Page 57 of Just Friends

“It was…” I hesitate, catching my bottom lip between my teeth. “It was fine.”

Lucy’s blue eyes widen, her eyebrows inching up her forehead. “That good, huh?”

A laugh bubbles out of me, and Lucy’s questioning expression dissolves into a smile, one corner of her mouth hooking up before the other.

“Parker was nice,” I say when I finally control myself.

Lucy is still grinning as she watches me closely. “Fine and nice. Sounds like a match made in heaven.”

My back presses into the shiny booth seat, and I take a long sip of my lemonade, savoring the tangy sweetness as I think of how to put my thoughts into words.

“Hewasnice, and I can’t pinpoint any one thing that was wrong with the date,” I say finally, trailing my finger up and down the condensation on the plastic cup.

“But…?” Lucy asks, cocking a brow.

I square my shoulders, letting out a breath through my nose, determination steeling my spine. “But nothing.”

Lucy’s jaw tightens, and I know she’s about to lecture me. She takes almost nothing too seriously in life—she’s a free spirit like me, and it’s what I love most about her—but she doesn’t play around when it comes to love. She’s been reading romance novels since middle school, bingeing rom-coms every night, and it’s given her unrealistic expectations. She loves easily and with abandon, and she’s had her heart broken more times than she can count, but somehow, it’s never held her back from trying again.

“Hazel Mae Lane, we don’t settle forniceandfine.”

I barely contain my eye roll.

“Love should be sweeping and grand and all-consuming. It should make you feel alive and reckless and steal your breath. It should not befine.” She says the word with such disgust that it’s like it personally wronged her.

I let out a deep breath, pursing my lips. “You just don’t get it, Luce.”

Her face softens, but I can still see the determination lingering beneath the surface, ready to bubble over, to force me to drop all my reservations and fall deeply in love.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“You have all these visions of dancing in the rain and kissing on top of the Empire State Building. You think love is butterflies and stardust and the hazy ambience of a nineties film.” There’s a desperate feeling in my chest, a clawing sensation, and it’s choking me. “But it’s not like that. It’s loving someone so deeply it hurts and then finding them in bed with their neighbor.”

Tears prick at the back of my vision, but it’s not even about Sebastian. It’s about all the times I was so, so close to having it—that love Lucy clings to so tightly—and having it slip through my fingers time and again. Because Sebastian wasn’t my first attempt at love; he was just the latest in a long series of deadbeats who let me down.

“It doesn’t have to be like that, Haze,” Lucy says, and I want to scream. I want to rage. I want to make her understand while also protecting that little bit of innocence and magic that the world hasn’t managed to beat out of her yet.

“No, it doesn’t have to be,” I say finally, sniffing. “It can be nice, and it can be better than fine if I give it another chance.”

The look she gives me is pitying. “It can be better than that.”

“What if I don’t want it to be?” I ask, my voice rising. “What if I wantfine? What if I want it to be good, but not great? What if I want it to be something I’d be okay with losing?”

The words hit me like arrows, puncturing my armor. I hadn’t realized I felt this way, and it settles on me like a too-heavy blanket, smothering.

“Hazel,” Lucy says, her voice choking with sympathy. I have to look away from the compassion in her eyes.

“Sebastian almost wrecked me,” I say, not meeting her gaze. “And all the ones before him. I just want something easy. Is that too much to ask for?”

“No,” she tells me softly, almost a whisper. “It’s not too much to ask for. But that doesn’t mean you have to settle for fine. That doesn’t mean you should want someone who’s easy to give up.”

My fingers toy with the plastic straw. “It seems less likely to end in heartbreak.”

“It doesn’t have to end in heartbreak.”

I wish I still had her optimism. I wish I could trust myself in love, trust myself to find someonegood, but I can’t. Which is why I started this whole thing with Alex. And it worked—he found someone exactly like what I’m looking for. Someone nice, with the potential to be more than fine.

I really don’t want more than that.

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