Page 138 of Betting on You

When I pulled up in front of her house, I put my car in park and just sat there.

Nothing in the world made sense anymore.

She said, “Unbelievable, right?”

I nodded and asked, “So did they make up? Theo and Charlie?”

“Come in and stay over,” Nekesa said as she opened the door. “And no, they did not. Charlie quit.”

He quit?Charliequithis job?

“Text your mom, and then I’ll tell you all about it.”

After I got my mom’s okay to sleep over, we went inside, and Nekesa told me about how Charlie gave his notice and they hadn’t heard from him since. It was ridiculous that I was concerned about him after what he’d done, but I was.

He didn’t need any more stress.

We went up to her room and watched old episodes ofProject Runway, and I felt content for the first time in what seemed like too long. Nekesa was my second home, in a way—not her house buther—and things felt a lot closer torightwith her beside me.

The third episode was starting when my phone buzzed.

It was Charlie.

I still want to take you to fall formal. Please go with me so I can fix this. I miss you.

“Oh my God—he is seriously killing me,” I moaned, hating that I could still hear every one of his texts perfectly narrated in his voice. Missing him was bad enough, but when he sent me messages that were exactly what I would’ve wished for before we fell apart, my heart ached.

Nekesa read the text and made a noise, always the defender. She picked up her phone and sent Charlie a message:

It’s Nekesa. Will you please leave Bay alone? You can’t fix this. You were right all along—you and Bailey CAN’T be friends. Also—she’s going to fall formal with ME. Bye.

I knew I should be laughing or cheering, because he deserved that and he needed to disappear from my life.

But there was still a part of me that didn’t want him to go.

Something inside of me wanted to stop her from sending that message, because what if it worked?

“Am I?” I asked about her fall formal comment, trying not to be sad over her words about Charlie and me never being friends.

“You already have a dress, right?” she said, setting down her phone and grabbing the bag of pretzels.

“Yeah.” I’d bought one on post-prom clearance last year.

“So why not?” Nekesa popped a pretzel into her mouth and said, “Who needs boys anyway?”

CHAPTER FIFTYCharlie

I sat back on the bed and stared at the phone in my hand, feeling gutted.

Hollow.

It felt like my stomach was made of lead and was slowly crushing everything else inside me, and no amount of TUMS was going to help.

Because it was finally over.

I’d always known it would happen, but it felt a thousand times worse than I’d imagined.

I was never going to get another text from Bay. I was never going to make her forehead crinkle with my words, or hear her laugh in that surprised way she had when she tried and failed to suppress it, never going to hear her quiet intake of breath when she realized we were about to kiss, and never going to hear her sleepily sayG’night, Charlieon the other end of the phone.

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