You Have a Match

by Emma Lord

  My parents left a glass of water and some ibuprofen on the coffee table. I chug some immediately, and before I can overthink it or chicken out, call Connie back.

  She picks up on the first ring and speaks before it’s even over.

  “I’m sorry. I mean, you know that, but I’m going to start with that and end with that, and possibly say it into perpetuity.”

  I close my eyes, trying to acclimate my brain to what’s happening.

  “I just—the whole thing was—so dumb. I really didn’t think it was gonna, like, be a whole thing, you know? Or maybe that’s it. I was worried it was gonna be a thing, and either you’d both leave me behind, or you’d have some big messy breakup and the whole thing would get ruined and I’d have to pick a side, and shit, Abby. I love you both so much.”

  I open my eyes again. “So you … you told me Leo didn’t like me.”

  “Yeah. But what you don’t know is … after, you were so relieved about it … I told Leo you didn’t like him.”

  “Hold up. One sec. Sorry. I just woke up, so I don’t … really know what’s happening.” I take another swig of water and see that there’s a banana, too. I rip it open as if I didn’t eat my weight in Thai food last night, hoping it will make the ibuprofen work its magic faster.

  Then my eyes snap fully open. “You told him what?”

  “You’re pissed.”

  My mouth is too full of banana to allow me to be much of anything. Or maybe it’s that, when I try to summon the anger I’ve felt since figuring out what she did, I can’t find it. If it’s there it feels like the smoke it left behind, something too thin to hold on to.

  “Kinda.”

  Connie’s not crying, but her voice is at that specific decibel it gets just before she starts. “I ruined everything, haven’t I?”

  I sit up on the couch, trying to clear my head and decide what to say. I should tell her how much this hurt me. I should tell her how I spent the last few months tiptoeing around her and Leo both, nursing the kind of ache I couldn’t tell anyone about, least of all the two people it affected most.

  But I can tell she already knows that. And making her feel worse isn’t going to do anybody any good.

  “No, you haven’t.”

  I just watched an entire lifetime of friendship get imploded by a misunderstanding. I’m not going to let this rock us. We’ve got way too much behind us and way too much ahead to lose it over something that I think—I hope—can still be fixed.

  “I’m fixing this, I swear. I was on the phone with Leo last night. I was trying to reach you, but someone found him for me and I told him everything,” she says in a rush. “Just—so he knew. Why there was weirdness. If there was weirdness.”

  “A surplus of it,” I say. It’s a relief, weirdly, to be open about it with her. I’m dying to ask her what Leo said—an even vainer, louder part of me wants to know what Leo said about me—but I know it’s not Leo I need to ask about. “I was … mad when you told me what you did. And I didn’t give you a chance to explain.”

  Connie lets out a sigh. “Well—I guess part of it was that so many things have been changing, and I just wanted to—hit pause, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I say after a moment. “I know.”

  The relief of hearing that seems to speed her up, making her words trip over each other on their way out. “It kind of felt like the two of you were going somewhere I’ve never been, and—if I’m being honest, might not ever really want to go,” she says. “I’ve never really had feelings like that for anyone before, I guess, and I … I didn’t want you guys to get wrapped up in it and leave me behind. We’ve all been so busy as it is.”

  It’s like we’d been driving in the same car for ages, and only just looked down and saw the hole in the floor—like we could convince ourselves everything was still okay, as long as we were chugging along in the same direction we’d always been. I try to remember the last time Connie and I really talked to each other, really talked, without homework or extracurriculars or a phone screen in our way, and I’m coming up empty.

  “Well, you know what? We’ll change that. Spend more time together this year, like we used to,” I say. “I’m going to have more free time. So if you find some, we can just … hang.”

  “You’re not gonna third wheel me?” Connie’s voice is light, even if there’s still a slight wobble to it. “Not gonna make me the Harry to your Ron and Hermione, the Peggy to your Steve and Bucky, the PB&J cinnamon rolls to your brothers and any other living creature—”

  “I’m gonna go ahead and cut you off right there,” I laugh. “Connie, nobody could ever third wheel you. You’re like four wheels all on your own.”

  “This is a fact.”

  I press the phone closer to my face, as if she can feel the intention and it will make my words count for more than they already do.

  “And even if things change—I mean—I guess what I’m trying to say is, things were going to change no matter what. Leo’s going off to school. You and I are gonna peel off somewhere in a year, too. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. After Hermione and Ron got together, Harry and Ron were still best friends.”

  “Did you just … willingly make yourself Ron in this metaphor?”

  “That’s how much I love you, Con.”

  “Well, shit.” She sniffles into the phone, relieved. “And Abby—I mean—I know I’m not exactly the patron saint of budding relationships right now, but I think … well. Even my meddling didn’t stop you two from feeling things for each other. I really think it could work out.”

  “You know he’s leaving.”

  And like that, Connie is back in full Mom Friend splendor, the words so firm that I can hear her hand land on her hip for emphasis. “Abby, you’ve waited your whole damn life to get out of Shoreline and see the world. I’m pretty sure there isn’t anywhere either of you could go that the other one wouldn’t follow.”

  I’m not so sure about that, but I am sure I’ll do whatever it takes to find out.

  thirty-six

  It turns out scoring a farewell tour back to camp is as easy as asking my parents for a lift. That, and Mickey wasn’t kidding—there were full-blown rumors circulating that I’d been eaten by a bear, so Victoria encouraged a drop-in before the whole of Phoenix Cabin turned the place upside down trying to find out the truth.

  I’m expecting to see Finn hanging out at the front desk in that lazy way he always does in the morning, but he isn’t there.

  “He’s got a flight to Chicago tonight,” Jemmy informs me, after she and Izzy and Cam finish squeezing in a hug made awkward only by how vigilantly all three were avoiding my cast.

  “Yeah,” says Izzy, popping the top off a pen with her molars. She gestures for me to hold out my wrist, and starts signing the bright blue plaster. “But he seemed pretty happy about it.”

  So am I. I hope it works out between him and his mom. I have a feeling I’ll be hearing from him and find out soon enough.

  “I can’t believe you’re leaving. Half the camp is ditching us,” says Cam.

  My arm gets shifted in turn so each can sign, and then all three stare at me solemnly. I’m afraid they’re going to ask what happened. Afraid that I’m going to blurt it out and tell them, because I’m bursting to tell someone—Connie had to leave before I could tell her anything important.

  “Stay in touch,” says Izzy instead. Like she’s putting a bookmark in the conversation; like she doesn’t have to ask now, because they’re going to ask later. “I’ll put you in the group text when we’re all out of here.”

  “You better.”

  My parents are still busy talking to Victoria when I pop out of the front cabin to look for Leo. I don’t have to look very hard—he’s already walking toward the office with long, purposeful strides, looking windswept and frazzled and like he didn’t sleep much last night. Our eyes find each other’s and he stops in his tracks so fast that my face burns, realizing he must have also been looking for me.


  And somehow, just like that, this seems like the least scary thing I’ll ever do. I cross the distance to Leo, letting myself look him fully and completely in the eyes for the first time in months, drinking them in without any self-consciousness or fear.

  He stares back, and it’s already there. It isn’t something we’ve realized. Just something we’ve always had, maybe, that got lost, and is finally found.

  I hold out my hand.

  “Do you want to go for a walk?”

  He stares at my fingers, his eyes flitting over to the cast on my other side before settling back on my face. I keep my hand out, waiting.

  “Yeah. Let’s.”

  It’s almost embarrassing, how fast the warmth floods through me when his hand wraps around mine. The surge is quiet but powerful, the kind of burn that steadies me. Neither of us says anything, not even when I squeeze his fingers and he gives mine a quick squeeze back. But I start walking, and he follows, and the rhythm is so easy that we might have been walking like this our whole lives.

  I lead him down a path I’ve walked with Savvy and Rufus before, an early-morning one that I know well. We walk, hand in hand, until I’m almost certain I can feel his heartbeat against my palm as loudly as I can hear my own.

  “I saw the Instagram post,” he finally says.

  “I think it’s my best work.”

  Leo lets out a sharp laugh, kicking a heel into the grass. “I’ve seen enough of your work to know that’s a lie.”

  I squeeze his hand another time before I let go, settling into a spot on the grass that overlooks the water. Leo hesitates, then sits down next to me, staring out at the shore.

  “You read the caption?”

  “There was a caption?” Leo asks. He looks worried. “I haven’t been captioning any of your posts—”

  “Here,” I say, handing him my phone. I already had the page pulled up, so we don’t have to worry about it loading. I hold the phone out to him and let him read, watching the expression on his face shift.

  He reads the quote, half murmuring it under his breath. After weeks of working on that Benvolio essay, I have the character’s quote memorized: Soft! I will go along. And if you leave me so, you do me wrong.

  He spent enough time crafting his own essay for Romeo and Juliet in his junior year that he knows it, too.

  “Abby…”

  I take the phone from him, my fingers grazing his and lingering. It’s the kind of deliberate gesture that might have terrified me a few days ago, but I feel buoyed in it now—in this faith I have in myself to say what I need to say.

  “So, I’m gonna be starting summer school. In like two weeks.”

  Leo’s shoulders slump a bit closer to the grass, expecting me to break the silence with something else.

  “I read over the email last night,” I tell him. “We’re doing an intensive in Romeo and Juliet. Same essay all over again.”

  He’s as engaged as ever, even in this moment when it is suddenly clear to me that he thinks I’m about to disappoint him. He leans back, like he’s settling into something—not the ground beneath us, but acceptance.

  “Just—different thesis.”

  I hold my gaze on him, waiting him out. Watching the way his eyes are brewing as they watch the water, the curve of his set jaw, the rustle of dark hair against his ear. Watching until he realizes I’m not going anywhere, and he has no choice but to look back.

  “I was thinking … I had it wrong on the last one. Or at least, my heart was never in it.” I lean in closer, lowering my voice. “This one will be about why we all need a Benvolio.”

  Leo lets out this little breath of surprise, a quiet understanding that spreads into his face, sparks in his eyes, and curls the edges of his lips. “You’re going to need supporting evidence for that thesis, you know.”

  I grin back. “I think I’ve got enough of it right here.”

  There is an undeniable crack in his expression then, something that splits deeper than his face. “Abby,” he says. “I’m … I’m still leaving in September.”

  “Yeah. To New York, not to Mars.” I lower my voice. “You read that quote. I mean it, Leo. There’s nowhere you could go that would change my mind.”

  He presses his lips together, his eyes searching mine. “You say that now, Abby, but it’s a year. Thousands of miles. And I want this. I want you.” He takes my hand in his, tight enough that I know he means it, but loose enough that it would be easy for me to let go. “But you’re … you’re a forever kind of person to me. You always have been. And I don’t want to start something this important when it might be ended because of things we can’t control.”

  I can’t claim to know what the future holds—whether the two of us will be equipped to go the distance, or what kind of people we’ll be in a year or two or more on the other side of it. I can’t even say where I’ll be, let alone where he might.

  But it isn’t the knowing that matters. It’s the feeling that does—and this is deeper than the miles between us, more enduring than any odds we might face.

  “Our lives are going to take us a lot of places,” I say softly, tightening my grip on his hand. “Like you said—things happening for different people at different times. But the way I feel about you … that’s never going to change. So if you really feel the way that I do…”

  “I do,” he says. “Plain as Day.”

  We both start to smile, but our grins snag on each other, pulling us closer than we expected—then as close as we can get.

  Kissing Leo is so easy that I almost miss the moment it happens, the way you don’t remember opening the front door when you come home, or how you don’t wake up in the middle of the night to the same loud noise you’ve heard a thousand times. Like this isn’t the important moment, not the one that really defines anything; it’s just a moment built smack in the middle of all the other ones. A moment that carries you through to the next but isn’t any more or less important than the others because the end result will always be the same.

  What isn’t easy is once it starts happening, because there is no way to make it fit—it isn’t just the clench of my gut, the heat pooling out of it, the tingle of skin on skin. It’s the overwhelming flood of sensations, and everything they’re built on. Knees knocking on top of the jungle gym. Late-night texts under the covers. Stolen bites of still-cooking meals. This current that has hummed under me my whole life, roaring and breaking the surface, crashing into every part of me. I could kiss him and never find the start of it, never find the end. I could kiss him and lose myself in a world we already share, now lit up in colors I never thought I’d see.

  When we pull apart we’re both grinning, foreheads pressed together, eyes with identical sparks.

  “I can’t even tell you how long I’ve wanted to do that,” says Leo.

  Confidence blazes through me, making me feel like I could snap fire into existence, strike lightning at will, control the tides.

  “So show me.”

  Leo laughs, and so do I, and he catches my laugh with his lips and this time when we kiss, I know I’ve finally reached the one height he’ll never ask me to come down from.

  thirty-seven

  I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen an actual drunk person, courtesy of never going to any of the student government parties Connie always invites us to, but I imagine that this is what it feels like: stumbling like the earth’s axis tilted, sneaking glances at the person next to you and giggling for no reason, stealing kisses every few steps just because you can. By the time Leo and I start meandering back to camp, I am distinctly aware that we are insufferable, but not aware enough to know if five minutes have passed or five hours.

  “Want to make a pit stop?” Leo asks at one point, turning his head toward a clearing up ahead.

  I nod, but mostly because he could ask me if I wanted to swim in a cage with an unfed shark right now and I’d probably do the same. I’m so wrapped up in us and this weird bubble of things we’re allowed to do—
for some reason I’ve been touching his forearm constantly, like that’s a totally normal thing—that I don’t notice where he’s taking me until we’re directly in front of Make Out Rock.

  And its current status is very much occupied.

  “Oh shit,” I blurt first, without a shred of decorum.

  Savvy’s ponytail is not even ponytail reminiscent anymore, and Mickey’s shirt is so askew that I can spot a temporary Flounder tattoo peeking out from the Ariel on her shoulder.

  “Hey,” Mickey squeaks, spotting us first.

  Savvy whips around, mouth open like she’s poised for damage control. Victoria’s rules about staff romance are probably something along the lines of “don’t.” When she sees it’s me, her eyes go wide.

  “Well, look at you,” she says, and it occurs to me that my face must be every bit as red as it feels. That, or I’m being extremely unsubtle about my newfound talent of glomming on to Leo, which has manifested in my good arm roping around his torso and his around my shoulder.

  “Excuse us,” says Leo, “we didn’t realize this spot was already, uh, taken.”

  “That’s the glory of becoming an unrepentant summer camp cliché,” says Mickey, gesturing for us to take their place. “The ability to pass the torch to the next. Go on, my children.”

  “Nah. I gotta get this one back to camp,” says Leo, his grip tightening on me. I sink into it, and Savvy catches my eye, the both of us looking a little delirious.

  “And I need to get you both to camp before the head chef calls out a prelunch search party,” says Savvy, eyeing Mickey and Leo.

  Mickey glances at her watch. “Oh, yeah, it’s five past We’re Definitely Getting Lectured o’clock,” she says, her eyebrows shooting into her hair. She turns to Savvy, lifting herself on her tiptoes to kiss her again. Savvy leans in, more shy than I might have expected, but Mickey ends the kiss by tugging the dangling hair tie from the remains of her ponytail and snapping it in the air.