

“You were there one day!” It’s not like my father spends a lot of time talking to the receptionists, and she only made it one shift. Factoring in a lunch break and any time it took her to get settled in, that’s seven hours at most for him to interact with her while he’s busy with a full day’s work.

“So? Lucy wanted to be BFFs,” she teases, punching the last three syllables and coating them liberally with sarcasm.

“Lucy wanted to get under my skin,” I huff. A handful of hookups and now she haunts my every move. I can’t even make it one long weekend without hearing about her. If I had a time machine, I’d use it to go back and punch myself in the face.

“Oh, my God. YoudatedLucy.” Playfully swatting my arm, she squeals. “I thought you two just had a one-night stand.”

“I feel likedatingis a broad term.” As much as I want to defend myself, I don’t think it will win me any brownie points to tell Eden exactly how many times we slept together or how none of those included going out in public or really looking each other in the face. That would probably do more harm than good. “And what I had with her is nothing like what I have with you.”

She rolls her eyes. “Why do I feel like you’ve said that before?”

“Actually, this is the first time I’ve ever said that.” It’s a fine line to walk between honesty about my past and keeping Eden’s trust. “So, what do you say? We split time between two cookouts?”

Staring out of the passenger window, she toys with the door lock, tapping her nails against the plastic in thought. “You’re asking a lot. My dad gives me that disappointed look that I just can’t tolerate without tearing up. Then the guilt hits me so hard I want to pull the covers over my head and never leave my bed. You know that look?”

I snort. “I know it well.”

“I hope we don’t live to regret this.” She worries her bottom lip between her teeth, before turning the radio dial back up with her forefinger. “But I think your positivity is starting to rub off on me.”

“I don’t see how we can regret it.” I shrug, letting the music drown out the rest of my thoughts, trying to enjoy the last bit of time that I have with her alone before reality creeps in. “Let’s think of it like exposure therapy. For them.”

Her car is just how she left it when we arrive back at the pet daycare, and I help her load her suitcase into the trunk. When she kisses me goodbye, her hands fist the front of my shirt, as if she can’t bear to let me go, and I find that I feel the same way. Part of me wants to tell her to get back in the car. That we can drive right back to where we came from. Fallon would give her a job, I’m sure of it. And I could wait tables, do construction, tie people’s pontoons to the pier… anything.

But no matter how tempting that siren call of escape is, weareadults, not teenagers running from the world. As much as I loathe the feud that hangs over us and the absurdity of our families’ attitudes, we can’t hide from reality. We owe it to ourselves and to our families to address this, to work through it head-on.

Running from problems won’t solve them—they’ll only get bigger and more complicated in our absence. It’s far from ideal, but it’s the mature thing to do. As I drive home, the taste of the strawberry Starbursts in my mouth, and the memory of her laughter in my ears, I know that we have to face the music, no matter how discordant the melody.

So, instead of suggesting that we hightail it out of Frostvale, I wait in my car, watching to make sure hers starts okay and that she can drive it home. I linger in the parking lot after she’s gone, already missing her. There’s a black hair on my gear shift and an open bag of Skittles still in the passenger door. I grab a small handful, decide on a yellow one because it’s Eden’s favorite, and pop it in my mouth before driving home.

Part of the reason I wanted us to come back on Monday was so my father would still be at work when I got home. I don’t think I’d be able to hide it in my face that I had hidden something from him. I don’t think I could feel good about myself if I did. It’s one thing to go behind his back, but it’s another thing entirely to outright lie to his face. The house is quiet when I walk through the door, no other cars in the drive. I can hear the TV on in the back of the house, recognizing the soft music as one of Abuelita’s telenovelas she likes so much. I manage to sneak all the way to the foot of the stairs before I hear her call out to me.

“Mateo? Is that you?”

I hang my head in defeat, trudging to the living room where she sits. Her eyes twinkle with affection and wisdom. It’s not that I don’t cherish these moments with her—our talks are the lighthouses in the storm of life, guiding me toward clarity, toward understanding. It’s just that right now, I crave solitude to fully digest the profound events of the past three days.

Because no matter how you slice it, and no matter how much you fight it, you’re falling in love with Eden.

These past days with Eden have electrified me. Her laughter, her touch, her presence—it’s all new, like I’m touching something raw and alive for the first time.

My sweet girl is different, not just another woman but something more—a sudden storm, a rainbow, a bright star in a dark sky. I’m drawn to her in a way that baffles me, and yet at the same time, I don’t want to dissect it.

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