If Only (15 page)

“Is this supposed to make it easier to let you go now, pretending like we’re not saying good-bye?”

His lips touch the inside of my hand, the last kiss I’ll get from him if I don’t take him up on his offer.

“Easier for me, maybe,” he admits.

Griffin invites me onto the easy path, the one he carves so well for himself, but I don’t belong on it anymore.

“Griffin, I…”

“You don’t have to answer me now. If we leave this undecided, then we don’t say good-bye.” His voice catches on the last syllable, and I pretend not to notice. If he wants this from me, I’ll give it to him. I’ll give him
See you later.

“Just check your journal when you get home.”

My eyes widen.

“Don’t worry. I didn’t read anything. I may have left you an entry of my own, though, a date and place to meet if you want to. Don’t answer me now. Don’t answer next week. Hell, you can text me the day before. Let’s leave it at maybe
.
”

He pulls away first, as it should be, but as the distance between us grows, I have to know.

“Griffin?”

“Yeah?”

“Duncan and Elaina said something about you having a lot of fun, with a lot of girls, that they weren’t keeping track of who went in and out of your room.”

He laughs, and I immediately regret tiptoeing down this line of questioning.

“Forget it. It’s none of my business. I’ll go now.”

I turn to walk out the door when he answers.

“Video games.”

“What?” I pivot back to face him.

“I met a couple of friends at the comic book store where I rented the PS3. Gwen and Sarah. They come over sometimes to play. Video games, I mean.”

I grin. He had every right to do whatever he wanted this past month, and he still may have. But I don’t ask him any more questions. I’ll take video games.

“Jordan?”

“Yeah?”

“Anything worth the wait is also worth the fight. Whatever you want, fight for it.”

My teeth grab my upper lip.

“See you later, Griffin.”

“See you later, Jordan.”

When I get back to my flat, I join the melee of Elaina and Duncan trying to clean our tiny kitchen. Physically and emotionally spent, I collapse into bed immediately after, but not before checking my journal. I thumb through the blank pages to find it, just a word and a date:
Amsterdam, March 23
. I yelp with laughter, having expected something epically romantic like Paris. But epic romance never really was his thing. Seeing Griffin again after the semester is a possibility, nothing more than that. Whether or not it happens doesn’t matter because a possibility means not having to really say good-bye.

Chapter Twelve

It’s the Monday before the winter holiday. I’m running late for class, which is why I forget my umbrella. So I throw my hood over my head, hoping it’s enough to combat the cold, December drizzle on my walk through the park. It’s so not.

Huddled over my bag to protect my laptop, I swear to myself for turning off my alarm and trusting morning me with a promise of only five more minutes. I’m so immersed in my inner monologue that it takes a few seconds to notice the rain has stopped. Correction: it’s still raining, but an umbrella hovers over my head.

“Are you new?”

“Huh?” I ask, allowing my shoulders to un-hunch so I’m face-to-face with Noah.

He smiles, shaking a damp, dark wave of hair from his eyes. “You’ve lived in Scotland for how many months, and you don’t have an umbrella at the ready?”

I yank my hood forward. As much as I’d love to walk the rest of the way under an umbrella, I choose bone-chilling rain to walking the rest of the way with Noah.

“I have a waterproof coat. Serves the same purpose. Thanks, though.”

Picking up my pace, I duck out from under the umbrella. The rain comes down harder now, each drop taunting me as it pelts my head, back, and cheeks. My coat may be waterproof, but my bag isn’t, which means I could be out a laptop before the year is half over.

I stop, my fists clenched around the strap of my bag.

One-one-thousand. Two-one-thousand. No Noah.

When I turn around, he’s a few feet behind me, his golf umbrella a wide canopy to shield his stupid, self-satisfied self, wearing an even stupider self-satisfied grin.

“If you’re done with your dramatic exit,” he calls over the rain’s growing volume, “I’ve still got room.”

I groan loudly, not caring if he hears, and trudge the few steps to Noah’s side.

“Just so we’re clear, I’m only doing this for my laptop,” I say.

“That’s good,” he says. “Because I’m only doing it for your laptop, too.”

We start walking, both of us silent for a few beats until I can’t hold back a giggle. Once Noah hears me, he joins in.

“Maybe I’m just in a rush. I am running late, you know. And since you are here with me, that means you are running late, too.” The truth is, I have to pick up my pace now to keep up with his stride, to stay under the umbrella. “Plus, you have a knack for inspiring dramatic exits.”

He shrugs. “Why are you late?”

“I was out late,” I say. “The Blue Lantern.”

If we were two normal people, I’d keep the banter going, ask him why he was running late, too. But Noah and I can’t do normal, so I don’t try to pretend.

Since my silence is less contagious than I’d like it to be, Noah speaks, his tone a mixture of mocking and something else I can’t identify. “Well, Jordan, since you asked, I was out late, too.”

I turn away from him, keeping my eyes on the path. This is
not
what I want to hear, how he was out late with Hailey, and blah, blah, blah. Mondays suck.

After a pause he adds, “I was at the Lantern, too, with a couple of guys from my floor. I wanted to say hi. All night I tried to think of an excuse to do it, but you were hanging out behind the bar with your flat-mate and what’s-his-name.” He looks down after he says this.

Uh-uh. No. He is not jealous. He just doesn’t know Daniel’s name—Daniel, the bartender who works most nights at the pub pretty much everyone I know hangs out in, including Noah.

“Yeah. It was a slow night, so they were showing me how to mix drinks.” We walk a few more paces before I add, “His name’s Daniel.”

“Right.” His jaw tightens just a bit, but it’s enough for me to notice. “Daniel.” Noah chuckles, but when I look at him, he only wears a half smile. “It’s just been a while. We haven’t really talked since Duncan’s party, and you were pretty—”

“Drunk?” I ask. Because that I was, drunk and stupid.

He shakes his head. “I was going to say angry. At me.”

“Yeah, that, too,” I say, but it’s been hard to hold on to that anger. I’d be a hypocrite to still be mad at Noah when Griffin forgave me for being no better.

We walk for a few minutes without saying anything else, that something that’s always hung between us still lingering like a fog.

When we reach the end of the park, emerging onto High Street, the rain is nothing more than a mist. Noah lowers the umbrella. On the way here, I could use walking as an excuse to keep my eyes trained on the path ahead, but now I have to face him, something I’ve been so good at avoiding.

“I’m sorry, Jordan. In so many ways I wish things were different.”

My hands fidget with the strap of my bag, and I try to ignore the hint of longing in his voice, try to erase any evidence of it from mine. Just as Griffin and I never would have lasted as long as we did if it wasn’t for Aberdeen, Noah and I never would have crossed paths, either. We live in different states, have our own lives that we left back home, or in Noah’s case, brought here with him. It never could have been different, and maybe I shouldn’t blame him for that.

“I’m sorry, too,” I say. “It wasn’t fair of me. You had a life before you came here, and I can’t judge you for wanting to make that life work.”

He sighs, running a hand through his mist-dampened hair.

“Do you think,” he asks, “if the train didn’t happen, that we would have met once we got here and become friends?”

My face fills with heat, and tears unexpectedly prick at my eyes. What is it about Noah that makes all of my honesty spill out? “I thought you didn’t regret what happened. Now you make it sound like you wish it never did.” I’ve never once wished that, not for real. Because despite the aftermath of the train, I wouldn’t trade our moment for never having experienced it at all.

“No! Shit, no. That’s not what I meant. Why does everything I say to you come out wrong? I just, I like talking to you. When we’re not arguing—like the train, the scavenger hunt—we’re kind of good. I can’t talk to other people easily, but with you it’s different. We’re different. Aren’t we?”

I start walking again, but he doesn’t miss a beat, and he’s right beside me. I have nothing to lose anymore, not Griffin or my pride. I’ve pretty much given up on that when it comes to Noah.

“That’s the problem,” I tell him. “When we’re kind of good, it makes me feel things I shouldn’t, makes me want things I shouldn’t. Because I can’t want you, Noah. I can’t want someone who’s taken, and I can’t want someone who doesn’t want me.”

His eyes widen before he regains composure. “What about this year not being real?”

I sigh. It’s what I wanted to believe, what I hoped would make this year what I wanted it to be. Fun. Safe. But I can’t protect myself with words I don’t believe. Those words did nothing to insulate me from my feelings for Noah. Why keep up the facade?

“Everything’s real,” I say, knowing this is somehow an admission. “This year may have an expiration date, but no matter how much I fight it, it’s all real.”

And it’s like my words open something in him that he can’t mask. But I ignore it. I have to.

This time when I walk away, he doesn’t follow.

“Brooks, wait,” he calls after me, but I don’t turn back, don’t dwell on why he uses my last name.

I make it to class only a few minutes ahead of him, trading my usual front-row seat for a place to hide in the back. Just a few more days. I can last a few more days until the semester ends and we don’t have to play this game anymore.

Everyone seems to be leaving for their winter holiday early on Saturday, so we have a small going away party for Griffin at the Lantern on Thursday, Noah and Hailey conspicuously absent. Elaina and Duncan make Griffin promise to stop by Saturday morning for a Turkish coffee before he leaves, so we still have one more good-bye to go.

On Friday I get ready for bed early after I finish packing for London, where I’ll meet my parents tomorrow. I finish up my last entry for the semester and toss my journal back on my desk, accidentally knocking my phone to the floor. When I grab it, I unintentionally open my photo app, and there’s the selfie of me and Noah from the haggis portion of our scavenger hunt. I always remembered the picture as us cringing at what we were eating, but I’m wrong. Both of us laugh wildly in the shot, our eyes crinkled with an unexpected moment of happiness on a day that proved otherwise. My finger hovers over the trashcan icon, ready to delete it. But I can’t. Instead I close the app and then jump as the phone vibrates with a text.

I laugh out loud at what I must look like, emotionally high-strung ever the understatement. When I read the text, I’m flooded with relief.

Griffin:
I know this probably breaks every rule we’ve ever set in place, but I’d love to spend my last night with you…as friends, of course.

He’s right. But I’m so done with rules, especially if it means seeing him one more time before he leaves.

It only takes me a few seconds to respond.

Me:
I’m home.

Griffin:
I’ll be right over?

His question mark gives me an out, but I don’t want out. I think about my conversation with Noah earlier this week.
Everything is real
. And what Griffin and I had, the friendship we still do, is real.

Me:
Yes. You will.

That night I dull the loneliness in the arms of a friend. As we doze, I hear a knock on the main door of the flat.

“Do you need to get that?” Griffin asks, his voice gravelly with sleep.

“It’s probably Duncan. Elaina will get it.”

He kisses me softly on the cheek. “Think about my offer, okay? Spring break. Amsterdam. No pressure, just fun.”

I think I nod my response, but the next thing I hear is my alarm.

The morning is a blur of Duncan, Elaina, Griffin, and me—of Turkish coffee and English tea—of hugs and good-byes.

“Not good-bye,” Griffin reminds me while Duncan and Elaina sandwich him in a hug. He laughs. “See? This is why I don’t do serious. Makes good-byes suck.”

When I get back to my room, a page in my journal is dog-eared, the one with Griffin’s entry. I smile at a new message he’s scribbled beneath the date.

I’m glad I spent my last night with you.

I’m glad too
, I wish I could tell him. I hope he knows.

Good-bye does suck, but I’m grateful we’re parting as friends. Who knows what spring may bring?

Holiday

(London, late December)

“Passion should believe itself irresistible. It should forget civility and consideration and all the other curses of a refined nature. Above all, it should never ask for leave where there is a right of way.”

E. M. Forster

A Room with a View

Chapter Thirteen

On the eve before their departure from London, both of my parents stare at me across a table at an Italian restaurant, silently formulating their joint protest. We spent Chanukah with our cousins, enjoyed a week of shopping, tea, and theater. Naturally, I waited until tonight to spring my idea on them.

My dad’s thick, dark hair shows more flecks of silver since last I saw him. His green eyes don’t shield his worry. He and my mom somehow communicate with each other while keeping their eyes trained on me. After twenty years, I know those conspiratorial looks.

“Will you hear me out?” I ask, before any protestation becomes verbal.

“We’re listening,” my father says, his voice gentle yet tentative.