The Shippers(45)

“This is a terrible idea,” Cooper said.

“Maybe. But what if it works? Operation Conquest is already tanking. I can’t get any traction with this guy. He’s forgotten me twice in two days! I think Harmony’s onto something. Nobody’s forgetting her!”

“Yeah, but not in a good way.”

“I need to level up! The clock is ticking! I’ve only got seven days left.”

At that, I turned my head, leaned in, and pulled my collar aside, saying, “Just do it. Real quick.”

Cooper stared at my neck in horror.

“No,” he said again—and then he turned and strode away.

I chased after him. “Hey!”

But his legs were longer than mine. I had to jog.

“Cooper! I need you!” I called after him.

“Not for this, you don’t,” he called back.

“Hey!” I said again. “That’s all? Just a flat no? Are you refusing to help me right now?”

Cooper kept striding.

But I kept bobbing along behind him.

The wind was loud in my ears, and before I knew it, I was yelling.

“You said you were on my team, Cooper! You said, and I quote, ‘I’ve been on your team since day one.’ Is this the kind of team player you want to be? Is this the kind of one-handed-golf-glove energy you want to cultivate in your life? I’m telling you I need you—for real. My mom is totally preoccupied, and Ashley’s marrying the douchiest guy on the planet, and Pete’s an idiot—a sweet idiot, but still—and my dad has never, not once, given a shit about me. So you’re it, Cooper. You’re all I’ve got. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is! You’re not just on the team—you are the team. You’re the whole thing.”

Never mind that zero of those people were viable alternatives for this task. Saying all of this out loud—shouting it, really—forced me to feel it. The more I chased him, and the more I begged, and the more he didn’t turn around or even slow down … the more heartbreaking it all started to feel.

I heard my voice waver, but I kept going. “I don’t have anybody else I can turn to, Cooper! You promised to help me—and I trusted you! Are you really going to make me chase you like this? Are you really going to just walk off and leave me here?”

I know I’d been trying to pretend like the last four years of Cooper ignoring me hadn’t happened. I know I’d been insisting to myself that our newly reactivated friendship was as solid and dependable and safe as ever. But it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. And pretending was harder than I thought. I’d been talking about my family being disappointing—but I was also talking about Cooper.

My friend who had moved away without telling me. My friend who had gone radio silent for years. My friend who might just have been the worst heartbreak of my life.

I probably should have stopped shouting when I felt all those emotions seep into my lungs. But I had some rhetorical momentum, you know? So I tried for one last zinger. “Are you really going to walk out of my life and forget all about me—again?”

At the end of that question, my voice broke.

And I just stopped walking.

Stopped chasing, stopped begging.

It was all too much.

He didn’t want to help me? Fine. I’d find somebody else. There were plenty of other people on this ship with—with—mouths. If this was such an offensive chore for Cooper, if that’s how utterly dismissive he wanted to be about getting anywhere near me for any reason—even a really, really good one … Fine.

Half the men on this boat would be drunk by lunchtime, anyway.

But underneath all that defiance, there was genuine heartache.

He’d thrown up at the touch of my lips back in high school—and now he was fleeing at the sight of my neck? Just exactly how repulsive did this guy think I was?

Maybe he wasn’t on my team after all—and maybe he never had been.

Cooper had always been my person. But I guess I just … wasn’t his.

My breath got shaky at that idea. And then there were tears on my face.

I’d never known why Cooper left, but I’d always held on to hope that he had some kind of really good explanation.

But maybe there was no good explanation.

Maybe he just didn’t really care.

And I’d learned a lesson from my dad a long time ago: You can’t force people to care about you. If you didn’t matter to someone, you didn’t matter.

Maybe I didn’t matter to Cooper.

Maybe I should let him go.

Or—actually—maybe I should’ve let him go four years ago. Instead of holding out all that stupid, embarrassing hope.

That’s where I was landing with it all … when Cooper stopped walking, too.

I wiped the tears off my cheeks fast with my shirtsleeve.

Then Cooper turned around, and he took a breath like he was gathering his strength, and then, step after step, he walked back until he reached me.

“Have you been crying?” he asked, leaning in to look.

“No,” I said defiantly.

I clearly had.

Then Cooper looked all around my blotchy face, from my eyes to my mouth and back again, with that signature affectionate look of his. I’d always felt, from that look alone, like I was special to him. But maybe that was just his face. Maybe that was how he looked at everyone.