“Christmas shopping?” I gesture to the bear in her hand.
Her cheeks redden. We’re friendly, but not friends. Before she started dating Fitz, she hung out with the band and orchestra kids. She plays the viola and has always been shy around me. “It’s silly, but I was thinking, for Fitz …”
“He said you broke up with him.”
She bites her lip and shrugs. “It’s not a big deal.”
I grind my teeth to keep from snapping at her. “Maybe not to you, but it is to him.”
She hugs the bear to her chest. “I guess I didn’t think he’d care all that much. You know how he is.”
“He’s the best guy I know.”
“He’s dated a lot of people,” she says, not unkindly.
And okay, it’s not like I haven’t thought something very similar once or twice or a hundred times, when I’m feeling jealous or insecure. But as his best friend who’s also in love with him, I’m allowed to think that. As the girl who broke his heart, she’s not.
“Only a few of them were serious. And anyway, who cares? At least he tries.”
Molly’s face falls. “Do you think I screwed up?”
“Honestly, yeah. Fitz is one of the good ones.” I grab tape from the shelf and turn to leave while Clover picks out rolls of shiny gold wrapping paper.
“Wait!” Molly calls. I halt in my tracks.
“I’ll meet you up front,” Clover says as she takes our purchases and leaves.
I turn to see Molly dabbing at tears with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “I did screw up with Fitz.”
I groan inwardly, feeling guilty. Molly’s never been anything but nice to me, and I could have been more understanding. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business what happened between you two.”
“He didn’t tell you?” She sets the bear on the shelf.
“Well—” I hesitate. Is her fear of heights a secret? Maybe she doesn’t want people to know. “Not much,” I say truthfully. He usually divulges way more info after a breakup. Jealousy and disappointment rush through me, eroding some of the goodwill I was feeling toward her. Why didn’t he say anything else?
She sniffles, somehow reminding me of Ivy and Ruby and all the other girls Fitz’s dated or flirted with or written love notes to over the years. Like Priya, the five-foot-eleven tennis prodigy who was his date for junior homecoming, or Dani, the short and snarky pitcher who ate lunch with us before she moved to Indiana. She and Fitz never dated, but I had to watch him make moon eyes over her for a month during sophomore year. By the time she crossed the state line, his gaze had already landed on Luna, the frizzy-haired little thing who sat next to him in Spanish class.
The thing about Fitz is that he doesn’t have a type. On my worst days, it bothered me because I had no idea who to be jealous of. Blondes? Yes. Brunettes? Them too. He’s had crushes on girls taller than me and shorter than me and skinnier than me and curvier than me and it soon became painfully clear that Fitz would work his way through every girl in the school before he’d consider dating me.
Molly wrings her hands. “Are you doing okay?”
Me? “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” Her eyes are full of meaning as they search mine, but I have no idea what that meaning is.
“Yep.” I lie. I mean, I’m obviously not fine, what with the Fitz vs. New York decision looming and the stomachache I’ve had since last night, but she doesn’t need to know that.
Molly sighs, clearly frustrated with my response.
“How are you?” I’m not sure what else to say.
“I’m good. Other than the Fitz thing, obviously,” she says dully.
I have to laugh at her disclaimer. Good, other than the Fitz thing is my homeostasis. I should put it in my Insta bio.
“Yeah. Well, I should find Clover. We have to meet some goats; it’s a whole thing.” I move to leave, but she stops me with her hand.
“Fitz said …” Her eyes shift nervously.
“What’d he say?”
“Ready to go?” Clover appears, grocery bag in hand.
“What did Fitz say?” I ask Molly again.
She hesitates. “Never mind. I’ll see you around.” She rushes out of the aisle, leaving the teddy bear on the shelf.
“Ugh. She was about to tell me something important.”
“Sorry, but we’ve got yoga to do, and then you have bread to bake and a decision to make.” Clover smiles at her rhyme, but my pulse spikes at the mention of my impending decision. My traitorous heart pumps poison through my body, infecting every cell with stone-cold dread. Zero to catastrophe. It’s a thing that happens sometimes.
I bend over with my hands on my knees and take several deep breaths. The tips of my fingers go numb. “Please tell me what to do.”
“Why do you really want to go to the cabin?”
“To get the letter.”
“Yeah, but why else?”
“To see the snow.”
Clover exhales loudly. “Lord help me, we’re gonna be here all day,” she mumbles. And then louder, she says, “Those reasons aren’t good enough. If that’s all you’ve got, go to New York.”
“What else would there be?”
She gapes at me like I’m an idiot.
(I’m not sure she’s wrong.)
“A week alone with Fitz? A romantic, snowy cabin? Mistletoe? Crackling fires? Don’t pretend like you haven’t thought about it.”
Something comes to life in my chest. It feels stupidly like hope. “Do you think there’s a chance he has feelings for me?”
She smiles sadly. “I don’t know if he does now. But he definitely did once.”
I push away the memory of that night, the one from sophomore year, because it always sends me into a spiral of deep regret. “If he ever did, I ruined it for good.”
Her eyes are full of sympathy as she says, “You won’t know for sure unless you let him read that letter.”
My cheeks flush. “But what if—”
“What if you go to the cabin and accidentally burn it down while trying to start a cozy fire? What if you go to New York and fall in love with a Brooklynite hipster and never come home? This game goes in circles. It never ends, and you make yourself miserable in the process. The thing you have to ask yourself is, what do you want?”
“I don’t want to end up like Molly, another ex-girlfriend to add to his list.”
“You’re thinking like a person who’s scared. Block out the fear and tell me what you want more than anything else.”
I imagine I’m the type of person who doesn’t make Lists of Doom, who can make a decision without the use of the words what if and missed chances and ruined life, and I ask myself the following:
What do I want?
Well. As terrifying as it is to admit to myself, Clover is right. I want snuggly fireside chats and Christmas cookies with Fitz. I want to see snowflakes land on the ends of his thick, dark lashes. I want him under the mistletoe, today and tomorrow and every day for the foreseeable future. But I also want travel and adventure and a life bigger than this town.
Sometimes I cannot breathe for how much I want, and for how scared I am. And that’s the point. How am I supposed to choose between the two best things? How can I be sure neither one will ruin my life?