History Is All You Left Me(89)

“Thanks for coming over.”

“Thanks for the invite,” Wade says, sitting on the windowsill.

I shake my head and reach out to him. “Come sit with me.” Wade takes my hand and we sit closely, my knee against his thigh. “I should jump right in before it hits midnight. I don’t want you starting off your new year wondering if I’m worth hanging around for or not.” I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry my love for Theo has been a roadblock for you. It’s been a huge one for me, too. But you should know the day Theo died I called him because I wanted to talk about you. I couldn’t reach him, so I left a voice mail, which apparently put him in a mood that sent him walking into the ocean . . . I killed the person I’ve loved more than anyone because I was trying to tell him about my new feelings for our best friend . . .”

Wade doesn’t wait until I’m finished before he hugs me, massaging my back. “There’s no way this is your fault. There are one hundred things that could’ve gone wrong. Damn, dude, I didn’t know you were carrying around this guilt.” He pulls back. “I messed up, too. I knew you weren’t actually trying to have some relationship with Jackson, but I got jealous anyway. It’s not fun being the loser. I’ve spent the past couple of nights feeling like an idiot about our whole situation. If we never had sex, we wouldn’t be sitting here right now trying to figure out if we’re going to be in each other’s lives next year.”

This is true. “I want to give us a shot, I swear. But I can’t rush this or we’ll get it wrong. You have to understand though that I’m still carrying Theo around with me, and I’m sure you are too. But it’s different for me. I know you’re not Theo, and I don’t want you to be.”

I promise going forward I will never demote the love I have for anyone. I’m growing to hate the word love because it always sounds lame, but love shouldn’t only count when there’s a victory. Love was never the liar; I was.

“Do you trust me?” I ask.

“I guess.” Wade kisses me on the forehead, which sends one of those cold shivers across my shoulders and down my spine. “Do you believe I want to be something more to you?”

“I guess.” I kiss his cheek.

My mom calls for us; the countdown is about to start. We rush into the living room and put on stupid party hats and wear plastic whistles around our necks. My dad pours us cider in plastic flute glasses. I really wish you were here, not romantically, but to reunite the squad, back in full force like when we were younger, before everything got complicated. But that’s okay. I’m going to try and have fewer regrets in the New Year. I’m going to move past what’s already done and make sure I don’t repeat my mistakes moving forward.

Ten. Nine . . .

Wade turns to me, smiling like his life has already been rebooted.

Eight. Seven . . .

I throw back my cider and put down the glass.

Six. Five . . .

Wade does the same, knowing he’s about to need his hands, too.

Four. Three . . .

I’m getting ready to reintroduce him to the world.

Two. One . . .

My heart is out of control, but I’m not as I pull Wade to me, kissing him with the force of everything happy. A lot of that unexpected happiness is thanks to him. Once my parents pull apart from their own kiss, they’ll be expecting to embrace me, and they’ll find me in arms they were never betting on finding me in. I stay in Wade’s arms because “Auld Lang Syne” comes on, and, damn it, Theo, last year was so impossible and trying, I don’t know how I got out of it alive. But I know how I’ll be surviving this year.

And I still know the hardest part of my survival is ahead of me.

Wednesday, January 4th, 2017

Sharing a cab to your house with your ex-boyfriend and my not-quite-yet-but-maybe-one-day boyfriend seems like the start to a bad joke. But the only thing funny so far is that Wade threatened Jackson, warning him to stay ten feet away from my dick at all times or Wade will chop his off.

That was all in good awkward humor, I think.

Jackson got here with good timing because I’m returning to school tomorrow. Luckily I’ll have Wade by my side: Team Mountain. It sounds like Jackson isn’t quite ready to return yet himself, and I won’t fight him on that decision.

We get out of the cab and head straight upstairs to your apartment, where your parents are expecting us. Russell and Ellen give us the warmest hugs. They seem in good spirits. I’m sure it makes you happy to see them getting better and better every time, right? On a scale of happiness, no one wants them stuck on the unhappy side, unable to lift themselves up and move on.

Your mother prepares iced tea while Jackson and Wade talk to your dad and Denise tells me everything she got for Christmas. Every single gift . . . I’m rescued shortly because Ellen knows the conversation the three of us want to have with her and Russell isn’t Denise-friendly and we don’t want to upset her, so she sends Denise to her room to play her racing video games.

“So what’s going on?” Ellen asks, crossing one leg over the other while sipping from her hot tea.

We—Jackson and I—tell your parents how we’re responsible for your death. We tell them how if we hadn’t been feuding, we possibly wouldn’t have driven you so crazy, you needed to distance yourself from everyone. I tell them about the voice mail that sent you there, but not why I called you in the first place. Jackson apologizes for not being brave enough to save you himself.