What Are Friends For?: A Friends to Lovers Romance

by Sarah Sutton

  “Here you go, sir, one silver nail for you.”

  Elijah snatched it from my fingertips and poised it on the sagging doorframe, getting his hammer ready. “This is by no means a facelift, but it should get you by ’til spring and give me time to research how to actually fix a door. Terry was the handy one, not me.”

  “I wondered why it was looking rough.”

  “You are just full of wisecracks today.”

  “I’m just a witty person, what can I say?”

  Elijah had his gaze on the doorframe, but I saw the amusement flicker over his features.

  I wrapped the blanket tighter around my shoulders, as if that would replace the longing that festered inside me. I could pretend that the tightness of the blanket was like a hug, strong arms wrapping around me, holding me close. Sounded unhealthy. Probably was. But if I closed my eyes, it was a warm image in my mind. Almost enough to chase away the chill. Almost.

  A different image filtered through my mind then, of Savannah watching the two of us with narrow eyes. Thinking about it still left a pit in my stomach. I knew if I were her, I’d be ticked too that someone was cozying up to my boyfriend. But it was like I couldn’t help myself—these situations kept coming together and I had no power to stop them.

  When I opened my eyes, I found Elijah looking at me with an expression so open that it made my heart jump. He never looked at me like that. “What?” I demanded.

  “What…what?”

  “You’re staring at me.”

  Elijah blinked, looking away to squint at the jamb. “Oh. I was just thinking. About the door.”

  “Do you love her?”

  A scoff ripped from his throat. “Yes, this door and I are having a torrid love affair. Don’t tell my girlfriend.”

  “That’s what I mean. Your girlfriend. Do you love her?”

  The question came from a place in my subconscious that hated me, I was sure of it. Otherwise, why would I have ruined a perfectly great moment with something so personal? It wouldn’t have been weird before, asking him about his love life, but it felt weird now. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.

  Elijah clearly thought it was weird too. The look he gave me was pure alarm, and a strangled noise came from his throat. “What?”

  “Do you love her? I’ve never heard you say it.”

  “I haven’t said it,” he said, holding his hand out for another nail. His voice was lower than it’d been a moment before. “I don’t—I don’t know, Rem. We haven’t been together that long.”

  I placed the cool nail in his palm, my fingertips brushing his skin. He jerked away at the touch. “I wasn’t trying to pry.”

  “It’s payback, I guess, for me being so involved in your love life.”

  No, get involved, please. Get involved, be a part of my love life. Be in this with me.

  I opened my mouth to say something—hopefully not to voice my thoughts—when my ringtone cut through the air, chirping from back at the table. “It’s probably Eloise,” I said, moving toward it. “She’s probably going to ask the answer to a homework problem or something.”

  When I picked up my cell, though, I saw that it was Dad wanting to video chat. I pressed accept. Dad’s face filled my screen, his smile wide. Judging from the background, I could see that he stood in the living room, but the phone was so shaky that I couldn’t tell if anyone was with him. “Okay, okay, look!”

  When he flipped the camera view, I saw Harmony leaning on the couch, staring up at Dad with her tiny eyebrows pulled together. Dad called her name, and I could hear Clarabelle chiming in as well in the background. “Come on, Harmony, walk to Daddy. You can do it.”

  “No way,” I gasped, pressing one corner of the soft blanket over my mouth.

  Harmony’s lips twitched as she heard all of our voices mixing together, and she pushed off the couch and stood still for a moment. And then, slower than a turtle, she lifted one little socked foot in front of her and took a step. And then another. Another.

  “She’s doing it!” Dad said through the phone, and I could hear Clarabelle clapping.

  “What’s going on?” Elijah asked, coming up behind me. “Is she—”

  “She’s walking!” I told him with a laugh, holding my cell so that he could see the picture. “Elijah, she’s walking!”

  “Oh my gosh,” he breathed, reaching around me to wrap his arm around my shoulders. I could feel all five of his fingers weigh down the blanket, could feel his hair brush against mine. “Look at her. Go, Harmony, go!”

  Mom hurried into the hallway, scanning until she found us huddled together. “What’s going on? What happened?”

  “Harmony’s walking,” I repeated, gesturing to the screen of my phone. “Dad’s video-chatting me.”

  “Ooh!” Mom closed the short distance between us, coming up to my other side, and peered at the screen. She immediately smiled, the kind of expression everyone got when looking at babies. “Oh, she’s getting so big!”

  The five of us cheered on the little baby, all of our voices mixing together as we watched Harmony take another step, and then another. I leaned closer to Elijah, his warmth and his scent wrapping around me, and I knew this moment would be embedded in my brain forever. Even if things were complicated—at least on my end—it felt fitting that he was seeing this, too, that he was part of this moment. No matter what, he was family.

  My parents’ divorce could have made this moment strange. I knew a lot of couples never spoke again after a divorce. But Mom cheered on Dad’s baby with another woman with tears in her eyes, cooing at the screen.

  Mom and Dad always said they fell out of love, but at that moment, I knew that wasn’t true. Maybe they fell out of romantic love, but they never truly fell out of love. Because with Mom, Dad, Clarabelle, Elijah, and me all cheering on Harmony, I had never felt the love between all of us more.

  For some reason, it made me think of the boy beside me. I always thought of Elijah as my Clarabelle—my deep breath of fresh air—but maybe that wasn’t quite right. Because I could see myself in this moment, further in the future. Watching him and Savannah grow up and marry and have a daughter about to take her first steps.

  I thought of Mom, falling out of love with Dad, watching him live his life with someone else.

  In the scenario with Elijah, who was I—Clarabelle? Or Mom?

  Chapter Twenty

  Thursday, Savannah was absent from the table at lunch, leaving me alone with Elijah and Eloise. I was in the process of quizzing her for her history midterm when Elijah set his tray down with a small clatter, and I immediately cut off my question. “Mom said thanks for fixing the door.”

  Eloise flipped over a card. “Finally. That thing was practically falling off the hinges.”

  “Eh, I didn’t really fix it so much as just jammed it back into place,” Elijah said, settling beside Eloise. She scooched her cards over into a pile before her, giving him room. “I’ll have to really fix it once it gets warmer. Or maybe I’ll convince your dad to.”

  “Mom said that if you fix the door, she’ll reward you with her homemade chocolate pie. That’s your favorite, right?” I unwrapped my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, wiping the excess oozing off the side with my finger and licking it off. “Also, I’m going to be able to swing by the library tonight. Seven, right? I can get some snowflakes done in detention today, so I can spare an hour tonight. Only an hour. But I have it on my calendar and I’m going to be there to see your super-secretive sculpture, okay? Elijah?”

  Elijah didn’t respond, and I looked up to find his eyes resting on me so intensely that I had the urge to glance over my shoulder, almost positive he was staring at something else. I couldn’t even describe how he looked at me.

  No, not at me. At my…mouth.

  I licked my lips. “Did I get peanut butter on my face or something?” I hadn’t even taken a bite yet.

  Elijah blinked his eyes up to mine before they fell to his tray, hand on the table twitching into a
fist. “No, I was just thinking. About your mom’s pie.” He stabbed his salad with his fork. “Uh, yeah. It’s seven.”

  “Where’s Savannah?” Eloise asked, passing her cards back toward me. Her lips were kind of forged into a smirk as she glanced between Elijah and me. “I would’ve thought she’d been here by now.

  “Don’t know,” he said, not glancing up from his lunch.

  We ate quietly for a little while, me quizzing Eloise between mouthfuls of sandwich. While Eloise studied another card, I took that opportunity to just watch Elijah. It sounded creepy—probably because it was—but he sat on the other side of me, so that was where my eyes naturally fell. On his curling hair, and how it had grown just a touch too long. With his head bent like that, peering over his lunch, the broken curve of his nose was obvious, and I liked the idea that he would forever hold a memory of me.

  Ew, okay, yeah, that sounded creepy.

  He took a bite of pasta and licked his lips, completely oblivious to my cataloging of every feature. Before our kiss, I had been able to look at him and see him as cute—it was almost impossible to ignore that he was cute—but looking at him now, electricity became a constant presence, transforming the bland “cute” into…sexy.

  Eloise kicked me hard underneath the table, causing my knee to slam on the underside, jarring the surface. It made Elijah’s juice almost topple over, and he looked at me.

  Eloise’s eyebrows were raised, as if saying could you be any more obvious, Remi? Answer? Yes. I probably could’ve.

  “I meant to ask you, Elijah,” I said, trying to play off what just happened, even though both my ankle and my knee ached. “Can I hitch a ride with you Saturday? To the dance? I would ask Mom to drop me off, but I don’t want her to make a big deal of things like she totally would, you know?”

  I could see the exact moment Elijah’s shoulders stiffened, as if every single one of his bones transformed into rock. “Um, Savannah’s friend, Haisley, is getting ready at her house, so she and her date are just going to carpool with us—”

  “You mean Jeremy?” I clarified, my eyebrows drawing together. It wasn’t so much jealousy, but I almost felt betrayed that Elijah was still speaking to Jeremy. Ridiculous, sure, and totally horrible, but it stung all the same. I tried to not let it show on my face, but Elijah had always been able to read me. “You’re giving them a ride to the dance?”

  “He’s having a party after the dance, did you know that?” The falsely hopeful tone to his voice hinted that he wanted to just brush past what he’d just said, but it wouldn’t work. His face pinched. “Remi—”

  “Hey, guys,” Savannah said as she slid into the seat beside Elijah. She didn’t make eye contact with me. “I saw Mrs. Keller in the hallway. She said she wanted to speak with you, Remi. About the snowflakes?”

  I tried to steady my breathing, tried to ignore Eloise’s and Elijah’s gazes. It’s not a big deal. It’s not a big deal. “Okay.”

  Elijah reached out as I stood, his hand cupping my wrist. “Don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not mad,” I lied, and hated myself for it. I didn’t want to be mad. It wasn’t fair. “I just have to go.”

  “Remi,” he said, softer now, his hold unrelentingly gentle. I could’ve broken free if I wanted to, but the warmth of his skin against mine coaxed me into a halt. “Please.”

  I didn’t even know what he was asking, why he said “please,” why he looked so…distraught. I should’ve sat back down. I should’ve asked. But I didn’t.

  “Elijah, let her go,” Savannah piped up on his other side, opening up her lunchbox. “Mrs. Keller is waiting on her.”

  I pulled my arm free and crumpled my lunch bag into a ball, my half-eaten sandwich inside. “See you guys later.”

  Before storming out of the cafeteria and being reported by the cafeteria monitor again, I made sure to ask for permission to go see Mrs. Keller. When I glanced back over my shoulder, I saw Eloise slumping her hand against her chin and Savannah looking at Elijah, who watched me go with the same intense expression.

  When I got to Mrs. Keller’s classroom, I found her desk vacant. “Mrs. Keller?” I called, searching for her. The lights were on, and from where I stood, I could see her computer screen was lit up, but no one was in sight.

  Savannah said she’d seen Mrs. K in the hallway—maybe if I hung around for a minute, she’d show up?

  I glanced around the empty space, inhaling the scents that I always associated with Elijah. Creativity radiated from every corner of the room, from sculptures to paintings to drawings, all hung up for students to see and draw inspiration from. The room had never felt inspiring to me, the hodgepodge of colors and mediums overwhelming, but there was something about the space when it sat empty.

  I wasn’t an artist by any means, but looking at so much inspiration and hard work sparked something in my chest. Something like creativity. Strange.

  A sculpture Elijah made earlier in the year sat on the other side of Mrs. Keller’s desk, atop a table near the chalkboard. Made from clay, of course—his favorite medium—half-painted a baby blue with the bottom painted into a wispy grass field, swaying in the invisible wind. The sculpture itself had been morphed into the shape of a car wheel, with the rims and tread standing out. A golden sun hung in the upper right corner, whitish-yellow, and it dripped toward the grass. But not dripping paint—it dripped words, white and scrawled so minuscule that it was nearly impossible to read them.

  Seeing this sculpture sent a flood of warmth to my chest. This was what Elijah loved doing, sculpting. Even sculpting things that could’ve been more creative, could’ve been better. This wasn’t his best work, not in my opinion, but it had to have been something if Mrs. Keller had placed it behind her desk.

  The county art contest awards were tonight, and looking at this sculpture now made me wonder what his new one would look like. If it would be small, big, clay, cardboard. He’d kept everything about it so under wraps; I had no clue what it was.

  I tapped my fingers against the sculpture once more before turning to head from the room, feeling a bit better after having gotten a moment alone. I’d have to make sure to find Mrs. Keller later.

  It was unexplainable, but the feeling that washed over me was similar to the peace I’d gotten from Dad’s house, the feeling that even though some things were glitchy, life still was good.

  “I like the way you cooked the chicken tonight, Mom,” I told her as we sat down for dinner. “It’s kind of spicier than you normally do it.”

  “I used red pepper flakes tonight. Something different, that’s for sure.” Mom smiled as she dabbed at her lips with her napkin, ever and always the picture of manners. “How are your grades, sweetheart? I know tomorrow’s the last day of the semester, but I’ve just been so busy. Everything holding up okay?”

  I told myself that there was no reason to stress her out now; might as well save it for when report cards were emailed out tomorrow evening. At least then she’d have the entire weekend to melt down. I waited for Mrs. Keller to call me up to her desk during my fourth period with her, but she never did. She worked on her computer all hour, hardly looking up. She must’ve figured out whatever she needed from me, so I left her be. “Yeah, everything’s going good.”

  “You have to get started on some college applications,” she continued, cutting her piece of chicken smaller. “I know you want to go to the community college in Addison, but it might be nice to try some other places.”

  “As long as I’m not far from you and Dad. I want to see Harmony grow up.”

  I knew some kids wanted to get the heck out of dodge once graduation came and went, but I was quite fond of the idea of sticking around, staying in or near Greenville. Maybe even Bayview, with its views of the ocean. But I loved the security of coming back to a place that would always be home.

  “It’s crazy how close we’re getting to you being finished,” Mom said. “I mean, you’re already going into your last half of senior year. Time just flies, doesn�
�t it?”

  She could say that again. It felt like just yesterday Elijah and I rode our bikes up and down the cul-de-sac, or banging my soccer ball again and again against his garage door. A similar sense of nostalgia had washed over me when Terry graduated, a strange sort of panic at the idea of growing up.

  “Yeah. It does,” I said. “Has Elijah’s mom tried to get in contact with Dad again, do you know?”

  “I don’t think so. She’s doing better, I think. I saw Alan outside the other day and asked him how everything was going. I guess Terry and Kathleen had a conversation about his time in the facility.” Mom took a bite of food and chewed it. “Terry told her that he’s making the most of his consequences. He’s taking some online college courses. It sounds like he’s shaping up in there.”

  Elijah had looked up to Terry, and probably in many ways still wanted to—it was a relief that after he’d messed up, Terry could see the wrongs of his actions. That was the Terry that I knew—who owned up, who did his best. I was happy to see that that side of him was making a reappearance. “That’s really good. I’m glad that he’s making the most of what happened.”

  We passed the conversation along as we ate. I asked her about her work and she asked me about my snowflakes and Elijah. No change on the Elijah front. As for the snowflakes, I only had fifteen left to do tonight to hit 150. If I never see another paper snowflake in my life, it’ll be too soon.

  But I still had to go to Elijah’s contest. If I was there for an hour, I’d get back by eight. I probably wouldn’t be able to go to sleep until two in the morning, but it would happen. I would finish. I would pass my senior year.

  “I’ll be back around eight,” I told Mom as I shrugged on my jacket. “Elijah’s thing should only be about an hour.”

  “Okay, I’ll work on some snowflakes while you’re gone,” Mom said after she cleared the table, sitting down and tapping her fingers along the surface. “I’ve seen you do it a dozen times; I’m sure it’ll be okay. Probably.”