The Love That Split the World(64)

Across the field, someone’s descending the bleachers: a waify blond in shorts and a T-shirt. She steps onto the track and waves but doesn’t say anything. Megan. Not my Megan, but Megan all the same. She begins to make her way around the track at a steady pace, and I start running again too. We jog at opposite ends of the track, falling into sync, never gaining on one another, like two planets in orbit.

I lose track of time again, and it’s only when Megan slows down and heads toward the bottom row of bleachers to sit that I resurface from the depths of my mind. The sun is peeking up, painting the sky a fiery orange.

I finish my lap at a walk and go to sit beside her, wishing she were my best friend. We sit for a while in silence, watching the sunrise. In silence, I can at least pretend I’m with my best friend.

She is my best friend.

“I’m sorry,” I say suddenly. “About Matt.”

She forces a smile but doesn’t look at me. “Yeah, me too.”

“He’ll be okay.”

“How would you know?”

“I guess I don’t know. But I think it.”

She wipes at her tears with the back of her hand. “Me too.” She’s silent for a couple of minutes, and I think she’s done talking and wants to be alone, but then she goes on. “I’ve been in love with him since I was ten.”

“What?” I say, shocked. Is it possible I’d completely missed that in my Megan? When we were ten, I’d hardly given Matt a second thought, but the two of them had been friends for a couple of years already. “Seriously?”

“There’s this kid we went to elementary school with, Cameron,” Megan says. “He was sort of a redneck, kind of poor and usually dirty. We had this glider thing on our playground, and one day Cameron was on it. He fell off and slid across the mulch, and his pants came down. Everyone saw his butt, and no one would walk there for, like, a week. People would scream ‘butt germs’ when they went past it.”

I stare at Megan in disbelief. I have this same memory. Exactly.

“Matt wasn’t friends with Cameron, or anything, but he felt bad,” she continues. “People were being so stupid about it just to make Cameron feel bad, and everyone just sort of went along with it just because. Matt was the first person to use the glider after that—I mean, other than Beau, of course, who was born not caring about what anyone thinks. Beau’s always been popular, but he’s not exactly the person people want to emulate. Not like Matt. Anyway, Derek made a big deal about Matt catching butt germs from the glider, so Matt mooned him.” She breaks into an uneasy laugh and wipes at her eyes again. “It’s the only time he’s gotten detention, I’m pretty sure.”

I remember all that, I want to say. You and I were there too. You and I made fun of Cameron’s butt germs, and felt guilty when Matt finally put a stop to it.

“That’s when I fell in love with Matt Kincaid,” Megan says quietly.

It’s like a dagger in my heart. Not jealousy, at least not toward Megan. If anything, I’m jealous that she loves Matt but doesn’t even know me. And I’m jealous that this Megan would tell me about things mine never has. I wonder when her feelings for him went away, if they even did, and how I didn’t notice them.

Had I been hurting her, hurting both of them, for the last six years over something it turns out I’d never been sure I wanted? Or is a world without me in it really so different that Megan could have feelings for Matt in one reality and not the other?

“He’s going to get through this,” I say. “You guys still have centuries of mooning people together ahead of you.”

She laughs into her hand, but the tears keep sliding down her cheeks. “I’m not sure that’s even what he wants,” she says. “He’s had girlfriends the whole time we’ve been friends. It was just starting to seem like . . . and now . . .”

I grab her hand in mine, my Megan no matter what. “He’ll have time to figure it out,” I say. “And if he gets it wrong, then he’ll have plenty of time to experience crushing regret as he watches you grow old with your hot professional hockey player husband.”

“God, it’s like you’ve been reading my search history,” she jokes, and I feel a rush of pain at realizing how much I miss this.

“I’m super intuitive when it comes to hot guys,” I say. “They’re my love language.”

“Well, you’ve got your hands full with one, that’s for sure.” She shakes her head. “Beau Wilkes staring wistfully at an Ivy League girl. Who would’ve thought? It’s tragic, really.”

“How’d you know about Brown?”

“Oh, please. Beau is our resident disenchanted, uninterested, gorgeous, yet undeniably broken one-night-stander, heavily marked by the scent of Rachel Hanson. You’re news, Natalie.” She sees the look on my face, then hurries to add, “Don’t get me wrong. I love Beau. Everyone does. It’s just, you seem great, and I hope you know what you’re getting into. Poor guy has enough baggage to fill CVG Airport.”

I shake my head. “I’m not getting into anything. I’m leaving for the rest of summer in a few weeks. Beau’s just helping me with something.”

“Right,” she says, nodding. “Helping you make out. There’s probably no better coach in the county.”