Will stepped inside, bags of groceries in hand and smelling like coffee. She rushed over to help him. They could have gone shopping together. She’d been mooching off him for over a week now. Elena figured it was her turn to pay for groceries.
“Hey,” she said. “You didn’t tell me you were doing a grocery run.”
Will looked up at her, wide-eyed. He let her take two bags from him. “It was super last minute. I realized we didn’t have anything for dinner.”
He followed her into the small kitchen, blocked off from the rest of the studio by a wall Will’s grandmother had apparently built on her own at some point in the fifty years she’d owned the place. Elena set the bags town on one of the two counters in the kitchen. Will took the other.
“How was your day?” she asked. Will worked at Melo’s most weekends, but he also took some tutoring jobs on occasion. Elena wondered if that was where he’d been today.
“Cecilia and I went to lunch, watched a movie,” he said. “It was fun.”
Clipped answers meant one thing. Either Will was stressed or tired, or both.
“Is everything okay?” Elena asked. “You make it sound like it wasn’t fun. Did something happen?”
Will shook his head. He opened the pantry and began to stuff soup cans inside. “Nothing happened. Okay?”
Elena stepped back. It wasn’t just clipped answers now, Will wasn’t looking at her. He sped through the other beg, putting things away, ignoring Elena all together.
“You’re mad,” Elena said, a conclusion she’d never made about Will. Well, not like this. He’d been mad before, but usually she’d been mad first. “Did I do something?”
“No,” he said, again a sharp tone. He stopped putting things away. “It’s nothing, Elena. I’m tired and I have a scholarship essays to work on, and a shift to work tomorrow morning. It’s feeling like a lot. That’s all.”
“Okay,” she said. She didn’t like this Will, which she knew wasn’t fair because he was human, and he was allowed to have days like this, days when he wasn’t smiling or trying to make her smile. Then she paused. She’d never stayed this long with him before. It had to be stressful, to have her there without knowing when she was leaving.
“I was thinking about going back to Bee’s tonight,” Elena said. How could she have been such a terrible friend? Will probably had an aching back from all the days he’d spent on the air mattress. She heard him pause whatever he’d been doing in the kitchen. “I’m tired of wearing the same clothes, and I figure it’s time I talked to my dad. Avoiding each other won’t solve anything. You can have your bed-”
He stepped out of the kitchen, shaking his head. “I don’t want you to go,” Will said. “It’s not that. At all.”
Elena shook her head right back. “It’s okay,” she said. “You can tell me. I know I’ve been here for more than a week now, and it’s a small space.”
“That’s not it,” Will said, his words clipped again.
“Then what is it?” Elena asked. “Because I can’t do anything to help if you don’t tell me.” She kept her tone soft, her words quiet, even though she wanted to yell them out at this point.
“Cecilia and I, we decided to end things.”
“What? Why? You two looked great yesterday.”
Will sat on the arm of the lounger. He leaned over, holding his hands in his head.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he said. “I’ve tried to and I end up hurting more people.”
“What can’t you do?”
Will stood and then pointed at Elena and then at himself. “This,” he said. “I thought I could, I wanted to.”
“Do what, Will?” Did he mean he didn’t want to be her friend anymore?
He sighed. “Cecilia figured it out in a night. How can you not figure it out after five years?”
Elena stepped back. “Is this about you staying in Glensford instead of going to New York?”
“Yes,” he said. He looked up. “Cecilia figured out why I want to stay.”
“You said you’d miss us,” Elena said, by which she meant her dad and herself. “Why would Cecilia stop dating you because of that?” The more she spoke, the more Elena realized that wasn’t the only reason.
“I’d miss you,” Will said, sounding like he’d lost everything. “I would miss you because I’m in love with you.”
Will didn’t try to move toward her. He just sat there looking like he’d confessed a sin.
Elena tried to wrap her head around his words. He hadn’t said he loved her, no, he said in love. Like she’d been in love with him. Been in love? Elena reached through her thoughts. Was she no longer in love with Will?
“You don’t feel that way about me,” Elena said. “You never have. You love me like a friend, a best friend.”
She knew saying it wouldn’t make it true. Will looked up at her, shaking his head. “Elena, do you really believe that?”
Frankly, she didn’t know what to believe.
“You dated other people, you dated Mia,” Elena said. She tilted her head. Then instead of confusion, she felt absolute clarity. “Is this why the two of you broke up, because she figured out you were in love with me?”
Will’s head drooped forward again. Elena stared at the ground, thinking back to the break-up, the whole thing. Mia had been crazy about Will.
“Why would you ask her out if you had feelings for me?” Elena shook her head. “Do you have any idea how much you hurt her?”
“I didn’t mean to,” Will said. “I liked Mia. I knew if I could like anyone close to how I liked you, then it was her.” He stood now, finally making eye contact. “I couldn’t risk our friendship, Elena. You and your dad are my family, and if I told you how I felt, and we ended things, I’d lose my only support system in this entire world.”
Elena wondered if Mia thought she knew about this. She knew this should be the part where she told Will she loved him too, that she forgave him for not having told her sooner, that she understood why he hadn’t. But she didn’t.
She couldn’t.
“Did you know I loved you?” She bit back the anger suddenly rising within her.
He nodded. She needed air, to get out of here, but she stayed anyways.
“I suspected,” Will said. “I mean if I felt that way I figured at some point you would too.” He looked up at her. “I know it’s selfish. What was I supposed to do?”
Elena breathed in. She looked around the apartment because she couldn’t look at Will. What did he mean, what was he supposed to do?
“You had to tell me,” Elena said. “I spent five years in love with you.” The words were out.
Will swallowed a gulp of air. They both remained still, Elena taking in the truth of the situation. Will had feelings for her, and he’d dated Mia, Cecilia too, knowing that Elena might have feelings for him too. She kept her eyes on the ground.
“What made today different?” she asked, finally. “Why couldn’t you keep up the act anymore?”
Will stood and gave a tired laugh. “I saw you with Marco yesterday, side-by-side, and I realized if you ever had had any feelings for me then you were moving on from them.” He paused.
“Did you expect me to wait around for you until you were ready to acknowledge my feelings?” Elena’s voice rose. “You asked out Mia knowing all of this. It’s… it’s so selfish, Will.” She breathed out. She’d been selfish too, hadn’t she, sitting by as he dated other girls without telling him how she felt?
“I know,” Will said. “I know it was selfish. I never expected you to wait around for me. I thought I wanted you to do what you’re doing right now, to find someone you liked, to move on.”
He looked at her expectantly. Elena stared down at her hand then back up at the person who now felt like a stranger to her. “I can’t talk to you,” she said. “Not right now. Don’t stay in Glensford on my account.”
“Elena-”
“I like Marco,” Elena said, her words clear. “I loved you, yes, but
right now, this isn’t the Will I know.”
She grabbed her shoes, wallet and phone. Marco didn’t like her, but she liked him, and now suddenly Will was in love with her.
“Where are you going?” he asked. “It’s freezing outside.”
Elena grabbed the only coat she’d brought with her. “I need to right a wrong.”
Then she was out the door. She had nowhere to go.
Elena paused. She turned back to Will’s apartment. She was mad now, yes, but she wasn’t done asking questions. She ran back inside the building and found the door unlocked. Will looked up, stunned, like he’d been at the exhibition.
“You’re back.” He looked hopeful.
Elena nodded. “You’re one of my best friends, one of two. And I need to know why you hurt my other friend instead of telling me how you felt about me, clearly, with more than one sentence. Not wanting to lose me or my dad isn’t an excuse. So tell me, why? Why, Will?”
Will nodded, quickly. He motioned for Elena to take a seat on the lounger.
“Before I lived in Glensford, before I moved in with my grandmother, I lived with my mom in New York.”
“I know,” Elena said.
“She was a mess,” Will said. “Drinking, drugs, gambling everything we owned away: all the vices you can think of she’d tried them and liked them more than she liked raising me, I guess. So I went to foster care. My grandmother didn’t know. I spent most of elementary and middle school out of foster care, home after home, wondering, hoping if I’d have a family. Then my grandmother found out she had a grandson, and took custody of me. She moved me here, with barely enough money to keep both of us alive. I didn’t know her. I didn’t want to know her. And then, that first day of school, I met you.”
Elena remembered, she’d been twelve, crying on the swing set outside of their middle school, ready to skip another day of school. It’d barely been two weeks since her mom had died. Mia had started her freshman year at San Mateo, so she hadn’t been there for Elena to talk to. Will had gone up to her, making some comment that made her curious, caught her off guard.
She didn’t remember it now. Elena only remembered that after two weeks of falling tears she’d stopped crying. Then he’d sat with her at lunch the next day and the one after. At some point he’d met her dad, started coming over for dinners and movie nights. They got closer as she and Mia had grown apart. It’d been slow, but Elena had known then.
“You remember?” Will asked.
Elena nodded. “That’s why you never talked about New York, why you had such old clothes, right?”
Will nodded. “You and your dad became my family, more than my grandmother did. As much as I knew she loved me, I needed someone to blame, so I blamed her. And I started holding on to you and your dad like I had nothing else to hold on to. But I fell in love with you eventually; I realized it when I got to high school and I didn’t want to talk to anyone but you. I saw other people dating and realized I wanted that with you.”
Elena swallowed. “So you dated other girls, so you wouldn’t have those feelings.”
“I thought I was doing the smart thing,” Will said. “That, eventually, I’d find someone who I liked and could love as much or more than I loved you.”
“Did you?”
He gave a soft shake of his head. “I asked Mia out because I did like her, I did. I thought I loved her, or I could. And then she said she loved me and I couldn’t lie. I hurt her more while trying not to lie to her. It was stupid.”
“That’s why she stopped talking to me,” Elena said. “Because I was the reason you broke her heart.”
Will knelt down beside the lounger.
“Elena, I’m so sorry, I didn’t think she’d stop talking to you. I didn’t think, period. It was selfish of me, but in my head I panicked. I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying you’re sorry,” Elena said. He should be sorry but Elena didn’t want him to be sorry. She’d stayed by his side, without telling him the truth because she’d been afraid to lose him too. She was going out with Marco now, finally liking someone with the underlying intention of forgetting Will. “What you did, it wasn’t right, but I think I’ve been doing the same thing.”
Will looked at her. Elena bit her tongue. She couldn’t tell him about the fake relationship.
“I saw you with Cecilia, and I got tired of loving you in secret too.”
“So you went out with Marco?”
“Something like that.”
Will nodded. “And do you like him?”
Elena nodded too. “I think so.”
Will calmly took her hand into his. “Do you like me?”
Elena sucked in a breath. “It’s different with you. I don’t think I know how not to love you.” She watched Will, his eyes glazed over. “Will, can I kiss you?”
“What?”
“I think I’ll know if I kiss you.”
His blue eyes widened. “Yes.”
Elena leaned in and pressed her lips to his. Will didn’t move at first, but eventually he leaned in toward the kiss, gently, like he was afraid to get too close. She pulled away first, breathing out. She’d spent years wanting to do that, kiss the boy of her dreams.
Her heart didn’t race.
Will’s hopeful look faded. “It’s Marco, isn’t it?”
Elena pressed a finger to her lips. She wiped a tear away. “I think it is.”
It shouldn’t be, not when he liked Cecilia, when all he saw was a fake girlfriend in Elena.
“I’m sorry,” Elena said. Will didn’t say anything, He hugged Elena, holding her while she realized that after tonight, things were already changing.
Chapter 25
Marco refreshed his inbox.
Still no reply from his mom. It’d been a week. Which meant in two weeks his mom would be in the same city as him. She had to be coming because she wanted to see him, right?
That had to be it.
He put his phone away and went back to putting parchment paper on baking trays. He had exactly ten minutes until his shift ended.
“You can head out early,” Laura said. She stepped into the kitchen, wearing her manager shirt, a shade lighter than the brown shirts the rest of the staff wore.
Marco set the tray down. He gave her a curious look.
“Your girlfriend’s waiting for you. I’m feeling generous,” she said.
“Elena’s here?”
Laura nodded. “Leave your uniform in the to-be-washed pile. You have flour everywhere.” Then she headed out of the kitchen.
Marco undid his apron as he headed to the changing rooms. It took him a total of a minute to change back into the school uniform he’d worn there. He rushed past the after-work crowd and found Elena sitting by the coffee bar, the area Will usually worked at.
She was reading something on her phone, scrolling through as he walked over. She didn’t notice him until he’d taken the seat beside her and that was after Marco had been staring at her for a good thirty seconds.
Elena looked up, glaring, until she recognized him.
“I thought you were some weird stranger,” she said, setting her phone down.
“What were you reading?”
“Practice essay prompts for a midterm I have tomorrow.” She looked around. “Do you notice that?”
“What?”
“No one’s looking at us. No one’s taking pictures or asking questions.”
Marco paused at the sound of that. Almost a month had passed since the Thanksgiving dinner incident. A full month.
“I guess you’re right,” Marco said. He tried to smile but he was tired from his shift, groggy from staying up at night after watching his dad step through the door, looking pale beyond belief, and then hearing him running to the guest bathroom to throw up.
Marco pretended like he didn’t know, it was easier that way. Abby, for her part, didn’t say anything about having told him
Marco didn’t know if he liked Elena being here without having been told beforeha
nd.
“I think I found the copy of the book you wanted for your grandfather,” she said. “I’m meeting with the collector this weekend. You might have it in time for Christmas.”
That wasn’t terrible news. “You’re sure he has it?”
“He might,” Elena said. “He doesn’t live in Glensford but keeps part of his collection here, a lot of historical stuff, a few Preston Blanchard books. He said the title sounded familiar. He’s visiting family this weekend and agreed to meet me.”
“That’s great.” Marco paused. Elena looked serious now. They hadn’t seen much of each other in between their approaching midterms and shifts at Melo’s - it was like time sped past. Marco hadn’t heard much from Cecilia either, not that he had before the exhibition. She’d been quiet on her social media, though. “Is there something else? Is it your dad? Will?”
Marco remembered the building owner, Mr. Shaw. Maybe he was kicking them out early.
“Will and Cecilia broke up,” Elena said. “Well, Cecilia broke up with Will.”
“What? Why?” He leaned in closer. “When?” He hadn’t meant for the questions to come out so quickly, with so much enthusiasm.
Elena’s expression shifted.
“Cecilia broke up with him the day after the tango exhibition.”
Marco paused. “That was days ago. You’ve known since then?” He motioned for the door. “Why don’t we talk about this outside?”
Elena nodded. She pocketed her phone and followed him onto the snow-covered streets of San Mateo.
They walked side by side, until he finally decided to continue the conversation.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
Elena turned her gaze to the passing cars. “I couldn’t,” she said. “I wanted to, but I had a lot to process.”
Marco stopped thinking about Cecilia. “Did Will say something?”
Elena nodded. “He said he liked me.”
I knew it.
“Are you guys together?”
“No,” Elena said.
Marco waited for her to say something else because he didn’t know what to say.
“Our month is almost up,” he said. “I don’t think we have to do the full three months. You said it yourself, people seem to have forgotten. I think my dad’s PR person probably wanted to use us for publicity for Melo’s.”
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