If Only I Had Told Her(54)

“And why is that, Jack?” Alexis asks. “Why haven’t we spoken?”

“Are you serious?” I had been blowing on my coffee to cool it, but I freeze with the mug held under my mouth as I gape at her.

“Yes, I’m serious.” She raises her chin.

“Because Finn died, Lexy.” I’m so confused. I set my mug down with a clink. Some hot coffee spills onto my fingers, but I don’t react.

“Exactly.” She throws up her hands like I’ve proven her point.

“I don’t understand. I’ve been grieving, Lexy.”

“And you left me to grieve alone!”

I’m not sure if the coffee shop falls silent at her outburst or if I’ve momentarily gone deaf. Either way, there’s a ringing in my ears that prevents me from hearing myself when I say, “How dare you.”

Alexis must have a ringing in her ears too, because she cups her hand around her ear as she says, “Huh? Speak up.”

“How dare you say that to me,” I say as this strangely serene feeling fills me. It’s suddenly all so clear.

So many times, I told myself that I’d finally seen the “real” Alexis, that I’d never fall for her antics again, but I always did. I understand now. I’d seen aspects of the real Alexis, but I’ve never seen them together as a whole. Now all those pieces have come together, and I can finally see the whole Alexis.

It’s actually a very simple picture. She’s a really insecure girl who defines herself entirely by the people she surrounds herself with. Her friends are a collection, a planetary system she has built to rotate around her.

“How dare I? Jack, you—”

“No, no,” I say. “If I wanted to, I could have called you here and said, ‘Hey, we were sleeping together all summer, and then my best friend died, and you didn’t even check on me.’ I could do that. You don’t get to do that.” I try not to have my tone sound like I’m talking to a child, but it’s hard.

“He was my friend too,” Alexis says. “Why can’t you or Sylvie see that?”

And it happens again. What’s unfolding is so clear that I laugh.

She’s surprised enough to lose her focus, and in the pause, I share my humorous revelation.

“This isn’t about us, is it, Lex? Sylvie broke up with you.”

I try not to laugh again, because now it feels a little mean, but it’s all so silly and obvious. Sylvie hurt her, so she’s trying to reenact that with me instead of looking at herself and wondering why Sylvie made that choice.

Alexis is sputtering.

“Sylvie and I didn’t break up! We both have a lot going on, and I’m going off to school, and she needs to find a new shrink—poor thing!—and we both needed to take a step back from our friendship.”

Alexis, who I used to think I was in love with, glares at me.

“Uh-huh.” I take a gulp of coffee, which hasn’t quite cooled and burns down my throat. “So my guess is that’s what Sylv said to you, and then you pushed back, because of course you did, and that’s when she said what you said to me, huh?”

“Said what to who?” Alexis sips the highland grog that I know she hates and tries to hide her grimace.

“You left her to grieve alone, Lexy. Damn.”

Once again, I feel like all the pieces have come together and I can finally see what should have been obvious.

“The day after the accident, why were people coming to your house instead of you going to Sylvie’s?” I ask.

“I went to the hospital when her parents called me. I was tired and wanted to go home! And our friends needed a place to grieve together, Jack. Sylvie isn’t my only friend.”

“There’s a basement in every damn house in this city and you know it,” I say. “Sylvie needed you. Damn, I wouldn’t have minded—” My serenity and my voice crack at this point, but it can’t be helped. “It would have been nice if you had said something to acknowledge that he was my best friend, Lex. Maybe my only real friend, I don’t know. But the fact that you compare your grief to mine? Or Sylvie’s?”

I shake my head. The whole conversation is a moot point.

I push back from the table to stand. I don’t think Alexis believes that I will leave without her permission, because she makes a scoffing sound at me.

I look at her one last time. She has a pretty face. For now.

“Sylvie said that you had a lot of growing up to do, but honestly, Lex? If you’re this far behind at eighteen, I don’t know if you’re ever going to catch up. I hope you do, but…” I shrug. I give up and stand up.

“Jack, you are not seriously—”

I am, and there’s nothing she can do about it.





eleven





Apparently, the final thing I must do to prove to my parents that I’m going to be okay is go out with “my friends” before I leave for college. This doesn’t seem like the time to point out that I am questioning whether I have friends outside of Finn. I’m starting to see how superficial my other relationships have been. It almost makes me wish I hadn’t given Sylvie such a hard time about everything. I suppose it wouldn’t help to reach out and tell her that she might have been right, that maybe I never knew what friendship was until it was taken from me.