I Don't Want to Be Friends

  Alice stared intently at the screen, registering the moment Jack received the text and the instant the chat app signaled he had read it. She kept her gaze so laser-focused it might’ve burned through the glass. Soon after Jack had read the text, the three little dots signaling he was typing a reply appeared and disappeared several times before an actual reply came in. It was a short:

  Maybe

  Relief washed over her.

  You have no reason to worry

  You know that, right?

  No, I don’t

  He made it sound like you broke his heart or something

  You said you never were that serious

  That you never loved him

  And I didn’t

  Peter must’ve been exaggerating for the press

  He’s probably going to use his alleged broken heart as a pickup line

  You know how he is

  Did you tell him we are together?

  No

  I haven’t kept in touch

  (which should make you happy)

  It does

  Have you told him?

  He used to be your best friend

  Used to

  When did it stop?

  When he started dating you

  Worst seven months of my life

  Alice smiled before typing:

  You’re jealous

  And you’re cute

  I’m not cute

  And I’m not joking

  Having to watch you with him

  Every day…

  You can’t understand

  I can

  No, you really can’t

  Alice scoffed. The nerve of him! She started typing a list of names, careful to leave Madison’s out of it, to make him see just how much she got it.

  Olivia

  Hannah

  Emily

  Alexis

  Ashley

  Okay

  Sarah

  Point made

  Elizabeth

  Samantha

  I get it

  Alyssa

  Taylor

  Jennifer

  Jessica

  You can stop now

  Julia

  Emma

  Kayla

  Megan

  Nicole

  How do you even remember all of them?

  Lori

  Becky

  Because each and every one of them was a stab through my heart

  Now you’re cute

  I’m not cute

  Can I come over?

  There’s something I really want to tell you

  If it’s not:

  Sorry for being the crappiest boyfriend today, I will never ever do that again

  No!

  I mean I have something to tell you besides

  Sorry for being the crappiest boyfriend today, I will never ever do that again

  When he knocked on her door half an hour later, Alice’s instincts were torn between kissing him and slapping him. She went for the kiss first, and then she not-so-lightly punched him in the chest.

  “Don’t you ever scare me like that ever again. Deal?”

  He flashed her that boyish-but-roguish smile she loved so much. “Deal.”

  She hugged him and kept her face buried in his neck for such a long time that, at one point, Haley shouted, “Get a room!”

  Alice lifted her head and whispered, “That’s not such a bad idea.”

  She pulled Jack backward into her room, pushed him onto her bed, and kicked the door shut behind her. Straddling him, she said, “So, how much groveling are you prepared to do?”

  “All the groveling you require.”

  “Good. And you have to tutor me as well. I didn’t get a word of what Harrison said this morning.”

  Jack smiled a mischievous smile. “I can work with the student-teacher scenario.”

  “Uh-oh,” Alice scoffed. “I don’t think so. It’s going to take a while before you get some, Mr. Sullivan.”

  He pouted and made a cute face he knew she couldn’t resist.

  “I’m serious.” She tried to keep a straight face and failed miserably. “So what was it you wanted to tell me?”

  Jack beamed at her. “The coach asked me to be team captain!”

  Alice let out a loud squeal and collapsed on Jack, hugging him and kissing him. “That’s fantastic. Amazing! Did you expect it?”

  Jack’s face turned serious. “I think it was between me and Scott, and with the injury so fresh, I suspect the coach didn’t want to put too much pressure on him.”

  “I’m sure you would’ve gotten it anyway. You’re going to be a wonderful captain!”

  Jack placed his hands on her hips, his thumbs massaging her sides while he stared up at her, gaze intense. “I’m sorry for today, I really am. I behaved like shit, but when I read the article… Peter is still a sore point for me…”

  “I know, but next time just talk to me. I don’t care if you want to yell at me or tell me to go to hell. If you’re mad, let it out. We can’t solve anything if I don’t know what’s going on inside this pretty head of yours.” She poked him on the forehead. “Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  “Now you can tell me you love me and start with all that groveling, yes?”

  Dead serious, Jack said, “I love you.” Then he flipped her on the bed, so that now he was on top, and started kissing her neck. “And I know exactly the kind of groveling you need…”

  Nine

  Haley

  After a first week of school made of free evenings, the basketball team came knocking on Scott’s door pronto on week two. Scott had not yet been cleared by the doctors to play basketball. They wanted to monitor him for another couple of weeks and do another scan before they permitted any intense physical exertion. But Coach Morrison insisted that he attend all of the team’s practice sessions anyway—to familiarize himself with the new team members, the new playing schemes, and, more generally, to keep him in the loop.

  Since the basketball team had kidnapped Scott, Haley was spending Thursday night at home, doing nothing. She was sitting on the couch living vicariously through the lives of her 237 Facebook friends. The distraction earned her more than one reproachful look from Madison, who insisted time spent on social media was a total waste, and why didn’t she read a good book instead? Reading is good for mental health, it improves memory, reduces stress, boosts brain function, blah, blah, blah…

  Her roommate was probably onto something, but right now all Haley wanted was a bit of not-so-stimulating Facebook snooping into the lives people wanted her to believe they led, with a side of the occasional my-life-sucks, self-pitying post.

  At least, that had been the plan. The danger in navigating the Facebook waters was that all kinds of friend-ships could sail by. In this case, a certain other Williams brother she hadn’t heard from in a while appeared out-of-the-blue on her feed.

  Haley stared at David’s post, frowning.

  David Williams is feeling naughty at Monroe C. Gutman Library

  That was weird. David never checked in on Facebook. Was it a coincidence he’d shared his location tonight? Did he know Scott would be at practice?

  Haley didn’t care if it was a plot; they hadn’t talked about their friendship since that horrible first morning after Scott had come back from California, and she needed to get a few things out. She checked the time of the post… only ten minutes ago.

  She jumped up from the couch and, after feeding Madison a lame I-forgot-I-had-a-project-meeting excuse, she grabbed her coat and bag from the hall and was out of the apartment in a blur.

  At the library, she searched the café and study room, but there was no sign of David anywhere. She circled back, trying some of the smaller rooms, but still nada. She went back to the main room and settled at a table, ready to admit defeat. After lying to Madison about having a group project meeting, Haley couldn??
?t walk back home only twenty minutes after leaving. So she took her laptop out of her bag and resigned herself to a dull hour of killing time on the internet. Until…

  Haley’s phone flashed with a new text message… from David.

  Are you stalking me?

  Haley jumped in her seat, turning her head left and right, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  I wouldn’t call it stalking

  You basically invited me here

  Really, how?

  By posting a public “check in” on Facebook

  (Which you never do)

  On the first night Scott is busy with training

  You check my profile often?

  Haley shook her head. He was being impossible like always. And it was driving her crazy to be blind when he clearly had eyes on her.

  Stop looking for me

  You won’t find me unless I want you to

  He was so damn infuriating!

  Why are you here?

  Because I miss you, was Haley’s first instinctive response. But no way would she type that. She bought a few seconds by rolling the phone in her hands. What to write?

  Stop trying to come up with a politically correct answer

  Just tell the truth

  Coming here was a mistake

  Haley made to pack her things and go when, out of nowhere, David materialized in front of her and took the chair on the opposite side of the table.

  Blue eyes flaring, he asked, “Why are you here?”

  “Because I missed your company, all right? Happy?”

  The corner of his mouth curled up into that infuriating-but-oh-so-sexy lopsided grin. “You really couldn’t bring yourself to say you’ve missed me.”

  Haley glared.

  “Fine, all right.” David threw up his hands with a little shrug. “I’ll take what I can get. So what’s been going on with you lately?”

  “Madison told me you apologized to her,” Haley blurted out.

  She’d been dying to tell him she knew forever.

  “Glad to know I can trust Blondie with a secret.”

  “Why did you ask her not to tell me?”

  David shrugged with his eyebrows. “The apology wasn’t about you.”

  “Why do you make it so hard for people to see the good in you?”

  “Because I’m not a good guy. Not all the time, at least. I am good and I am bad and I’m all the shades in between, and I don’t want to have to live up to anyone’s expectations. You’re already dating the right brother if you want a Good Samaritan, or the one who pretends to be.”

  “Now you’re being snarky again.”

  “Snarky? Me? I’m only telling things how they are. We all have our flaws. But the thing that makes me just go crazy is that because my brother projects being a goody-two-shoes, everyone assumes he’s perfect. Scott wants so much to be the good guy he’d never admit he’d done anything awful even if he has.”

  “We’re not talking about Brigitte again, are we?”

  “Well, it’s the perfect example. Scott goes behind my back, steals my girlfriend, and somehow I’m the bad guy.”

  “You can’t judge him on a single thing that happened ages ago. Besides Brigitte, when has he ever hurt anyone?”

  “That’s a big besides.”

  “No, it’s not. And stop making this about Scott—”

  “Let’s make it about us, then,” David cut her off. “Why are you here, really? Are you tired of living the righteous life? Are you looking to live dangerously? Why come all the way here just to see me? Don’t tell me it’s because we’re friends. Is that really all I am to you?”

  No. You’re the stranger who stole my heart with a summer kiss, you’re the friend who drove me seven hours in the middle of the night just to get me home in time, the boy who made me run under the rain, the man who apologized to Madison and asked her not to say anything. The answer popped into Haley’s mind, unbidden. You’re the person who makes me question everything.

  And you’re Scott’s brother.

  With that last thought, Haley’s already ragged breath worsened. “I can’t be here.”

  Before she could get up, David grabbed her hands from across the table, his blue eyes flashing. “You can run away now, but you can’t outrun your feelings.”

  “I’m in love with Scott.”

  David stared her dead in the eye. “Are you saying that to convince me, or to convince yourself?”

  Heart beating so fast in her chest it might break out, Haley fought back the tears. There was a vortex of emotions wreaking havoc in her, shattering everything it found in its path. And Haley feared that if she stayed here a second longer, there’d be nothing left behind.

  “David, let me go,” she pleaded.

  He did so without a word, his eyes burning ice as they tore into hers. Haley couldn’t hold that gaze; she was too weak. So she fled the room, feeling the lingering touch of David’s stare on her long after she’d walked out of the library.

  Away. She had to stay away from him.

  Ten

  Haley

  In no time at all, the relaxed mood of the first weeks of school vaporized, and all Harvard students found themselves swept into the middle of the fall term with homework accumulating, massive studying to be done, and midterms looming over them. And in just over a week, the basketball season would officially kick off.

  Scott would be busier than ever. Haley still couldn’t fathom why anyone would voluntarily submit to the pressure and the schedule-nightmare strain of playing on a college varsity team. But Scott loved the game, and so did Jack—Alice was as puzzled—and so had David, and Peter, and everyone else on the team. So there must be something to it the “girls” weren’t grasping.

  But before the no-drinking, not-a-weekend-without-a-game-until-March season started, the players—as per Coach Morrison’s concession—still had their last free-pass-for-all night: Halloween. This year the thirty-first would be on a Monday, so all the parties around campus had been scheduled for the preceding Saturday—a.k.a. today.

  As was tradition, the basketball team would go with a group costume. This year they’d picked Minions costumes—ironic, since the shortest guy on the team was six-foot-two. They’d been Smurfs the previous year. Haley chuckled at the thought. How much had changed that night. Alice had gone out to make Jack jealous and had ended up dating Peter instead. Hence the Christmas Hawaiian trip, and Haley’s meet-cute with Scott—and the not-so-cute introduction to unmasked David.

  Last year, Haley had been single at Halloween. Her heart had still been harboring an irrational hope—a gut-twisting hope that squeezed the breath out of her whenever she caught sight of a black feather—of running into a certain masked stranger…

  And let’s not go there.

  After their unofficial meet-up at the library, David had disappeared. No more subtle Facebook invitations, no texts, no nothing. Haley hadn’t seen him on campus, and at his and Scott’s house, he was a ghost, always coming in late and dashing out before anyone was awake. If Haley got thirsty in the middle of the night, she’d learned to deal with the urgency and wait until she’d heard the front door open and shut before going out to fetch a drink.

  It was hard to believe it was Halloween already. It had only been a year ago she didn’t—exactly, kisses under the stars didn’t count—know either Williams brother. It all seemed like ages before.

  “I’m not sure about this,” Madison said, bringing Haley back to the present.

  All three roommates were in Madison’s room, doing their official “dress rehearsal” for the night. After much debate and not many choices available—it had taken them forever to decide on costumes, and all the good ones had already disappeared off the racks—they’d settled on being chipmunks. Haley was Alvin in a red sweatshirt, black leggings, and long, pulled up red socks, Madison was Simon, with blue socks and sweatshirt, and Alice was Theodore in green.

  “We’re
basically dressed for the gym,” Madison insisted.

  “We can still add the initials,” Alice offered, standing in front of the mirror next to Madison and holding a big, cut-out “S” made of white adhesive paper close to her chest.

  “Then we’ll be dressed for the gym and lame,” Madison said. “I still think we should’ve gone like handmaids.”

  Madison had wanted to go dressed as characters from The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.

  “And how is the red-nuns look any better?” Haley said. “I like this costume. It’s easy, comfortable, and we can wear sneakers.”

  “But it’s so simple,” Madison protested. “Do you think people will get it?”

  “If we put on the initials,” Alice insisted. She grabbed Madison by the shoulders and spun her around. “We can stick them on the back.” She held the “S” near the middle of Madison’s back.

  Madison turned her head over her shoulder to stare in the mirror. “They’re not so lame like that.”

  “And we can all draw whiskers on our faces and get hair-bands with ears,” Haley said. Madison was warming up to the chipmunks idea, and they needed to strike whilst the iron was hot.

  “I still have my cat ears from last year,” Alice said.

  Madison turned to face her, affronted. “We’re chipmunks, not cats.”

  “I’m sure they’ll have chipmunk ears at the store,” Haley mediated, trying not to laugh at Alice’s dismayed face. Madison was definitely taking this costume thing a bit too seriously.

  After several trips to different costume stores—because, no, they couldn’t use mice ears; they were too black, too big, and too round—one YouTube makeup tutorial on how to draw the perfect rodent nose and whiskers on one’s face, and much hair curling, they were finally ready.

  The party house was the same as last year, a six-room, double-story townhome that had a ground floor large enough to host such a big party. It wasn’t a “one party every weekend” situation; the guys living there only threw a few big parties every year, and Halloween was hands-down their best. They put the extra care in decorating the house, garden, and back patio with pumpkins, spiders in their webs, skeletons, and such.

  Thanks to their sneakers, Madison, Haley, and Alice had an easy time walking the few blocks to get to the party house. And thanks to their sweatshirts, they didn’t need to risk bringing a coat and losing it, or having it ruined by party hazards. They’d walked last year, too, but without heels, it was a much quicker, less painful business.