Not that I didn’t think I was worthy of interest, but I hadn’t really engaged with Eli, aside from a few random sentences.
“Why would he ask you?” I said, mainly to sound cool as I worked through my shock that he’d noticed me at all. “What are you—my dad?”
Charlie put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb. “I’m his friend, and he just wanted to make sure I wouldn’t care. Settle your ass down.”
I peeked back at Clio, who looked like she was asleep sitting up, and tried to determine how I felt about this turn of events. Charlie’s friend was cute and seemed nice enough, but he also wasn’t Zack.
“What’s Eli like?” I asked Charlie, deciding not to shut it down entirely before I had all the facts.
“Oh my God, I love Eli,” Clio said with her eyes closed. “He’s hot and super nice.”
That made me grin at Charlie.
“I think you’d like him,” Charlie said, looking into the mirror before switching lanes.
“You do?” I looked over, for some reason surprised, and his face was unreadable in the dashboard lights. “Really?”
“Sure,” he said, his wrist casually draped over the steering wheel. “I mean, I like him, he’s a handsome guy, and you’re not into anyone else, right?”
“Right,” I said, looking out the windshield into the darkness and picturing Zack.
But I must’ve made a face, because his eyes got big and he said, “Holy shit—who? Who are you into?”
“No one,” I lied, but Charlie wasn’t buying it.
“Oh, come on, Glasses,” he said, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “I don’t know any of your dude friends, so you can tell me. Is there some new guy that makes your little heart go pitter-patter?”
“Oh, it’s nothing like that,” I said dismissively, so far away from pitter-patter that it wasn’t even funny.
“Wait,” he said, shooting me a quick glance before returning his eyes to the road. “Are you still hung up on your ex?”
“No!” I said, way too defensively. I glanced into the back seat and then repeated in a much quieter voice, “No.”
“Holy shit, you are,” Charlie said, his eyebrows rising all the way up his forehead. “I can tell.”
“How can you tell? That’s ridiculous,” I said around a little fake laugh, trying to play it off.
“I just know.” Charlie glanced at me for a split second, and his face went kind of serious, the curve of his mouth flattening, and he gave a shrug as if to accentuate that he couldn’t explain it.
“Because you’re still hung up on Becca,” I said, in almost a whisper.
He didn’t agree, but he didn’t deny it either as he stopped for a red light. Charlie held my gaze before asking, “So do you guys talk? What’s the deal?”
For the most part, I didn’t discuss Zack and me.
For multiple reasons.
I didn’t want to hear opinions on how I needed to move on or opinions on Zack’s character, and I definitely didn’t want to be judged as a clinger because I couldn’t let him go.
I would probably say those things to someone else in the same situation, to be honest.
But the thing about relationships was that no one else knew the quiet, tiny moments that belonged exclusively to you two. Those were the things that made you hold tight because you were the only one he’d shown that side of himself to.
No one else knew.
The time we goofily whisper-sang all the words to “A Groovy Kind of Love” together when he snuck me up to his bedroom and then I was stuck because his mom wouldn’t go downstairs; the way he got actual tears in his eyes when I told him about the way my parents used to fight all the time; his propensity for kissing me when I was midsentence because he said he couldn’t bear to wait another second; and U2’s Rattle and Hum album—which he bought when we went to Homer’s together, and said that Bono surely wrote “All I Want Is You” for us.
A thousand inside jokes stood between my heart and closure.
But I knew those thoughts made me sound like a lovesick child, so it was easier to just keep it all in my own head.
Which was why it was really strange that at that moment, it felt safe to share with Charlie. I gave a half shrug and said, “No. He’s seeing someone else now.”
I would’ve expected Charlie to snicker about how pathetic I was, but he didn’t. He gave a little nod as the light turned green, and instead said, “So why aren’t you over him?”
“I don’t know,” I said defensively, irritated that he sounded just like Nekesa.
“No—I’m not being a dick.” He held up a hand as if trying to reframe his words. “What I mean, um, is that most of the time, if a couple has a normal breakup, even if there are still feelings, they each move on. So if a smart girl like you can’t move on, there’s usually a reason. An extenuating circumstance.”
I narrowed my eyes, wishing I could see into his brain. “What do you mean?”
“Take me,” he said, looking embarrassed and lowering his voice. “Bec still texts me all the time—only as a friend—but sometimes it feels a lot like when we were together, and it’s a bit of a mindfuck.”
“Oh, shit,” I said, picturing Becca’s face, wondering if she was playing games with him. I’d met her for only a minute so I had no idea, but I hoped she wasn’t intentionally keeping him on the line, keeping his heart tied up with her so he couldn’t move on.
“Right?” He half smiled, but it wasn’t happy or amused. It was self-deprecating, as if to say I am a stupid man. “So I was just wondering if there is a reason for you to still be hanging on.”
I looked at his pain-in-the-ass Charlie face and thought how strange it was that this was more of an emotional conversation about the breakup than I’d had with Nekesa or anyone else, for that matter. I took a deep breath and said, “With us, the breakup was a mistake.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I know—that sounds like a typical ex-girlfriend thing to say. But it’s true.” I went on to tell him about how I’d broken up with Zack when I was mad, fully expecting we’d get back together, but Zack had taken it as the final death knell for our relationship and started dating. As Charlie pulled the car to a stop in front of a house—Clio’s, presumably—I said, “So I kind of feel like we aren’t done.”
“Ah.” He looked like he wanted to say something but was holding back. His eyes moved over my face as he asked, “And you’ll take him back if he asks you to?”
That… was a good question. I felt like it was a yes, but Charlie’s question made me realize that I still had some issues with the way Zack had been able to just move on from me. If he cared about me even half as much as I cared about him, shouldn’t it have taken a little time? Shouldn’t he have tried harder before giving up?
“Probably,” I admitted, knowing it was the wrong answer while also knowing I meant it. “What about you? Would you take Becca back if she asked?”
“Here!” Clio popped forward, leaning up between our seats, and said, “We’re here! This is my house.”