I hug Uncle Tristan and Aunt Lisa, squeezing her tight enough that she squawks, and she pushes my uncle at me and my octopus arms, until I see her coming back sailing out of the kitchen with an entire pie dish that has my stomach throbbing in pain, but also, there will be a time in the near future (probably tonight at three a.m. when I wake up from a dead sleep, ready to eat an elephant) that I will be able to have this glorious pie.

  “Share with Brody,” Aunt Lisa instructs, not letting go of the pie dish, even though I keep pulling her towards me, and nodding a little too enthusiastically. “I mean it. He didn’t even have a full piece.”

  “I solemnly swear that I will share the pie with Brody,” I say.

  My aunt points to my uncle Tristan, poking at her nose, and then pointing back to him. “You heard her, right? You heard your niece?”

  “Yes, sweetheart, I did.” Uncle Tristan nods, and he’s in that sweet spot after drinking and eating so much that his eyes are permanently at half-mast, and he looks ready for bed even though it’s still considered early for some people.

  At least it’s Sunday tomorrow. At least there’s that.

  Oh, I can have pie for breakfast! Yes!

  I clutch the pie dish to my chest, the aluminum foil crinkling against my coat while I give my goodbyes to Uncle Isaac and Aunt Ella, almost knocking heads with Izzy and Max while I’m wrapped up in a hug on either side, effectively trapped in their hold, drowning in their affection.

  I mouth help to Brody, who just shakes his head and grins at me.

  We’re going to have to work on his reactions when there’s an emergency, honestly.

  And finally, we’re standing in front of my parents, Mom beaming at Brody that she can probably be seen from outer space, some poor alien creature cruising by Pluto all confused by the harsh light. Dad’s looking blitzed, so Mom’s going to drive, and they’re both looking at me like they’re expecting for me to say something.

  “Why don’t you guys come for brunch tomorrow?” Mom asks, and I tense up, watching my Sunday where I do literally nothing vanish right before my eyes, recuperate from all the talking, and emoting, and eating from today going to waste.

  “Uh, Mom, I don’t want to think about food right now, okay? Let’s do it another time.”

  “Brody? What do you say?” Mom bypasses my objection with almost-thirty years of practice, and keeps her stare pinned to Brody.

  “Uh, Mrs. Prewitt, it wouldn’t be fair just for me to show up if Amber doesn’t want.”

  Mom nods. “Then I guess it’s a good thing she’s showing up, right? Have your parents come over, too? We’ll make a big meal out of it.”

  I shake my head before I even know what I’m doing. “Brody and I had plans. Yeah, we had plans. Remember, Brody? Remember we had plans?”

  “Plans?” he asks, looking down at me, a playful grin along his mouth. He’s messing with me, and we both know it. “The plans we never really finalized?”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, ignoring the burn in my cheeks. I don’t know why I’m going along with this, I really, really, don’t.

  Because you like hanging around him, because you’ve missed him, more than you can say, more than you can articulate.

  I clearly have been self-sabotaging myself this entire time in romantic relationships because I’ve been holding the torch for Brody Kane, like some love-sick puppy all this freaking time.

  And look at him now, messing with me.

  Ugh. I’ve got the dumbest heart in the world.

  “Uh, fine, whatever. We’ll be there. I’m not sharing this, so there,” I say, lifting the pie dish, crinkling against my coat.

  “Great, see you tomorrow!” Mom calls as I briefly kiss her cheek then my dad’s and wrestle the door open while keeping an iron-grip on the pie dish with my other hand.

  We finally head outside, the sky as dark as velvety pitch, and Brody stumbles behind me, wrapping his arm around my shoulder, the thing weighing at least thirty pounds with the muscles he’s rocking.

  He opens the passenger side door with me, then bows low at the waist and practically curtsies as I sputter out a laugh before taking my seat in his car with an old-lady-with-arthritis-groan. I settle the dish on my lap and pull on my seatbelt.

  Brody takes the drive easy, slowly, carefully, as I fight the drowsiness I’ve been feeling, the soft music coming from the radio doing nothing to amp me up. Even if I don’t want to be amped up right now, I need to be a little bit more alert lest I lose my grip on the pie and then lament my life forevermore.

  “So that wasn’t so bad,” Brody says, his voice hushed, as if he’s not sure if I’m actually awake or dozing off.

  “Yeah, that wasn’t absolutely terrible,” I confirm.

  “Did you make up with your cousins?”

  I yawn, then nod. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve got to work on some things…like you do. We cleared up as much as we could, and I feel better for it, yeah.” I nod to myself, opening the window a sliver, just to get some cool air inside the car to wake me up from all the cozy warmth.

  Brody’s hand moves in my peripheral vision, lowering the heat and opening his driver’s side window too, and the car quickly cools down enough for me to breathe a little easier, to blink myself awake.

  “Now we have to do it all over again tomorrow, and there’s going to be twice as much focus on us, bleugh,” I say to the window, looking at my reflection and finding little bits of mascara dotting my under-eyes. I pay enough for the shit, why the hell is it crumbling? “It’s going to be fine. We’re not really forcing anything. I haven’t made you uncomfortable, have I?”

  I shake my head. “No, Brody. You haven’t. You never really have, especially for a white guy of your generation.” Brody nods, turning on his indicator and switching over lanes. “You’ve always treated me well, fake dating or not. It’s a little unsettling, to be honest?”

  Brody huffs out a half-breath, the tail end of it a laugh. “What’s that supposed to mean? Is me being nice to you somehow making me out to be an asshole? I don’t get it.”

  I shake my head again, waving it off. “I’m tired, I don’t want to talk anymore.”

  Brody sighs, exasperated with me. “Amber, don’t you think if I never left, that we’d have been married by now?”

  I slam my eyes shut, as if that’s somehow going to turn off the vibrations settling in my ears, as if the words hadn’t been said out loud, as if they aren’t ricocheting around my skull, hitting me from different angles.

  Don’t you think we would have been married by now, by now, by now?

  I clench my jaw tightly, breathe in sharply.

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m tired, really tired.”

  “I bet I know what your cousins said to you when you were talking them upstairs, what you guys were fighting about. I bet you were talking about how closed off you’ve become, huh? Am I right? I’m right, aren’t I?”

  I roll my eyes, clutching the pie dish just a little tighter, making the aluminum foil crinkle.

  “Just because you think you know me now doesn’t mean you actually do.”

  “Amber, what the hell?” Brody shakes his head, but keeps staring at the road, despite the red light coming up and the traffic starting to pile up.

  We don’t look at each other, and I think that’s what makes it hurt even more.

  “I told my dad I wanted to marry you for the first time when I was eight years old. He laughed it off, of course, and told me to wait ten years and then check with him again. He didn’t expect me to approach him when I was eighteen and tell him the same thing, and he panicked, yeah? As some parents might. I get it. I was young, well, younger than I am now, and lacrosse was starting to take off for me, and life in general, and I knew I wanted to marry you.

  “But my dad, he put it to me like this, that I could only pick one—a future with you, or a prosperous future with lacrosse that I could start, and then I could come back in another ten years and ask him that question again.”

  The car is silent as Brody keeps driving towards my house, the seconds and then minutes pass by until he’s pulling into my driveway, right behind my parked car.

  I say nothing, I don’t even move, thoughts rattling around in my head, jumbled words unable to get out.

  I don’t know what question to ask, what to say, and I know if I let myself think just a second longer that I’m not going to say anything at all.

  “It’s been ten years…” I state, my voice coming out too soft, too gentle, a lingering fear woven through the words like I’m asking a question instead of just stating a fact. After what Brody just said, I’m not sure of anything anymore.

  I turn to look at him to find him staring out the front window, refusing to look at me, his grip strangling the steering wheel.

  I clear my throat. “It’s already been ten years…” I prompt, but Brody doesn’t say anything, just makes sure the car is in park and presses the unlock button on the car door.

  And that’s all the answer I need.

  SEVENTEEN

  I’m a coward. I’ll admit it to anyone and everyone if push comes to shove.

  I’m not proud of it, but hey, not every single one of us can be the heroes of the story: the ones to laugh in the face of danger, the ones who will always stand up and fight.

  Nope, I’m that kid in the background, cowering in fear, hoping no one notices me, or hoping that the floor will open up and swallow me whole.

  So whenever Brody decides to contact me by text, or actually calls me like he doesn’t know the millennial protocol, I screen them, or in the case of the texts, I give him one-word responses, my mind still ringing about the ten-year milestone that has things to do with the M-word that I don’t really want to think about right now, or like, ever.

  Liar, liar, pants on fire!

  The truth is I’ve been thinking about it too much, really thinking about it, and how it’s truly a bad, bad idea.

  Brody Kane has moved on with his life, has chased his dreams, and yeah, while life has dealt him a shitty hand right now for sure, I know he’s incredibly hard-working, and he can basically do whatever he wants with his life. He has a college education to fall back on, he’s still, I’m pretty sure, the face of an energy drink company.

  He'll be fine, I know he’ll be fine.

  Me, though?

  Yeah, I was good in school. I was so good in school that I never really left it behind, studying and studying, trying to pull the trigger and make the decision of doing a post-doc that feels like a special circle of hell more times than not.

  I didn’t really achieve my dreams—I got into physical therapy because I thought I wanted to switch over after getting my undergraduate degree and apply for med school and found that PT was more interesting to me than being a doctor.

  So I was never really passionate about it, never really comfortable with the people aspect of it, preferring to be reading about injuries and rehabilitation techniques through books and scientific papers rather than dealing with an actual human being who has an opinion and doesn’t think much of me as a physical therapist.

  It’s a lot like seeing a therapist in that way—sometimes the fit just isn’t right between two people, and if you can’t forge a partnership with the common goal of getting you to a better place, whether that’s physically or mentally, then you need to change it up.

  A partnership…for life…with Brody Kane. Holy shit!

  Yup, my brain’s not giving me a break today, and there’s still that brunch that I tried to get out of. I even pleaded with Mom about me having my worst period ever and not wanting to leave the house because I need to hydrate and eat something that’s not going to disrupt my now-sensitive stomach, but she’s not having any of it.

  Mom: We have a bathroom here. In fact, we have three bathrooms in this house, and you can hide away when you need to. See you soon!

  I choose to ignore the fact that she sends me a heart-eyed emoji completely out of context, and groan into my pillow.

  I have yet to get out of bed this morning, mostly staring up at the ceiling, wanting to reach out to Vick and Max because it would definitely be a good idea to, obviously, but I’m stubborn like that, and I need to stew in it for a little while before I’m ready to reach out.

  There’s approximately four hours until I have to be at my parents’ place, and even though I know Brody messaged me that he was going to meet me there, I still pull up our thread of texts, and read through them, frowning at my one-word answers from the moment I woke up, and he finally gave up on trying to talk to me.

  I’m seized by a moment of panic, of worry that Brody won’t be showing up to today’s brunch, like it matters.

  Is it weird that my parents are so weirdly invested in this relationship? Probably.

  Am I mad about it? Not really.

  I figure you want your parents to like the guy you’re dating (or kind of dating or have a really long history with and you’re trying to date again).

  I fumble my phone when it shows me Brody’s incoming call. I swipe to answer before I can think better of it and speak into the mic.

  “Hey,” I say, sounding a little too sweet, like I’m greeting a cute puppy instead of…Brody.

  “Hey, yourself. Do you need a ride over to your parents later today?”

  I lift my phone from my ear, frown at it, then press it back. “What? Didn’t we just go over this? I thought you were going to meet me there.”

  “I don’t know, it seemed like a good idea to drive you over so we can talk. We need to talk.”

  “I’m not sure that’s an actual thing we need to do, Brody,” I say, wincing after the words come out of me.

  Jesus, betrayed by my own brain. The tragedy!

  “Really, Amber? You don’t think so?” His voice sounds a little dangerous.

  I will not bring up the conversation with his dad, I will not bring up the conversation with his dad…

  “I mean…did I act like a kid and refuse to talk about a conversation topic that makes me feel like crap? Sure. But I also know when I don’t want to talk about something, I don’t owe it to anyone to talk about it if it’s going to make me feel some type of way.” I sigh, rubbing at my oily forehead. I need to get out of bed, seriously. Like, right now. It’ll be an excuse to get off the phone!

  “I just…I don’t even think today’s going to be a good idea. How come you want to be with me so badly, huh? You know, you coming back into my life after all this time…it’s messing with my head, Brody Kane. Really. A whole lot. I don’t like it, not one bit.”

  “Sweetheart,” Brody says, softly, gently, and my heart squeezes down in my chest, and I can’t seem to get enough air.

  My eyes well with tears, and God, I missed him calling me that, that old-timey term of endearment that always made me melt, made me weak in the knees. It was a wonder I was able to walk around Brody at all way back when.

  “Why don’t you come open the door, huh? It’s freezing outside, and I’d rather grovel where I can see you.”

  “Grovel? What? Are you outside my freaking house, right now?” I slap at my face, seized in panic that he’s going to see my almost-thirty-year-old face without makeup, my smile lines more prominent than they were when I was eighteen (duh), and a perma-acne scar that I got when I was twenty that never really left.

  Maybe right now is not the time to contemplate an intense skincare routine to help fix all these issues, but it’s better than coming to the sudden, startling realization that Brody is outside my door. When I look out my bedroom window it’s to find him standing right there, looking up towards me, squinting up at the November sun, giving me a wave hello.

  “Ah, you can’t come in… I have flooding issues.” I mean, there’s a type of flooding that’s happening but it has to do with my uterus more than anything else. Heh.

  “A pipe broke? Should I call a plumber?”

  I groan. Of course he wants to be helpful, of course. “No…there’s no flooding. I just…” I sigh. Why am I like this, why?

  “I’ve got bed-head, and I’m still wearing the clothes I went to bed in, and if you open your mouth and say something dumb I want you to know that those will be the last words you’ll ever say in this world.”

  “Oh, that’s all? Yeah, sure. Come on, I brought coffee, and it’s freezing out here.”

  The sun’s blaring hot through the window I’m standing at, but honestly, it’s just Mother Nature setting a trap because as soon as you step outside, your nipples will fall right off if you’re not wearing the appropriate outerwear.

  “Yeah, yeah, hang on.”

  I stuff my hair in the messiest of buns, put a bra on, and stuff my feet in my slippers (the ones with Zero from Nightmare Before Christmas on them because ’tis the season), and head downstairs, unlocking the front door for him. I squint at him in the bright sunlight, his entire silhouette limned in champagne gold, holding a tray of giant coffees, looking like a dream.

  Ugh.

  What a punch to the gut this early in the morning.

  And we have to talk. How am I supposed to concentrate when he looks like that? How?

  Is this even fair?

  I usher Brody inside my house, save the tray of coffee from him before I swing into my kitchen, limping a little because my uterus is an asshole, and wait for him to follow me. I place the coffees on the table so that we’re going to be sitting opposite each other, and mentally run through with what’s in my fridge that’s not pie to share with him, because manners.

  I was going to do groceries today, promise, just have been drowning in self-pity and doing nothing else.

  Sometimes we need that time to wallow, and hope we have people in our lives to shake us out of it.

  “So…” Brody starts, holding onto his coffee with both hands once he takes a seat opposite me at my kitchen table. His hands are an angry-looking red, and I wonder how long he was standing outside waiting for me to answer him before calling me.