I suck in a deep breath, pulling my lower lip between my teeth. I clamp down on it to feel the pain.
Jeremiah re-zips the tent and looks at me sideways. “I like your brother. But if that girl had said something about Lacey or Jennifer, I would’ve dunked her head in a toilet and given her a swirly. Clearly Nick is more diplomatic than I am.”
I snort into my pillow, wanting to give Alisha a swirly myself. She doesn’t have a f**king clue what it’s like to lose the person you talked to every day for three years.
That’s the hardest part. For everyone else, life goes on. But for me, part of me is stuck in limbo with Kyle…and I kind of want to stay there. I miss him. It’s my fault he died. I suck in another deep breath, hoping it will tide me over for a while. I don’t have the energy to breathe.
“You all right?” Jeremiah murmurs, lying back down next to me.
“No one ever says shit like that to my face,” I whisper. “That they think I’m pathetic. But they have no f**king idea.”
The sound of crickets chirping fills the silence.
My little rant felt good.
Jeremiah folds his hands behind his head and stares at the tent ceiling. “They’re just jealous.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I exclaim.
“You’ve been in love. They’re probably jealous of that. I am…”
“You’ve never been in love?”
“Nope.”
I pause. “But you want to be?”
“Who doesn’t?”
Talk about something you don’t hear guys say very often. “You haven’t met anybody?” I ask, propping myself up on an elbow.
He rolls over onto his side to face me. Then slowly shakes his head. “I’ve dated a lot,” he admits quietly. “And like, sometimes I feel a rush at first, but then it goes away…even when I don’t want the feeling to go away, it does.”
“So you’ve never been close with a girl?”
“What’s your definition of close?” he asks with a nervous laugh.
“Like, you keep a spare toothbrush in her dorm room. Or you scratch her back for her.” I groan. “God, I miss the back scratches.”
“Don’t they sell backscratchers so you can scratch your back yourself?”
“It’s not the same,” I pout.
“Is this your way of saying you want me to scratch your back?”
“Would you mind?” I ask hurriedly, flipping over to face away from him. “Top left.”
He chuckles, then gently scratches my left shoulder blade.
“Now go down,” I say. “Now to the right. Now to the left. Go up a little. Now down. To the middle of my back. Right there. Yes. Now up.”
“Yeah, I can see how this is so much more efficient than a backscratcher,” he says sarcastically.
“Go back up and to the left. Yeah, there,” I groan.
“Jesus. This is gonna take all night.”
“Do you have somewhere else to be?”
“Nope.” His fingers go still on my shoulder. “So can I get one of these back scratches next?”
•••
On Monday when I meet Matt at the doctor, his eyes immediately dart to my knee.
“It doesn’t look too swollen,” he says, falling into step beside me as we walk through the parking lot.
“Hello to you too.”
“How do you feel?”
“It doesn’t hurt today.”
He drags a hand through his dirty blond hair. “I’m anxious to see the X-rays.”
“I hope it’s like what Jeremiah said, that I might be overusing it. I don’t think I’ve torn anything or sprained it. It only hurts when I run for a long time.”
Matt glances at my face as he opens the door to the orthopedist’s office. “He told me he went camping with you on Saturday night.”
“It was fun,” I say, and I smile until he gives me a look. “We’re just friends.”
“I know, I know, Jere’s told me that about fifty times.”
How often do he and his brother talk about me? And why? Yeah, we’re attracted to each other, but we really are only friends.
“Just be careful,” Matt adds.
“We’re fine. You should trust your brother more.”
He smiles at me sideways. “You’re right.”
We sit down in a waiting room filled in equal parts with fish tanks and anatomical posters of hips and knees. After I fill out paperwork on a clipboard, the nurse leads me into the X-ray room. I wore shorts today, so I don’t have to bother with a gown. I climb onto the table and answer the questions about whether I could be pregnant. The X-ray technician asks me three times if I’m sure, and I’m tempted to yell that I haven’t had sex since October…since the night I lost Kyle.