They both knew I lied.

This was not good.

Then I looked at Angie. Her eyes had softened, but I saw the hurt in them. “I’m sorry for lying.”

She softened even more. Her arms fell back down to her side. “It’s—whatever. I guess. So what’s going on with you two?”

Marissa looked away.

I wasn’t going to win with either of them, but they deserved the truth. I only hoped that I wouldn’t lose Marissa’s friendship because of it. “I thought you supported the idea of Jesse and me.”

“I did, but you’d been distant and even quieter since graduation two months ago.” Her hands lifted in the air. “What do you want from me? You’ve been off since Ethan died and you were finally becoming a little more normal until that night. Since you left with Jesse that night—”

“Wait. How do you know that?”

“I saw you.” Marissa sounded hurt too. “You never responded to my text, so I came out to make sure you were okay. I saw the two of you and he got in your car. It doesn’t take a genius, Alex. I knew what you did. And you never came to Barnies the next day for breakfast.”

“And you’ve been so distant from us since then. We can’t even depend on you to hang out with us. I mean, Justin had a party last night and you wouldn’t respond to our text messages.”

Ben harrumphed beside me. “She didn’t text me back either.”

I swung around. “You texted me?”

He shrugged and edged to the side. “I would’ve. I thought about it.”

I continued to stare at him.

He looked away and busied himself with a customer that had approached on the side. “Hi! How can I help you?”

I turned back to my friends. “I’m sorry. I am. I, just, I don’t know what to say.”

“So are you guys together or what? Casey said she got booted out by him. He took one look at you and practically threw her out of his home. Granted, I loved hearing that she got booted on her ass, but…” Marissa trailed off and shared another dark look with Angie. She took a breath, as if to ready herself. “But what’s going on? Are you guys dating?”

I looked away. What could I say? No, we weren’t. My friends would lecture me on how I needed to be a strong woman. I couldn’t give up the jewels for nothing, but they didn’t know what it was like. I could escape with him, only him. It wouldn’t be the same with anyone else. I would feel empty. I did feel empty with everyone else, even spending time with people.

Jesse understood.

Then I lifted my shoulders in a helpless shrug. “I don’t know what to say. Jesse loved him, too.”

“Oh!” Angie’s eyes went wide.

Marissa looked horrified.

“Oh my gawd. I didn’t even think about that.” Angie surged forward. Her hand clamped down on mine where it was on the counter. She squeezed it. “I am so sorry, Alex. We—we didn’t even think about that.” Her shoulders sagged. “I’m a horrible friend. I should’ve thought about that.”

“Yeah, well, don’t worry about it.” My tone was casual, but I couldn’t ignore the guilt in my stomach. It spread throughout me. I looked anywhere but at my friends. I shouldn’t have pulled away and I knew I had. Angie was right. Since graduation night, I had steadily stopped responding to them and hanging out with them.

“Okay, um…” Marissa still bit her lip, but she forced a cheery voice out. “There’s a thing at the baseball fields tonight. It’s like a midnight tournament. Do you want to go?”

I held my breath. Did I?

She added with a whine to her voice, “Jesse will be there. The whole thing’s like a goodbye to him tonight.”

And that was my reminder that he had become the school’s star over the last year. He went from an above average athlete to excelling where no one could touch his records. I forgot how much Jesse had achieved over the last year, but in a sense I understood. He pursued anything that would keep his mind from Ethan. I did the same, but that meant I pulled away from everyone else.

Ben gushed out, “Can I come, too?”

Both Angie and Marissa cracked a smile.

Then Angie questioned, “Alex?”

I already knew I was going. Who was I kidding? I nodded my head. I was glutton for punishment and seeing Jesse in his element was definitely going to be a punishment for me.

Ben clapped his hands together. “Oh, goody! I can’t wait. I have the perfect shirt in mind.”

When I got to the baseball fields that night, it was after ten. We couldn’t leave until the mall closed. That was the end of our shift, and Ben insisted that I drive him to his house first. He needed a ride and wanted my opinion on the jeans he had chosen to go with his perfect shirt. I didn’t care. After seeing ten different jeans that had jewels on the back pockets, I finally lied and picked one. In truth, as we got out of my car and headed towards the fields, Ben didn’t look half bad.

His jeans were sharp and dazzled with the bling on the back and his polo shirt was striped pink and purple. He seemed happy as we headed towards the bleachers. Or that might’ve been the huge smile on his face. He confessed that he had always wanted to attend an event with my girlfriends and I; apparently we were the ‘it’ girls for the next year.

I had no idea what he meant, but I nodded.

As we approached the fields, they were lit and all five of them were filled with teams. The steel bleachers in between were also filled to the maximum. The fences that separated the fields from the crowd had lounge chairs lined up from the bleachers to the end of the field. A second row of lawn chairs was placed behind them.

When we stepped around the concessions, I heard my name shouted and looked around.

Eric Nathan grinned at me as he gestured from inside the concessions stand.

Ben leaned close and whispered, “I knew it was true. I heard a rumor that he wanted to ask you out since his girlfriend broke up with him. He’s making his move!”

I nudged him back and moved forward. “Hey, Eric.”

“Hi!” He had a friendly smile on his face. As he skimmed over my shoulder and saw Ben behind me, it slipped a bit. Then he ran a hand through his sandy-blonde hair. His blue eyes seemed to sparkle even more as his perfect teeth flashed me a smile. “I’m glad to see you here. I didn’t know if you’d come.”