What If It's Us

by Becky Albertalli

  “See, he’s living his best life,” Harriett says. “Just look at his feed. He’s been to so many countries. Prepare for my Instagram to be nothing but ads for organic baby food and sugar-free gum and goat milk shampoo, because I have to save up so I can unleash myself on the world.”

  “Then you’ll return to a life of selfies?” Hudson asks. “The onslaught of selfies is really important; if I go two minutes on Instagram without seeing your face, I’d probably forget what you look like.”

  “You won’t be selfie shaming when you see pictures of me flying solo on boats and on mountains and on hot guys’ laps.”

  “You wouldn’t want a travel buddy?” I ask. If I had the money to see the world, I’d want Dylan there. He’s in all my other stories, and I’d want him in all the new ones too, when things settle down again. If they do.

  “Are you volunteering your company?”

  “Yeah, right.” I chuckle. Harriett’s parents have well-paying jobs and they love spoiling her. I can’t side hustle with my Instagram.

  “Down the line, I mean,” Harriett says. “After you’ve sold your book and you’re raking in that Netflix and amusement park money.”

  “No pressure.” The Wicked Wizard War feels like such a waste now. Arthur was my biggest fan, and I doubt anyone would love the story as much as Arthur does. And he was my boyfriend. If I wanted to post somewhere public like Wattpad, I would be opening myself up to feedback from strangers who won’t care if this is the story of my heart.

  “Just saying. We really missed you, Ben,” Harriett says. Hudson shoots her a look. “What. Let’s stop acting like there isn’t a big gay elephant in the room and try to move on.” She holds our hands. “We’re all friends, right?”

  Not all of us, but I say “Right” anyway.

  “Yeah,” Hudson says. I hope he means it.

  “So let’s be friends again,” Harriett says. I wonder if she misses Dylan at all. “What are you going to do about Arthur? Reach out? Move on? Let us know where you stand so we can support you.”

  “I wish Arthur would give me a chance to explain . . . I know it’s kind of pointless because he’s leaving, but I don’t want him leaving like this. And Dylan . . .” I turn to Harriett, who gestures for me to go on. “I stepped out of line. But I also told the truth. I just think everything would be simpler if I could have my boyfriend and all my friends and not feel like people always have to choose one or the other.”

  I shut down right there because we’ve been here before, after Dylan broke up with Harriett. Being Harriett’s friend was weird for Dylan, and me trying to be Hudson’s friend was weird for Arthur. But maybe this isn’t how life works. Maybe it’s all about people coming into your life for a little while and you take what they give you and use it on your next friendship or relationship. And if you’re lucky, maybe some people pop back in after you thought they were gone for good. Like Hudson and Harriett.

  And maybe this is the do-over I needed all along.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Arthur

  Friday, August 3

  Just me and you tomorrow, Obama.

  Alone in Uncle Milton’s apartment, surrounded by horses, with only the Grubhub delivery guy for company. I may actually print a picture of Barack’s face and tape it to a Popsicle stick, because even if I’m single with no friends or parents in sight, at least I can spend the day partying with my president. And I bet you think I’m kidding, but guess who overcame “sickness” and showed up at work just to use the color printer.

  “Arthur, you’re depressing me,” says Namrata.

  “I . . . didn’t say anything.”

  “I know. It’s freaking me out.”

  I shrug and turn back to the Bray-Eliopulos files, which are as numbingly boring as ever. Maybe I’m feeling masochistic. Or maybe I’ve unlocked the secret, and this is how people focus. All you have to do is have a cute boy rip your heart out, then let your best friends stomp all over it, and if it’s still beating even a little bit, finish the job yourself. Say the worst things and yell your voice raw and destroy everything you love until, lo and behold, the monotony of work is a relief. Because if you’re balls-deep in Bray-Eliopulos, at least you can’t think about your ex-boyfriend. Your un-soul-mate. The guy who bailed in the middle of Act Two.

  “What’s the plan for tomorrow?” Juliet turns to Namrata.

  I look up. “What’s tomorrow?”

  “David’s roommates are having a goodbye party,” says Namrata.

  “The dinosaurotica guys? Jurassion Passion?”

  “Yeah, and I can’t fucking wait. I’m shedding no tears over that departure.” Namrata leans back in her chair. “Jules, we’re heading up there together, right?”

  “Up where?” I ask.

  “Upper West Side. David goes to Columbia.”

  “Oh, that’s near me.” Neither of them speak. “So. Party, huh?”

  Juliet nods. “It’s pretty small, though, right?”

  “Yeah, just in their apartment,” Namrata says.

  “Sounds fun,” I say slowly, and then I press my lips together, because it’s not like I’m about to sit here begging for an invite to a random party on my own birthday. God. Even I’m not that uncool.

  Wait, I AM that uncool.

  “Maybe I could stop by?” I ask casually.

  Juliet and Namrata glance at each other.

  “Or . . . not.”

  “Arthur, look, it’s not personal,” Juliet says. “There’s going to be booze there.”

  “I’m comfortable with that.”

  “Well I’m not.”

  “You’re not comfortable with booze?”

  “I’m not comfortable with rolling into a boozy party with my boss’s underage son.”

  “Ha.” I grin. “I hear you. I wouldn’t actually drink. But my parents have a liquor cabinet, so I could make something! Like a candy corn martini—”

  “No, like, Namrata and I could legit get fired for that.”

  “Yeah, not happening,” Namrata says.

  “Even on my birthday?”

  And there it is. My Hail Mary.

  Namrata softens. “It’s your birthday?”

  “Tomorrow is.”

  “Oh, Arthur.” Juliet bites her lip. “We can’t bring you to this, though. You get that, right?”

  “Yeah, I . . . never mind.”

  “But seriously, you don’t want to hang out with the dinosaur guys anyway. You should do something fun with Ben.”

  And wow. Now I’m about to start crying at the conference table. I just stare at my hands, blinking. Fantastic.

  “Okay, that’s not the reaction I was expecting,” Juliet says carefully. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  Juliet and Namrata exchange glances again.

  But I don’t care. Let them feel bad. I have no shits left to give. Dad’s in Atlanta, Mom’s halfway to Canandaigua, Ethan and Jessie are probably making out behind Starbucks, and my only two friends in this whole stupid city are spending my birthday at a party in my neighborhood without me.

  My seventeenth birthday. Maybe on some planets, that’s the kind of thing people look forward to. But all I can think about is Hudson and Ben passing love notes in class. Ben’s Instagram, with its fifty-six versions of Hudson’s face. Hudson’s name on a shipping label for a box that was never sent.

  I think about the giant gaping hole in my heart, exactly the size of Ben’s fist.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Ben

  Saturday, August 4

  I’m at this low-key coffee shop with Hudson since our exam is on Tuesday and I really need a solid study session to handle my weak spots. A couple times I thought I saw Dylan waltzing in, but it wasn’t him. That’s for the best. I’m not sure Harriett running off an hour ago to celebrate a friend’s birthday and leaving me alone with Hudson was for the best, though. I mean. We were fine that night after my showdown with Dylan. But it’s just us again for the first
time.

  We’re sitting side by side on stools. We’ve been quizzing each other, but the only answers I care about are all Arthur-related: How is he celebrating his birthday? Who’s making him feel like a king? Namrata and Juliet? Will texting him a happy birthday ruin his day? Does he hate me?

  “Earth to Ben,” Hudson says, waving.

  “Sorry.”

  “Arthur?”

  “Yup. Hard to focus.” Hudson and Harriett don’t know it’s Arthur’s birthday. I just jumped into study group so I wouldn’t stay home and play Sims. Last night my Sim counterpart gave flowers to Sim Arthur and got rejected because fuck my lives, real and digital. It’s become really obvious that no one can hurt you if they can’t talk to you, so I just locked Sim Ben in a room with no doors or windows. He’ll run out of oxygen eventually, but at least no one is breaking his heart. “Today is Arthur’s birthday.”

  “Did you make him something?” Hudson asks. “You’re a birthday pro.” For Hudson’s birthday I teamed up with Dylan to draw Hudson in Wonder Woman’s armor since she’s his favorite superhero. I wonder if he threw that out or not.

  “I wrote Arthur into The Wicked Wizard War,” I say. I finished the chapter last night after I was done with my homework. I was planning on emailing the chapter to Arthur at midnight, but I couldn’t get myself to send another message he would ignore. “I actually shared the book with him.”

  “Wow. That’s huge. You must’ve really liked him.” Hudson asked to read TWWW a couple times but never as passionately as Arthur did. Not sharing something so personal to me with the guy I was dating should’ve been a red flag about how positive I felt about our future. “I’m guessing Hudsonien got the ax?”

  “Locked away in a dungeon,” I say.

  “Cool,” Hudson says. “You should just text Arthur. You won’t feel better until you do.”

  “I know I should. But it feels like I’m programmed to do the wrong thing. I walked away from Arthur when we first met. I took too long to open up and earn his trust. I was always late. I never threw away that fucking box, and now he wants nothing to do with me.”

  “What box?” Hudson asks.

  No point hiding anything.

  “On the first day of summer school I brought a box of everything you gave me. But you didn’t show up, so I was going to mail it to you, and then I met Arthur at the post office. But I didn’t mail it because . . .”

  “Because what?”

  “I was still holding out hope?”

  I shouldn’t be talking about this, but I can’t help myself; these are all the words I’ve been thinking but couldn’t say out loud. Not to Hudson. Not even to myself.

  “Where’s the box now?”

  “In my mom’s closet.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  My phone rings; it’s Dylan. I screen his call. I saw his Instagram post earlier, and I don’t need to pick up so he can not-so-casually remind me how well things are going with Samantha.

  I don’t know how to tell Hudson that I want to throw away a box of things that used to mean everything to me. But that fucking box. I can’t keep treating it like something that belongs in a museum’s exhibit specializing in one guy’s history of breaking hearts.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m kind of happy to hear you say that, Ben.”

  “Why?”

  My phone rings again. I don’t know this number, so I can screen this call too.

  “Same reason you never mailed it,” he says.

  “Hope?”

  Hudson leans in, like he thinks we’re about to kiss.

  My phone buzzes. This time it’s a text from that unknown number: Ben, it’s Samantha. Call me. Dylan is in the hospital.

  “Holy shit.” I call Samantha back immediately. While it’s ringing, I tell Hudson that Dylan is in the hospital. He’s asking me what’s going on, but all I can think about are the different things that could’ve happened. Coffee burn or car accident or jumped by some stranger because he was being too Dylan in a place where that gets you hit or something too scary to even think to myself.

  “Ben,” Samantha answers.

  “What happened? Is he okay?”

  “His heart,” Samantha says, and she sounds like she’s fighting for her air herself. “We had to rush him to the hospital.”

  “Where are you? What hospital?”

  “New York–Presbyterian. His parents are on the way. Are you coming?”

  “Of course.” The fact that she has to ask makes me feel like the worst best friend ever. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I say, walking toward the train station already. I hang up and Hudson catches up to me. “Dylan’s heart is being stupid and I got to get to him.”

  I’m about to cry, because holy shit, the universe might be setting me up for a painful goodbye.

  “Where?”

  “Presbyterian.”

  “That should only take us twenty minutes, maybe ten if we catch an express train.”

  “No. I have to go . . .” Not alone, because I don’t want to be alone, but I don’t need Hudson there. “It’s okay. You don’t have to go.”

  “He was my friend too,” Hudson says.

  “But he’s my brother.” And that’s that. Hudson nods. “I’ll let you know how he’s doing,” I say as I take off.

  Nothing’s going to happen to Dylan. He’s going to be fine. It’s Dylan. Nothing ever holds him down. But it still hurts to picture him in a hospital bed. I need him to know that I was there if—no.

  Dylan is going to be okay.

  He’s going to be okay.

  One stop away from the hospital and the train is stuck underground because fuck you, universe. It’s hard to keep calm. He just had his appointment, where his doctor said he was low-risk for any attack like this. Yeah, he’s going to be fine. It’s Dylan. Nothing ever holds him down. . . .

  I have to talk to someone. My phone has service since we’re close enough to the next station, and I type out a text to Arthur:

  Dylan is in the hospital. Idk everything yet but his heart is acting up. I haven’t been this scared in a long time. It’s Dylan, you know. I was a total dick to him a couple days ago because I’m an asshole. And I never really took his heart thing that seriously but maybe I should have and I’m fucking TERRIFIED. And I’m fucking stuck underground because the MTA gods are still The Worst. I know you don’t want to hear from me, but you’re the only person I want to talk to right now. I’m sorry, Arthur. Happy birthday. I hope hearing from me doesn’t ruin your day.

  I send the text.

  And I wait. I wait to see if he’ll respond. I wait for the train to move.

  Maybe I should walk it. Just go outside and take my chances on the tracks. I can use my phone light to scare away rats and guide the way.

  My phone buzzes.

  Arthur.

  Oh shit! OK. Who’s there with him? He’s not alone, right?

  That’s the scariest thought, Dylan being alone with all this going on. No one at his side who isn’t a doctor or nurse. Thankfully someone important is with him.

  Samantha is there. His parents are on the way, they’re like a quick taxi from Presbyterian Hospital.

  Anything I can do? Arthur asks.

  Stay with me?

  I’m not going anywhere, he says.

  And a couple minutes go by without either of us saying anything. But I trust that wherever Arthur is, he’s on his phone, keeping me company. He’s sticking around.

  What happened with Dylan? The argument, I mean.

  I told him that relationships never last.

  Do you actually believe that?

  Of course not. That was the heartbreak talking. Relationships just don’t last when there’s an idiot in the mix. I really messed up, Arthur. I just wish I could’ve done everything differently. Told you at the very beginning that I was in summer school with Hudson. But I promise you that everything I said on Monday was true. We were just going to talk.

>   Arthur isn’t typing anything back. I know he’s still there, but I want to know what he’s thinking.

  I have to be honest. I’ve been hanging with Hudson and Harriett. They used to be my friends and they were the only people I could turn to after ruining things with you and Dylan and Samantha. And I talked about you all the time. And then today it was just me and Hudson and I was beating myself up some more and Hudson tried to kiss me and I pulled away because I’m only into you.

  The train starts moving and I send another text.

  I’m not sorry for having an ex-boyfriend. But I’m sorry for letting him get in the way of you trusting me. I hope you believe me.

  The train stops at the station, and right before the doors open, my phone buzzes again. I have this dread—Arthur telling me to fuck off, Samantha telling me the worst news.

  But it’s something good in all this chaos.

  I believe you, Ben.

  I run into the waiting room and Samantha is leaning back in a chair with her head on the wall.

  “Samantha!”

  “Ben.” She hops up, and even though I don’t deserve it, she hugs me.

  I look around. “How’s it going? Where are his parents?”

  “Grabbing coffee.”

  “The fuck? Dylan is dy—”

  “He’s okay! He’s okay. It was a false alarm. Panic attack. Really bad panic attack. We just found out like five minutes ago. I was going to text you but . . .” Samantha takes a deep breath. “I needed a moment. I will never forget the way he panicked when his heart rate started speeding up . . .”

  I hug her when she’s tearing up. I know the face she’s talking about. When Dylan was admitted overnight three years ago for a heart scare, I was really bummed I couldn’t stay there with him, so I skipped school the next day to hang out.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that, but I’m happy you were there.” I take a step back. “Thanks for telling me.”

  “I didn’t think twice. I know Dylan has a reputation, and I know you were looking out for me.”

  “He doesn’t deserve you,” I say with a smile.

  “Of course not, but he’s stuck with me. At least for another couple weeks,” she jokes.