You Have a Match(48)

The cold is a heart-stopping zap. My legs pump under the frigid water and my arms flap like they’ve forgotten how to be arms, but for a freeing, very long second, it’s like it is happening to someone else. I breathe in and there’s fog in my lungs and ice in my blood, and it pushes out everything in its path—every embarrassment, every confusion, every doubt—frozen and sloughed right off.

I start running back out of the water before I’m even fully immersed, and straight up to where Leo is prepping the hot chocolate. He stops in the middle of whatever he’s saying to Mickey, his eyes wide with alarm.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I pant. “Um—I just wanted—can I talk to you?”

“Uh, yeah, of course,” says Leo, scanning me up and down like he’s not quite sure I’m intact. We take a few steps away from Mickey, and he lowers his voice. “Actually, I had something I wanted to talk to you about, too. What’s up?”

“I…” For once it’s not that I’ve lost my nerve, but my teeth are chattering like one of those wind-up skull toys on Halloween. I need a beat. “You go first.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, hopping between my feet and shivering with violence.

Leo glances around us, and something flips in my rib cage. A stupid little hiccup of hope that maybe, just maybe, we are about to tell each other the same thing.

“The thing is, Abby … last week I got off the waitlist at another culinary school.”

The words are so unexpected that there’s no room for the disappointment that follows. I blink dumbly at him. “I thought you’d only applied to the one.”

“Just the one in Seattle,” says Leo quietly. “This one’s in New York. And yesterday, I … I sent the deposit. I leave in September.”

The ground feels uneven under my feet, like someone suddenly tilted it.

“Oh.” I try to smile, but it’s wobbly and wrong. “Congratulations, Leo, I … wow.”

He leans in, talking in the too-fast way he does during his legendary information dumps, except now he’s wringing his hands and saying it like an apology. “I didn’t think I’d go, but this past week, cooking with Mickey—it’s been like a dream. Like this whole world opened up. And this school has all these international exchange opportunities, and an instructor whose Filipino dishes are like, world-famous, plus all of the classes come with an academic session for cultural context,” he says. “I think I’m supposed to be there. The opportunities are— Abby, I couldn’t pass it up.”

“Of course not,” I blurt. It sounds graceless and throaty, but at least it’s genuine. I really am happy for him. I’m proud of him. We’ve all lived in Shoreline our whole lives, so this decision couldn’t have been an easy one. And Leo was so torn between choosing culinary school or an academic track. Now he’ll get to do both.

But underneath that happiness, that pride, is a hurt so deep that I can’t find the start of it, let alone an end. It’s like sitting down in the place where your chair has always been and falling into nothing.

“You’ll be so far away,” I say, without realizing I’ve spoken. I catch myself before I say the thing that presses into me like a bruise: And you didn’t think I was important enough to tell.

The “lost chance” Connie was talking about—it was about this. It was never about me.

“Yeah. I know.” He puts a hand on my shoulder, and it should steady me, but I’m reeling. “But it’s not going to change anything, right? We’ll always be best friends.”

He looks so earnestly worried that whatever I should or shouldn’t say loses steam before I can say it. New York. I’ve never even left the West Coast. It might as well be another planet. And here I am, working up the nerve to tell Leo I’m in love with him, when Leo’s been working up the nerve to tell me he’s leaving my life for good.

“Of course,” I say, but I don’t believe it. Everything’s already changed, enough that I’m not even sure if we can use the words best friend anymore. Best friends don’t lie. Best friends don’t keep secrets this monumental. I thought we told each other everything, Leo told me, only a rock’s throw from this exact spot. But I lied to Leo, and Connie and Leo have both lied to me.

“You said you had something, too?”

I nod, and the last of my hope goes with it.

“Just, uh, Savvy and I … we’re good.”

Leo’s face eases into the kind of smile that breaks storms. “That’s awesome.”

“Yeah,” I manage.

Just then the first wave of polar bear swimmers makes it back to shore, and Mickey calls to Leo to help with the hot chocolate distribution. Leo reaches out and grabs me by the hand before he goes, pulling me in too fast for me to stop it and holding me close even though I’m soaking wet. I crush my eyes shut into his chest, and I let myself have this. Just for a moment. Whatever it could have been.

“We’ll catch up tonight,” he says, pulling away.

I turn back to the shore as he goes, feeling so separate from the next wave of runners getting ready to jump in that I might as well be a ghost. Someone touches my arm.

“Hey,” Savvy says quietly.