Interim(83)

Regan furrowed her brows, then shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t think so. It’s not easy to become one of them. You have to sacrifice a lot.”

“Well, apparently she was willing to do that.”

“But what’s that got to do with me?”

“She wanted to take you along for the ride. I suppose she thought I’d get in the way.”

Regan thought a moment. “You realize you just absolved me of everything, right?”

“Huh?”

“You said she wanted to take me along.” Regan threw up her hands. “I was forced! Not responsible!” she cried, trying for a joke.

Jeremy snorted. “Oh, you’re plenty responsible for the poor choices you’ve made.”

Regan bristled even as she conceded his point with a nod.

“Why didn’t you just come to me and ask? God, this all makes sense now! The dirty looks you gave me in middle school until high school when you completely ignored my existence.”

“I was embarrassed! I was rejected!”

“You threw yourself between me and a bunch of *s to keep them from hitting me! How do you go from that to being too scared or humiliated to talk to me? The Regan I remember would have gotten all up in my face and been like, ‘You little jerkface! What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you wanna be my friend, huh? I’m amazing! I’m Regan Walters!’”

They stared at each other. And then Regan burst out laughing. Jeremy followed suit.

“People’s impressions of me are the worst!” she wheezed.

“Oh, I’m not the only one?”

“Not lately,” she said, thinking back to Hannah’s “Hello world! Hello losers!” impersonation.

“I’ll work on it,” Jeremy said, watching her carefully.

The revelation of her note back in middle school coupled with her recent breakup was almost too much for him. He wasn’t accustomed to feeling so much, having trained most of the emotions out of his heart with target practice. The fortuitous entangling of his life with Regan’s changed the way his mind worked, the way his heart operated. He was feeling, and feeling too much. He knew she was dangerous the moment he discovered she’d read his journal. She had all the power to destroy his plan. But now he was discovering a new danger to her—the power she wielded over him to feel. To desire love and acceptance and happiness.

“You’re right,” he heard her say. “I should have confronted you about it. I should have made you be my friend.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“That’s right,” she said, encouraged. “I should’ve just made you.” She laughed softly.

“You wouldn’t have had to,” he admitted. “Like I said, I would have been your friend.”

“But not because I felt sorry for you, right? Or because you thought you owed me?”

“For sticking up for me? I’ll always owe you for that.”

She blushed. Hard. A racking wave that started at her scalp and moved like rolling thunder down her body to her toenails.

“You don’t owe me for anything. I turned into an *.”

Jeremy shook his head. “You hung out with them. You made some questionable choices. But I never thought you turned mean.”

Regan scratched her cheek. “You think Casey did?”

“Do you?”

She nodded reluctantly.

“So why do you care that she doesn’t want to talk to you right now? Why hang out with a mean person?”

“She’s my best friend, Jeremy! Those feelings don’t just disappear like that.” She snapped her finger. “Plus, I can’t stop remembering Casey the way she used to be.”

“When she was a loser?”

“Ugh. I really hate that word,” Regan replied.

“But she was. And so was I. So were you,” he pointed out.

“Being an outcast is not the same thing as being a loser,” Regan argued. “Losers don’t care about anything—don’t try to better their lives. Don’t call us that. We weren’t losers. We were different.”

“All right. I see your point,” Jeremy said.

Silence.

Regan fidgeted with the hem of her shirt.

“I’m sorry your friends did that to you this morning,” Jeremy whispered. “It was cruel.”

“I think it mostly took the wind out of my sails because I just wanted to brag about my awesome breakup moment, and I never got the chance,” Regan replied, chuckling.