If There’s No Tomorrow

Normally that wouldn’t have been a big deal. We didn’t talk every day during the summer. But after what had happened at the lake? It was different.

The burning in my throat and the stinging in my eyes were there, but the tears never fell. Sometime in the middle of the night, I realized I hadn’t cried since...since everything with Dad. Somehow that made me want to cry even more. Why couldn’t I let myself cry?

All I managed to do was give myself one hell of a headache.

Thank God I didn’t have practice on Thursday, because I would’ve ended up with another well-deserved lecture. After Mom left, I crawled back in bed and stared at the cracked ceiling, replaying everything from the lake, right up to the moment things went south.

The moment I kissed Sebastian.

Part of me wanted to just pretend it didn’t happen. That had worked before.

I still pretended my Dad didn’t exist.

But when I woke up on Thursday morning after no late-night visits from Sebastian and no missed texts, I knew I had to talk to someone. I didn’t know what to do or how to handle this, and it wasn’t likely to suddenly come to me. So I’d texted the girls that morning, saying I needed to talk to them. I knew they’d understand the urgency when they saw I didn’t give a reason.

Abbi and Megan came as soon as they could, and I knew Dary would’ve, too, if she’d been in town.

Megan sat on my bed, her long legs tucked under her and her blond hair loose, falling over her shoulders. Abbi was in my computer chair, looking like me—like she just rolled out of bed and grabbed a pair of oversize sweats and a tank top.

I’d already given them the rundown of what had happened, assisted by the package of Oreos Megan had brought along. I may have eaten three or five while I talked. Okay, ten. Even so, I was still planning on murdering the leftover spaghetti and meatballs after they left.

“I just want to say, I’ve always known you had a crush on Sebastian,” Megan announced.

I opened my mouth, not sure how her weekly lecture about finding my future baby daddy could have anything to do with me having a crush on Sebastian.

Megan continued, “Since I’ve suspected you’ve had a huge obsession with him for a while now, I kept giving you my weekly lecture in hopes you’d admit it.”

I did not understand her thought process. At all.

“Obviously, I guessed it, too,” Abbi said. “I mean, the last we talked, I even said something.”

“It’s no big surprise you broke up with Andre,” Megan added. “You wanted to really, really like Andre, but you couldn’t, because you really, really like Sebastian.”

True. I had wanted to really like Andre, and I had liked him. It just... My heart wasn’t there, and it was probably the dumbest reason ever for sleeping with him, but I thought that if we took our relationship to the next level, then maybe it would change how I felt. It hadn’t and that had been the wake-up call to end the relationship.

I started walking back and forth in front of the closet. “Why didn’t you guys say something if it was that obvious?”

“Figured you didn’t want to talk about it,” Megan said with a shrug.

Abbi nodded. “You don’t like to talk about anything, really.”

I wanted to deny that, but...it was true. So damn true. I was the same way with Sebastian. I was a listener, not a talker. I could spend hours thinking about something but never giving voice to any of the thoughts.

“But let’s move past that for now. I’m so confused,” Megan said. “You said he made this noise—and I know what kind of noise you’re talking about. And that he held you. Kind of sounds like he was into it.”

My hands opened and closed at my sides. Full of restlessness, I continued to pace in front of my bed. “I don’t get it either. I mean, I really don’t know what I was thinking. Everything was fine. He was being his normal self and we were fooling around—”

“Fooling around?” Megan asked, and when I shot her a look, she threw up her hands. “Look, I’m just trying to make sure I have the full picture here.”

“Not the way you’re thinking,” I replied, rubbing my temples. “I went to hit him on the arm, you know, just being stupid, and he caught my wrist. The next thing I knew, I was in his lap and we were...just staring at one another.”

“And that’s when you kissed him?” Abbi crossed her legs. “Just one kiss?”

Covering my face with my hands, I nodded. “It was just a quick kiss on the lips. I’m not sure you could even consider it a kiss, really.”

“Quick or not, a kiss is a kiss,” Abbi said.