Mistakes Were Made(100)

Erin’s balloon burst. “I don’t know. I … I don’t even know how she feels, honestly. We haven’t talked about it.”

“You’ve been dating for seven months and you haven’t talked about it?”

“We didn’t—I mean, we haven’t exactly called it dating. We haven’t called it anything. Talking about it would have made it real, and it couldn’t be real.”

“Y’all should probably talk about that, huh?”

“Ya think?”

“I gotta go talk Dad down anyway.”

Erin cringed. “I’m sorry about that,” she said. “I don’t care what he thinks of me, but I can’t imagine it’s going to be a particularly fun conversation for you.”

“I’ll definitely threaten to come back and spend the night here if he’s a dick about it,” Parker said. “But I won’t, ’cause”—she waved her hands vaguely—“I don’t want to mess up your … date night or whatever.”

As though their night hadn’t already been thoroughly messed up. “I’m more than happy to go back to pretending you don’t know rather than have you allude to my sex life.”

“Yeah, me too.” Parker shuddered like she was shaking the contamination off. “Anyway. I’ll deal with Dad. Don’t worry about it.”

Adam wasn’t who Erin was worried about dealing with though.

She had no idea what was going through Cassie’s head. Hopefully the other woman was simply overwhelmed, which would be understandable.

Erin watched Parker’s car pull away and then kept watching, like Cassie was going to immediately show up again. She bounced her leg. The street was empty.

After a minute or two, she convinced herself to finish making dinner instead of staring out the window.

A watched pot never boils.





Twenty-Five





CASSIE


Cassie drove too fast and left her helmet visor open. She couldn’t cry with the wind stinging her eyes.

She didn’t know where she was going. Took roads she hadn’t taken before. She just wanted to get away. Riding usually cleared her mind, but her thoughts were too messy.

The whole semester. Parker’s distance. Their fight. Acacia, stuck in the middle. None of it was what she’d thought it was.

The way Erin didn’t disagree with Parker’s claim they were dating.

That one made even less sense than the rest.

Cassie knew it looked like they were dating. Acacia had been telling her that for months, and Cassie could see it. They enjoyed each other’s company and liked having sex. It took Cassie until this fucking week to realize it was anything other than that. But Erin didn’t want to date her. That was what she’d told Rachel.

Maybe not in those specific words, but that was the gist.

She pulled off the road at a park.

This was so messed up. She needed to talk to her best friend.

Acacia picked up the phone with: “Did Parker get ahold of you?”

Cassie twisted her ponytail around her fist and yanked, the pressure and pain grounding her. “Not until after Adam walked in on me and Erin making out in her kitchen.”

“Shit.”

“Tell me about it.”

“He didn’t kill you, at least. Unless this is your ghost calling me.”

Cassie laughed quietly at that. Dialing Acacia, she’d been ready to cry, but she couldn’t help herself when it came to this idiot.

“Still alive, unfortunately,” she said.

“Agree to disagree on the fortunateness of that fact.”

“Okay but it’d be easier to be dead than deal with this.”

“It’d be easier to be dead than to figure out what to eat for dinner every day, too, doesn’t mean it’s unfortunate to put a frozen pizza in the oven for the third night in a row.”

“Forget Adam,” Cassie said instead of admitting Acacia had a point. “How’d you convince Parker not to kill me?”

“Yeah, that took some work,” Acacia said. “And almost two months.”

“So she wasn’t just like, really obsessed with Sam after Valentine’s Day?”

“No, she definitely was. She just also wanted to murder you.”

Cassie huffed out another laugh. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Acacia made everything easier. Everything was still a mess and Cassie was still going to have to figure her shit out, but talking to Kaysh, it didn’t feel as impossible.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Acacia said. “She knew—on Valentine’s Day, she figured out that I’d known. I don’t know, my face or something when she told me about the texts. But I didn’t tell her any specifics, really, just that you were kind of hung up on her mom.”

Cassie tugged on her ponytail again. “Understatement of the year, it turns out.”

“Yeah,” Kaysh agreed. “Honestly, I wasn’t surprised Parker came to terms with y’all dating before you did.”

Cassie wasn’t sure they had yet. Erin didn’t want to date her, right?

There was a beat of silence, and then Acacia’s voice was quiet as she asked, “You’re not mad at me for lying to you?”