Twelve Steps to Normal(12)

“What’s wrong?” Alex had asked when he sat down on the brick wall next to me. I noticed today his Converse were splattered with streaks of gray.

“Nothing,” I replied, the same thing I’d told Raegan and Whitney and Lin.

He just stared at me.

“What?” I finally snapped.

Instead of getting defensive, his eyes softened. “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me.”

I looked at him, realizing just how much he paid attention. Even though my friends knew about Grams passing, he was the one who continued to text me every evening to help ease my mind away from my sad thoughts. I wasn’t as guarded as I thought I was, at least not around Alex. It’d always been easy to talk to him.

So I took a deep breath.

“It’s just… my dad.” Then I told him about his occasional binge drinking and how he was always late to get me because he’d usually go straight for the beer after work and pass out.

“Anyway,” I’d finished. “He’s still torn up about Grams. It’ll be okay.”

“Well,” Alex kicked the heels of his sneakers against the wall. “If you need anything…”

A new kind of warmth spread through my chest. “Thank you.”

He tugged on the back of his beanie, a small smile forming at the corner of his mouth.

Later that night, my phone chimed with an incoming text. My heartbeat tripled when I saw who it was from.

ALEX: you watching Crime Boss?

Face flushed, I typed:

ME: Detective Fay’s season 6 acting is lazy. and these explosions are WEAK

Seconds later, another chime.

ALEX: lol

ALEX: you know I meant what I said earlier?

The warmth in my chest was back, a strange new feeling that made my heart flutter. I believed that he cared for me, and that meant more than I could even begin to say.

ME: I know

I tried to fall asleep later that night, but my mind spun in circles around Alex. I’d always brushed aside his crush like it was a pair of pants he’d soon outgrow. I never expected I’d return the feelings he’d had for me for so long.

I kept these emotions to myself for the rest of the week, but the original brushfire quickly burst into a white-hot flame. I yearned for the moment when he’d slip beside me in English and turn toward me to say hi. I found myself wanting to prolong our conversations before we had to part ways for our next class. When I spotted him waiting for me by the brick wall after school, my tumbling heartbeat wouldn’t quiet until the moment I stepped through my front door.

I made the decision to ask him to our freshman Sadie Hawkins dance a week later. I could picture him sputtering through his response, that modest smile spreading across his cheeks as he said yes.

This would have gone perfectly if he hadn’t said yes to Lacey Woodward’s invitation first.

I found out on our ride home together. He explained that she’d cornered him after theater rehearsal and asked.

“Oh,” I said, my initial shock turning to numbness. “And you—?”

“Yeah, um,” Alex looked at the car floor as he said this. “I said yeah.”

It was scary how quickly my hurt turned into jealousy. He said yes to Lacey? Lacey? Did he forget that she totally made fun of him in fifth grade after he had to go to the nurse for his asthma? Or that she’d called us losers for always obsessing over Supernatural? On the Richter scale of anger, I was a nine.

One of my biggest regrets was texting him to tell him I didn’t need rides from his mom anymore. But because he was Alex, he texted me twice to see if I was sure. At the time I was. I couldn’t sit in a car and pine for him knowing he had feelings for Lacey and not for me. It wasn’t until later that I realized he’d been in this exact same position with me for the last few years. Without any success, of course he’d moved on.

So I became preoccupied with dating Jay and after the weirdness of Sadie Hawkins was over, Alex and I ended up staying friends. Even if we weren’t as close as before, we’d still sometimes pass notes to each other on discarded Tropical Starburst wrappers and text about Crime Boss and the small snippets I told him about my dad. Things I never bothered telling Jay.

I stare at the closed door of the counselor’s office. Alex looked surprised to see me. Was it a good surprised? Bad surprised? My stomach sinks. Of course it’s the latter—especially after what he told me right before I left for Portland.

I’m so engrossed in my thoughts that I don’t hear the sound of the door bursting open behind me. Before I have time to step aside, it hits me on the side of the head with a thwump.

“Oh shit—” a voice says.

Pain sears at my temple. I groan, immediately enraged. Maybe I shouldn’t have been standing in the way, but who the hell swings a door open with that much momentum?

“I’m so—Kira?”

I glance up when I hear my name.

Oh god.

There he is.

Jay.

I’m clutching the side of my head, but through the spots I immediately recognize his concerned eyes and neatly cropped hair. I blink. He’s still there. He wears a slightly amused smile on his face, complete with a tiny mole on the edge of his lip. Definitely Jay. My Jay.

Wait. No. Not my Jay.

I blame being caught off-guard for my brilliant reply, “Ow.”