Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating(62)

Emily stops near a display of bananas. “Yeah. I get it.”

“And? Is Josh going to crush my heart like a grape beneath a boot?”

“You mean,” she says carefully, “is Josh in love with you, too?”

I nod. My heart is climbing up from my chest into my throat. I don’t think I could get another word out with the question put so plainly in the space between us.

“I know Josh has feelings.” She shifts her basket to her other arm. “I know he was trying to figure out what they meant, and where you were with it.” Emily winces. “I don’t want to give you false hope and tell you that I think he feels the same, because he’s been really careful to not be too … descriptive of his feelings when he talks to me.”

I groan.

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“Because I’m a coward?” I say, which I thought was pretty well established already. When she doesn’t bite I try again. “Because asking might ruin this.”

“Hazie, you know I hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t think things are ever going to be the way they were before anyway. You guys have already had sex. Twice. Most friends don’t have sex, period.” Frowning, she turns and starts walking again. “Which reminds me, I need to grab some tampons.”

The color of the produce in a bin across the aisle goes all wavy at the edges, and the crack near my feet doesn’t register until Emily is there, bending to put things back in my basket, looking up at me from where she’s kneeling. “Hazel.”

“Oh my God.” My heart is a fist, punching punching punching, and a lurching, upside down feeling takes hold of my stomach.

She stands, holding my basket, and I can’t focus on her face because my heart is pounding in my eyeballs.

“Are you okay?”

“No.” I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to clear the film of panic from the surface. Opening them, I meet Emily’s gaze. “I haven’t had a period in like … two months.”





TWENTY-ONE


JOSH


Emily and Dave are gone when I drop by with a giant container of kimchi and a twenty-pound bag of rice from Umma. If Hazel thinks I’m a neat freak, I’ve got nothing on my sister. The immaculate house looks like something out of a magazine spread—decorated simply with a collection of midcentury vintage furniture I know Emily has spent the last ten years carefully cultivating, fresh flowers in vases, and original art and funky light sconces decorating the walls.

But the pristine shine to the counters in the kitchen makes it very easy to spot the note she’s left for me.

J—

I’m out. Dave should be home soon. If Umma gave you rice, don’t leave it. I don’t need any.

E.



I smirk, stowing the rice in the pantry anyway, beside four other bags the same size. My rice situation is equally absurd—no way am I taking this back home. When I open the fridge to find room for the kimchi, I have to take out the container of leftover carne asada from Friday night.

A plate of leftovers and a beer later, they’re still not home.

Emily is often on my case for not having enough guy friends … is this what she means? That I’m sitting at my sister’s house, eating leftovers from her fridge and frowning at my watch when they stay out past six on a weeknight?

I call Hazel, but it goes straight to voicemail.

I call Emily—same. Does everyone have a life but me?

I know my restlessness is compounded because I’m sitting in my sister’s house, and there are signs of her happy marriage everywhere. Photos of her and Dave in Maui in a frame on a side table. A painting Dave did for her when they first met is mounted on a wall in the hallway. Their shoes are neatly lined up side by side on a rack just inside from the garage.

My house is clean, my furniture is nice, but the space is like an echo chamber lately. It’s so quiet. I never expected to think this, but I miss having Winnie there, watching her odd twilight mania around five every night when she sprinted through the house excitedly for ten minutes before flopping at my feet.

I miss tripping over shoes every time I walk in the door.

I miss Hazel. I’d buy a lifetime supply of fire extinguishers and eat bad pancakes every day to have her around again.

It could be different than it was before. We’re different now. She’s not just a new friend, she’s my best friend. The woman I love. We could have lingering talks over coffee or on a shared pillow, long into the night. She could bring her entire farm of animals, and I would be fine, I think. We could make a home of it.

The thought gives me such an intense pain in my chest that I stand, moving to the sink to wash my dish, and then pace circles around the house. Impulsively, I pull my phone out of my pocket, texting Dave.





I send him a thumbs-up and duck into the bathroom before I leave. On the wall, Emily has a framed painting of Umma and Appa’s hometown. Lush woods, a small creek beside a house. I wonder how Umma feels about this being stuck in the bathroom.

But when I glance down to flush, my eyes are drawn to the left, to the trash can just beside the sink. Inside it is a messy pile of white plastic sticks.

I think I know what these are.

And I think I know what the blue plus on every single one of them means.

..........