Webster is waiting in my driveway when I walk outside the next morning. He scrambles off the hood of his car.
“Hey.”
His car is blocking in mine. I slow my pace as I get closer, stopping between our bumpers. “Hi.”
“I was wondering if I could give you a ride to school?”
I’ve never seen him look so desperate. I think he might not move his car until I agree.
One ride. I can handle that. I’ll just ask Reese to drive me home after school. “Fine.”
I pocket my keys and walk around to the passenger side door. Webster beats me there, holds the door open for me, and closes it gently once I’m settled in. I watch as he walks around the front of the car. Watch him shake out his hands.
When he climbs in, he starts the car right away and fiddles with the heating controls. Holds his palm in front of the vent. “This okay for you?”
“Yep.” I look out the window. Already this is excruciating. I wish he’d just say whatever it is he has to say.
But no. Instead we drive the whole way to school in silence. Every red light lasts a lifetime. I steal a glance at him. His expression is pained, his knuckles white from his death grip on the steering wheel.
We pull into the student lot and I click off my seat belt before he even has the car in Park. “Well, thanks for the ride—”
“Wait.” He scrunches his eyes closed for a moment, then turns to look at me. “I know I made a mistake. Two mistakes. I should have told Holland how serious it had gotten between us, and told you about MSU sooner. But I really never meant to lie to you. It just...got away from me, and I know that’s not really an excuse, but I swear—I swear to god I will never lie to you again.”
He sounds sincere enough. And deep inside my chest, I feel that familiar tug, the twinge in my heart tempting me to trust him. But.
How is this any different from the ups and downs my parents went through at the end? Things between them were getting better, and they might have been able to work it out if they’d been completely honest with each other all along. Webster lied to me—twice—about things he knew were important to me... What are the odds it won’t happen again?
“We were starting over, Webster. I don’t understand why you didn’t just talk to me about this stuff. I mean...the Holland thing...that’s awkward, I get it. But you could have just said you needed more time. And then with school...you let me go on and on about how we’d be together, you didn’t say a word—”
“It was stupid. So stupid.” He swallows hard. “I know how worried you are about next year, and I’m so sorry that I made it worse by not telling you the truth about Boston. I don’t know why I didn’t say something when we first got together... But you were wrong yesterday, when you said I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t sure we’d last. If anything it was the opposite—being with you feels so right, and I kept hoping we’d reach a point when it would get easier to tell you, but the closer we became the harder it was to even think about, and the last thing I wanted was to hurt you again, or lose you again, so I kept putting it off.”
Trust—that’s what Reese says is the most important thing for successful long-distance relationships. How can I trust Webster when he’s all the way on the East Coast and it’s that much easier for him to avoid telling me awkward truths?
I’m staring straight ahead. Because if I look him in the eye, I know I’ll think about the tender way he touched me yesterday. How it felt to lie next to him, my head on his chest, his heartbeat in my ear. I’ll give in, and I’m not sure that’s the best thing for me.
“Aubrey, please. I know I’m asking you to take a leap of faith, but I promise I won’t lie to you again. I want to be with you. We still have all summer, and after that...we can figure it out together.”
“You made me feel like...” A fool. I let myself buy into this imaginary, safe future he dangled in front of me. I actually believed we could be different, that we’d already gotten all the screwups out of our system junior year. I let myself dive headfirst into this, was more open with him than I’ve ever been, and where did it get me?
We’ve become the exact situation I wanted to avoid. And now I keep thinking I should have been more careful, I should have taken things slower, shouldn’t have been so trusting, and I hate that I’m back here. That we are.
He seems to know I’m at a loss for words. He wipes his mouth and shifts in his seat.
“Do you still...” He pauses, wipes away a smudge on the dashboard with his thumb. Then he looks at me, head tilted like he’s deciding which way he wants to take the end of that sentence. “Have you thought at all about prom? Like...if you still want to go together?”
Sure, I’ve thought about it. I thought about it yesterday when my mom came home with a new pair of shoes to go with my dress. Thought about it when she pulled out a pair of diamond earrings she wanted me to borrow, because in her words, You only get one senior prom. Might as well make it really special. And I thought about telling her I wasn’t going, but I didn’t, because she was excited, and I didn’t want to get into the whole explanation. And because part of me does still want to go.
“I can’t.”
He stares sidelong at me. Unblinking. Until finally he faces forward again, hands gripping the steering wheel as he nods.
His dejection is palpable. And I don’t know how to fix it—I can’t give him the answer he wants, but my brain conjures the image of him dancing with someone else and my chest squeezes painfully.
“It’s just, prom night has turned into this whole cliché, you know?” I say in a rush. “All this pressure. Like New Year’s Eve times a million, because you only get one shot at your senior prom. And I think it’s better if we don’t have that kind of pressure. Right now. Like maybe we should just take a step back, take some time as friends. Can we do that?”
Webster freezes. Just for a second, with his eyes locked on something through the windshield. Then he snaps out of it, eyebrows raised as he nods. He forces a smile, one that makes his lips look tight and chapped and doesn’t come close to reaching his eyes. “If that’s what you want.”
My hand finds the door handle. I grip it hard so I’m not tempted to reach across the car and touch him. “Great. So. We’ll talk more later.”
Webster nods—the only response he seems capable of giving anymore—and I open the car door. He lifts his fingers off the steering wheel to say goodbye, doesn’t walk with me into the building. As I slide between two cars on my way to the front doors, I check over my shoulder. Just in time to see Webster pull out of his spot and speed toward the exit.