“I don’t know. I’m panicking, obviously.”

  “Because you haven’t been a relationship for so long? Because you prioritize work and studying and all that other shit without prioritizing your family who loves and supports you? Because you’ve closed yourself off and every time we hang out, just the three of us, you make us feel like it’s a chore, like you should be doing something more important? Because no one can hold a candle to how great and awesome you are, and that’s why you have to be the best in every little thing that you do?” Max huffs out.

  Crickets, and then, my throat tightening up. “I…I don’t know where this is coming from.”

  “Yeah, ’cause your head’s been up your ass for the past three years at least, and it’s only gotten worse with you talking about doing a post-doc or whatever the hell it’s called, and always talking about it and nothing else, and not even wanting to go see a movie with Vick and me. I know we’re related by blood, but that doesn’t really mean much ’cause we’re best friends first, unless you want to cut ties with us, too, so you can focus on more important shit, Amber.”

  “What? What the hell? Max, no, what are you even saying to me right now?”

  Max huffs out another breath, and there’s a tiny hitch to her breathing that has tears welling up in my eyes.

  “I’m proud of you, you know that? The first one of us to go through university and then graduate school. That’s a big deal, and I’m really proud of all the hard work you’ve put in to get as far as you have. Really. And I love how hard you work, how you have this intense focus that everything else just doesn’t exist until you get what you want. I admire you for that, for being able to do that, time and time again. Truly.

  “But not at the expense of our friendship, not at the expense of all our years together, supporting one another for as long as I can remember. Do you know how incredibly frustrating it is to be compared to you all the time? How Vick and I, we can never measure up?”

  Pain flares in my throat, and it breaks my heart, how I’ve inadvertently hurt them.

  “But I don’t think that, I don’t. I’m just good at school, that’s all.”

  “No, you’re not good, you’re exceptional. All those awards and all that recognition, it’s gotta be worth something, right?”

  “Are you mad at me for being good at my job?” I whisper, falling back into my chair, my legs going completely nerveless. I glance to the window to the inky black sky and wonder how much longer Brody’s going to wait for me, or if he’s already decided that I’m not worth his time.

  “No! God, you’re not even listening,” Max hisses, and if words were acid, she’d be scalding my skin right off. “You never really listen.”

  “I am listening. I am.”

  “You’re not. Just…don’t call me for a couple of days, all right? I’m too angry, and I’m scared shitless I’m going to say something really horrific, and I don’t want to do that. Amber…did you hear me? Amber?”

  “Yeah…yeah, okay. I can do that. Take care. I’m sorry.”

  Max disconnects without saying goodbye, as if she didn’t just shoot me in the heart and left me to bleed out.

  I get up from my desk on numb feet and start gathering my things. I pull on my coat, grab my purse and phone, shove the latter into my pocket. I close the light and lock up the door to my office.

  I head downstairs, taking the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator, and head outside, the cool night air a shock when it hits the exposed skin of my throat and face, my breath coming out in violet smoke.

  Brody’s smiling at me, fidgeting a little bit as if it to keep warm in his black North Face jacket, a bright red scarf tied at his throat. He’s the shore I’ve been swimming towards, haven’t I?

  The smile slides right off his face when he takes a longer look at me, and I wonder what kind of message I’m broadcasting on my face to make him look like that. God, why does he even care?

  “Hey, what’s wrong? Amber?”

  I keep walking towards him, skin itching underneath my coat. I finally face-plant into his chest, letting him hold me upright just for the briefest of moments, letting me just take a rest from the fight I just had with one of my best friends.

  I let myself breathe, slow and in and out, even when the cold starts to nip at my nose. Brody starts carefully rubbing my arms up and down, not touching me anywhere else except for where my forehead’s against his chest, looking down at our feet—me in black Doc Martens and Brody in what looks like to be black Timberland boots.

  “Okay, you’re okay. Shit, please don’t cry, sweetheart, don’t cry. What happened, huh? Tell me what happened.” Brody’s starting to sound distressed, too, but he doesn’t push any further, and I’m so grateful for that.

  I shake my head in a no gesture, just pressing my forehead harder against his winter-coat clad chest. “Just give me another second.”

  He hums, just murmurs nonsensical stuff to me that I’m only half-listening to. I focus on my breathing, focus on pulling air in and pushing it out.

  I don’t know how long we stand there, enough for my nose to get runny, and my sniffing gets so severe that Brody gently places me a step back, rooting around in his coat pocket and pulling out a little packet of tissues.

  “Thanks,” I mumble, blowing my nose and then turning the tissue over to start mopping up my face. “Sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry?” Brody whispers, and it’s the whisper that makes me cry harder.

  It would have been easier if he had gotten mad at me, like the guys I always dated seem to do, seemingly allergic to a woman like me crying her eyes out when it comes to an emotional upheaval like this one.

  It’s not every single day when you’re confronted with all your shortcomings by someone you love.

  I shrug, not really having an answer.

  “You hungry?” Brody asks, and I shake my head. “Okay, where do you want me to take you? I can drive you back tomorrow to pick up your car; I don’t think you should be driving right now.”

  I nod again, then shrug. I don’t think I should be driving either, and taking a bus ride home sounds like torture right now, trying to keep myself together under all that scrutiny from other people riding it.

  “Let me drive you home, at least. Is that okay, Amber, me driving you home?”

  I nod again and turn my gaze towards the parking lot, the tops of the hoods of the cars glowing almost silver from the bright lights. “Yeah, let’s go.”

  Brody walks ahead, turning half around to see if I’m following like a lost puppy looking for the way home. “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

  He opens the passenger side door for me once I make sure that my car is locked. I take a seat inside his car, stomach howling, as if only now remembering that I haven’t eaten in hours and hours. When Brody rounds the car and gets inside. He gives me a little grin, and it makes me feel warm inside.

  “Where do you really wanna go?”

  “Let’s go to Petros, for shits. I need to get drunk off rice pudding.”

  Brody grunts and takes us to where I want to go.

  When we find a spot in the parking lot, Brody opens the car door for me, like an old-time prince, sparking a memory of him always doing this exact same thing for me, ever since he got up his beat-up car when he was eighteen.

  I wonder what happened to that car. He must have sold it after he left.

  Old habits die hard, I guess.

  I’m confused and hurt, and so achingly lonely that I don’t know what to do with myself, don’t really know how I can exist in space and time with what feels like there’s a hole at the very heart of me, bottomless and aching.

  But I’m scared, God, I’m scared about Brody being the one so close to me while I’m feeling like this. There’s a reason why I’ve put up a wall, why I’ve kept myself from my family and friends.

  It’s because if they scale that wall and look too closely, they’ll see that I’m not made of much more than good grades and poor relationships. Then I’m going to have to face the stark truth—that I’m not really going anywhere, not really doing anything fulfilling with my life.

  How much longer are you going to keep looking backwards instead of forwards, or down? When are you actually going to start living your life instead of just existing, huh?

  I keep my thoughts to myself, which I guess is the problem.

  Brody walks beside me, this big, hulking figure, standing between me and the nipping wind, getting to the door of Petros first, opening it wide for me with a loud squawk for the kind of hinges that need some love, but are abandoned whenever winter comes around.

  Mr. Petros, now standing at the front desk instead of yelling at his staff in the back where the kitchen is, welcomes us with a warm smile.

  “Brody! You’re back!” Mr. Petros booms, his voice loud enough to be heard across the entire island of Montreal. I immediately want to run out of here and avoid all attention, but I’m hungry and I’m upset, and delicious food (and rice pudding!) will help one of those two things.

  “Hey, Mr. Petros, how are you doing?” Brody puts his hand out and gets a hearty handshake. “Remember Amber?”

  “Amber, is that you?” Mr. Petros is seventy-five years old (if I’m doing the math right). His dark eyes sparkle under the bright lights in the entrance of his restaurant, and the lines have gotten deeper around his eyes and mouth, the dark-dark hair now almost all frosty white except for this splotchy black around his temples, and his eyebrows are about a mile long.

  My heart pangs just looking at him, remembering how many times Brody and I would come in here, pretending like we were adults, going on dates even though it was killing our meager savings, but it felt important enough at the time to go out and eat, do couple shit.

  And now we’re back, the restaurant having had a couple of re-hauls whenever I’ve driven by, tempted by the food, but inevitably chased away by the memories.

  The booths are an elegant chocolate-brown leather now, tables seating two with white-white tablecloths over them, the dinner conversations of a few families all that we can hear over the sound of the hockey game (Habs vs. The Maple Leafs).

  “Same old booth?” Mr. Petros asks, and he can’t possibly remember where we used to sit, but I know that he has a superior memory, the kind where clients would order the one time and he’d remember your order for your second visit.

  I laugh, but it sounds brittle, even under all the sounds coming from the rest of the restaurant.

  “You still have that booth? I thought it would’ve been tossed out when you renovated.”

  Mr. Petros waves a finger at me. “That booth is good luck, I’m sure of it. I’ve had sixteen different couples get engaged at that booth, and they’re all still married. Good luck, mark my words.”

  He grabs a couple of menus from a shelf at the bottom of the desk, picking up the phone at the same time and asking the person on the other side of the line to hold please in a Greek-accented French that’s also adorable. He places the phone back down on the cradle, playing with a couple of buttons, then shoots us both a smile.

  “Come, come. I’m sure you’re hungry.”

  Understatement of the year.

  Our old booth has dark varnished wood on its surface now, and the seating brand new looking, the initials that Brody scratched of our names a hundred years ago at the very bottom of the wall now gone, I’m sure.

  It feels like stopping at a checkpoint in a game (if I were to play video games more often), a place that has significance only to the players, and Brody and I are on opposing teams it seems, each racing to get ahead of the other, trying to see who’s going to get the upper hand.

  But it could just be me, again, reading too deeply into things.

  Why did he come to the office, why was he waiting for me? And why are we here…together again? There’s no audience that’s watching us…

  Brody takes the seat across from me, making the leather shoot out farting noises that makes me actually smile, even though I have a lot to think about. He settles opposite me, grinning at me, probably thinking my quick-and-gone smile was for him.

  “Do you think I’m closed-off?” I ask, pulling my coat off and watching him take in what I’m wearing. It’s office appropriate, but he’s making me feel like I’ve been walking around in my prettiest lingerie.

  I jolt, trying to find something to talk about. “Do I think you’re closed off?”

  Brody rubs at his chin, then the back of his neck, like he doesn’t want to answer.

  “You’re not going to get in trouble. I just want to know, since I’m doing a shit job of being self-aware apparently.”

  “Is this the reason why you were crying before?”

  I jab a finger at him from across the table. “I wasn’t crying. I had something in my eye, well, both of my eyes. There’s a difference.”

  “Must’ve had a lot of shit in your eyes, then.”

  I shake my head at him, wondering why I’m even here, when everything sucks. I don’t even know if Petros’ rice pudding is going to make it better. If that won’t, then I don’t know what will.

  I sigh, looking out the window, making random eye contact with a stranger and glancing away quickly, back at Brody, who’s staring at me like he knows exactly what’s going on in my head.

  But he always had a way of reading me so easily, of understanding me in a way that only a few people ever had.

  Is this what it means, having a romantic soul mate? Do I even believe in that kind of bullshit?

  Maybe it’s the reason why it never really seemed to work out with anyone else…

  Maybe that’s because I always had Brody Kane on the noggin’, and why I’ve failed at all relationships since them because I’m an idiot.

  “You have no idea.”

  “Want to tell me what happened, or do you not want to talk about it?” Brody asks, pushing the breadbasket towards me, letting me have first choice, and I grab one at random (bread is bread is bread) and start cutting into it with my dull knife then slather it with butter.

  I shrug, concentrating on placing the butter all the way to the rounded edges of the bread and stuffing it in my mouth. I force myself to chew, to taste it, to not focus on how blind I’ve been with my cousins, with my best friends, and focusing on what I can control right now—and that’s trying to make a decision of the new and improved Petros menu.

  I guess that’s what happens when something doesn’t work out - you change what you can and keep moving forward.

  Forward, Amber, you have to keep moving forward…

  “I want you to do something for me…” I say, knowing that he can say no, that he doesn’t have to do anything for me, not after how shitty I’ve been feeling and how I’ve been treating him. It’s my response to fear—be an asshole and I can’t shut up to stop being an asshole.

  Brody glances up, pinning me with a stare, those ice-blue eyes practically seeing right through me. It’s like he can see right to my shriveled heart that doesn’t have much room for any other person, other than my family and the Brody-shaped hole that’s lingered there forever.

  Time to start moving forward, to take that first step, and that hard-as-hell next step, and the next, and the next, and the next.

  Just have to keep moving forward, whatever that’s going to look like.

  I reach out across the surface of the table, placing my fingers against the back of his hand. My heart twists and hammers in my chest.

  “I want you to help me get a date, for research purposes only.”

  Brody starts choking.

  TEN

  “What? What did you just ask me?” Brody chokes on air, struggling to breathe, coughing into his hands while his eyes begin to water.

  There’s nothing really to do if there isn’t anything to obstruct his airway except his own spit. He catches his breath, hastily grabs at his glass of water, downing it all in one shot. To be fair, the glass isn’t that big, but still, still.

  I blink at him. I know he heard me, so why are we playing this game?

  “We’re fake dating, yeah? So I’m going to take this opportunity to practice for the real thing,” I stick my tongue out at him when he rears back, affronted.

  “Believe it or not, Brody, but I have been on dates since you left me heartbroken all those years ago…” I clutch at my chest, making fun of the whole thing, even though it left behind a nasty scar. But there’s always a decision to make, I’ve come to learn—laugh about it or cry about it, and I hate crying, so I’m poking fun at a raw place.

  “I wasn’t saying it like that…I was just surprised is all. Surprised, yeah.” Brody nods, like he’s trying to do some pretty unconvincing convincing.

  “Surprised? Why?” I’m pushing at him, and I want to see how he’s going to react.

  “Well, uh…” He rubs at his hair. “I feel like any kind of answer I’m going to give is going to have you throat-punching me as an end result.”

  I hold up a palm. “Your throat is safe from me, I promise. There. So tell me. What do I have to do?”

  Brody’s cheeks are practically glowing with his blush, and he squirms in his seat, something else he hasn’t outgrown since back then. “You have to be nothing more than just as you are. Promise.”

  I roll my eyes hard enough that my brain waves hello. “Come on. Stop laying it on thick. Tell me. Should I pop a few buttons?” I glance down at the buttons of my blouse.

  While I’m not buttoned all the way up, I could do with popping one more, making myself feel a little sexier. I’m always careful about the image I project at work that it sort of spills over in my day-to-day life.

  “No, ah, I mean…you can obviously do what you want to do…shit.” Brody glances away, eyes resolutely pinned to the window, rubbing a hand over his mouth, hiding a pained grimace that I can barely make out from his profile.

  “Brody, relax. You telling me women haven’t been throwing themselves at you back home? Please.” I wave it off, but his reaction is pretty funny, and it is making me feel better.