“Do you still want to go do homework somewhere?” I ask him.

His jaw ticks, and he seems, out of every emotion, angry. He doesn’t bother to respond; he just glares at me. I take it as a no.

I try to find the right way to talk to him on the ride back to Books & Beans.

“Do you want to talk about it?” is what I come up with.

“Talk about what, Reed?” Dylan’s voice is neutral, but I think he is straining himself to keep it that way.

I flinch. “What we…the parking lot.”

“Nothing of consequence happened in that parking lot. Understand? If it wasn’t you, I would have been somewhere else with someone else tonight. And things would have progressed far more quickly and easily than it did back there.”

My mouth drops open at the severity of his words.

“Okay,” is all I can say to him before I step out of the car.

He zooms out of the parking lot, and I understand that while his response was honest, in the most gutting way possible, it was also self-preservation.

I think back to the conversation we had in the library; the day he first asked for my help.

“You think the world is all about using people, Dylan. It’s not.”

“You say ‘using’ like it’s a bad thing.”

He thinks I’m just as bad as he is.

And I don’t know if he’ll trust me to show him that I’m not.

I feign happiness as Marie slides a few cookies my way, then I spend the rest of the night wondering if I should update my life plans or burn them all to hell.

8

I’ve set myself up at our dining room table.

It’s the one that only gets used at Christmas or the occasional dinner party my parents have with a small group of friends, which always includes James’s parents. All other times, it collects papers, delivery boxes, and anything else that doesn’t really have a dedicated spot somewhere else in our house.

Today, I decide, it’s where I’m going to sit and write my essay.

Or rather, where I’m going to sit and stare at the blank document that should be my essay.

I breathe a sigh of relief when James comes in the house through the side door after an hour of nothingness.

“H, you here?”

“Dining room,” I call back and shut my laptop, effectively throwing in the towel for the day.

James makes a quick pit stop in the kitchen for a bag of chips, which he reluctantly shares with me when I hold out my hand.

Honestly, he’s a welcome distraction.

“So, what will it be?” James asks, sitting in the chair beside me and propping his feet up on the one across from us. “Walk in North Park or movies?”

“Shoes off the furniture,” I tell him for the millionth time in our lives.

I don’t know where he got this habit from. Not only does it gross me out that he’s putting his filthy sneakers where we sit to eat, but the chair pads are white.

When I own a house someday, all the furniture is going to have to be in a dark fabric.

I stop myself because it’s another little thing I’m planning in my life around James, and after last night, I feel a little strange about it.

“Let’s do something different today,” I suggest.

He raises an eyebrow. “Different? You sure you don’t just want to go to the movies?”

“I checked, and nothing looks good for both of us,” I lie quickly.

For the most part, I usually love going to see new releases with him, especially when we drive to the big theater downtown with the leather seats that recline. We usually raise the armrest and make a little comfortable nest for the two of us, which hardly seems appropriate given the fact that he is most definitely with Lyla.

But also, I just don’t want to sit beside James in a dark movie theater for two hours.

“Surely there are plenty of things in this city that neither of us has done before?” I say.

He hasn’t totally bought into this idea yet. “Like what? The science center or something?”

That would require planning and coercion on my part, so I come up with something else off the top of my head.

“Here,” I say, pulling up a map of Pittsburgh on my phone. “Now close your eyes and drop your finger on the screen. Wherever it lands is where we spend the day.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“Just do it,” I snap and move it closer to him.

He lands on Shadyside. “Not the worst place I could have picked.”

It’s actually a beautiful part of the city.

I’ve driven through it a few times with my parents, but I haven’t spent much time wandering through the streets and stores. Since it’s sunny, we decide to walk around and get lost for the day.

We stop in random antique shops, boutiques, and paper stores that seem to carry far more items than actual paper. James talks me into buying a new hat and scarf set, which I desperately need, and then we window shop a few restaurants before we stop into a small diner for lunch.

“This has been nice,” I say to him.

“Yeah,” he agrees, tracing the rim on his mug. “It feels like we spend all this time together, but at this point, it’s a little blurry.”

I know what he means.

We’ve spent so many years of our lives on my bedroom floor and at the kitchen table that it’s kind of hard to pick out any specific moments. But it’s the summation of them all, I think, that means something.

“It’s good to do something new,” I admit.

“And think of all the new things we’ll experience at Cornell next year,” he says with a smile. “College parties, new friends, different places.”

I hum noncommittally and take a long sip of my coffee.

“Many more days like this.” The words are almost wistful coming from his mouth, like he’s dreaming up a future he’s really looking forward to.

He slings his arm around the back of my chair, causing me to shoot upward.

I’ve spent years loving every little touch and gesture from him. Everything about him, really, but something about last night cracked the rose-colored glasses I’ve been wearing my entire life.

“James,” I sigh.

“Uh oh.”

“What?”

“Whenever you say my name like that, it’s because you’re going to scold me or ask a question you really are dreading,” he explains. “My predictable H.”

Innocent.

Cute.

Predictable.

I grind my teeth and prepare to stab him with my words. “So, you’re dating Lyla again?”

His eyebrows practically shoot up to his hairline. “How’d you hear about that?” he asks.

“Does it matter?” I bite back.

He shrugs. “It happened last night, actually. We decided to kind of take it slow. You know, she just broke up with that exchange student a few weeks ago. We started talking during Calculus and then it happened.”

It seems reasonable enough, minus the fact that he left out the part about going out with her last night.

Who knows when he would have told me if I hadn’t asked him directly.

“Are you mad?” James’s voice has a strange pout to it.

I don’t know how I would have reacted if he sprung this information on me casually. So as much as it stung, it was almost better to see it for myself and rip the Band-Aid off in private.