The Way You Make Me Feel(54)

Hamlet, Rose, and I followed them out into the parking lot. I walked alongside Patrick for a few seconds. I didn’t know what I was expecting, contrition or an apology? But when they got into the ambulances without a word to Hamlet and Rose—both of whom had done everything to help them—I had to say something.

“Hey!” I shouted.

Other than Felix who was lying down, everyone looked at me. I took a deep breath. “I hope you guys feel better soon, but after this is all done, you owe Hamlet an apology.”

Hamlet tugged at me. “It’s okay, Clara. They’re hurt—”

“Are you seriously asking for an apology right now?” Cynthia cried from the ambulance bench.

Felix put a hand on her arm. “It’s fine, Cyn. She’s right. Sorry about this, Hamlet.”

“Don’t even worry about it,” Hamlet said with a grim smile. “Just take care of yourself, man.”

Then the doors shut, and Felix’s ambulance wailed off into the distance. Patrick’s ambulance was idling, his injury not as serious. I walked over to him and he gave me a small smile. “Best summer ever.” I didn’t laugh. He sighed. “You’re right, we were being jerks.” He looked down at his lap. “But, I mean, it kind of sucks. Being ditched, you know?”

I bit down on my lip, suddenly feeling like I wanted to cry. “I didn’t ditch you guys.”

He glanced behind me at Rose and Hamlet, who were talking to the EMTs. “Maybe not. But you’re going to.”

Before I could respond, the medics closed up the doors and drove off, the ambulance growing smaller in the distance, leaving me caught between its receding lights and Hamlet and Rose.





CHAPTER 24

“Clara, look alive!”

I startled and looked up at the TV. My player had just fallen off a cliff.

Hamlet’s grandma threw her controller down in disgust. “I want to be on a different team!”

It was a few days after the water-park catastrophe and I was sitting on the carpet at Hamlet’s, playing our usual Friday night Space Pineapple Death Match. Early on in this new Friday routine, his grandpa reluctantly moved the video-game console downstairs so that we could play group matches. I was distracted, and Hamlet’s grandmother pulled herself off the carpet with a groan. “I’m going to get some snacks.” She pointed at me. “You. Practice some more while I’m gone.” Hamlet’s grandpa heaved himself off a chair to follow her. “You’re going to pick bad snacks,” he complained after her.

We paused the game, and the second his grandparents had scuttled into the kitchen, Hamlet reached over and pulled me closer to him—both of our backs pressed against the sofa. He touched the tip of my nose. “What’s up?”

“Your grandpa’s kicking my butt, as per usual.”

“No, I mean you seem off today. Is everything okay?”

I took a second to appreciate this Hamlet quality of checking on me. He was good at honing in on my feelings, and right now it was guilt about my friends ruining his parents’ grand opening. My shoulder bumped his as I scooted closer. “Yeah, I’m all right. Did your mom pick a new grand opening date yet?”

He shrugged. “No, my parents have to figure out the lawsuit first.”

Shame seeped into me. After the accident, Hamlet’s mom had to decide whether to delay the grand opening since the accident was bad press—you know, “Teenagers Almost Die in Water Park.” Before she could figure that out, however, Felix’s parents were threatening to file a lawsuit against the park. Felix had reached out to me to apologize because his parents weren’t backing down. I cursed Past Clara for not endearing herself more to Felix’s parents when we’d dated.

And in the middle of all this, I couldn’t get Patrick’s voice out of my head: But you’re going to. Everyone around me seemed to be noticing some sort of shift in me that I wasn’t sure I was ready for.

Here I was spending a Friday night with my debate-club-president boyfriend at his grandparents’ house. My debate-club-president boyfriend. And I already knew my weekend plans: I was going to get Ethiopian food with Pai and Kody (my idea—an olive branch after naengmyeon-gone-wrong) and go on a hike with Hamlet. And then work the KoBra on Sunday.

Over the course of the summer, my life really had become unrecognizable.

“Why do you like me?” The words came out before my brain could stop them—its squishy brain arms reaching out frantically while its “Noooooooo!” became an echo as the words flew farther away from its grasp.

I expected silence, the normal reaction to such a random and naked question. But Hamlet just chuckled and said, “Because!”

“Because why?” I couldn’t stop. The need to see myself through Hamlet’s eyes was overwhelming. I didn’t feel like myself lately, and I needed someone else to confirm that I was, indeed, the same person. Or confirm that I wasn’t.

He pulled his knees up into his chest. “Well, you’re really funny.”

What else was new. “So you’re into clowns.”

The joke got a belly laugh from Hamlet that it did not deserve. “Actually, I’m scared of clowns.”

“Who isn’t? The person who feels no fear in their heart when seeing a freaking clown in the flesh is probably a serial killer!”