Hold the Forevers

“I know,” he said carefully. “Because of course, I know that. I know everything about you.”

I yanked my arm out of his grasp. “Not everything.”

“Can’t we still be friends?”

I didn’t have an answer to that. My heart was inextricably linked to Ash. I didn’t know how to disentangle how I felt about him from the friendship he claimed to want. We’d never just been friends. We’d never just be friends.

But a part of me wanted it. I wanted to let go of this hate. I wanted things to be normal again. It took effort to hate him when I’d once loved him so much.

“Please,” he added desperately.

“Maybe.” I sighed. “Maybe we can be friends.”

He smiled so bright that it was blinding. And as much as I wanted normal with him, I wasn’t sure it would ever happen.

“There you are!”

I expected to find Marley, but instead, it was a tall redhead with a spattering of freckles across her pale skin.

“Babe!” she said, drawing out the name. “I didn’t know where you went.”

Then this gorgeous girl in a skintight green dress walked straight up to Ash Talmadge and kissed him on the lips.

I retreated a step in horror. We might have agreed to be friends, but I didn’t know how to handle this.

He smiled down at her and slipped an arm around her waist. As if he hadn’t just been pursuing me. Or maybe I’d been wrong. And his pursuit had really been in the name of friendship. Since, clearly, he was dating someone else.

“Charlie, this is my friend Lila,” he told the woman. “Lila, my girlfriend, Charlie.”

“Charlotte,” she said as she extended her hand. “But all my friends call me Charlie.”

“Delilah, but my friends call me Lila.”

“I love it! What’s your major here? I’ve never seen you around.”

“Oh no, I don’t go to Duke.”

“Lila is here from out of town,” Ash said. “She goes to UGA and studies exercise and sports science. She wants to be a PT.”

I tried not to glare at him for spouting out all my dreams to this person. Or maybe it was just that he remembered all of my dreams so easily.

“Georgia!” Charlie cried. “That’s so cool. What are you doing here?”

“Visiting a friend and choreographing for the dance team.”

“Wow! Smart and talented. How do you and Ash know each other?”

Ash and I looked at each other. For a split second, we were back in high school, and I remembered the way he’d held me as if the world would stop turning for us and we’d be forever. Then it shattered.

“Lila and I went to high school together.”

“Small world,” Charlie said. She smacked Ash on the chest. “Wait, why didn’t you tell me you had another friend at Georgia? We’ve been looking for hotels all month to go to the Georgia–Alabama game.”

“Really?” I whispered.

“Yes! You don’t happen to have a couch we could crash on, do you?” Charlie touched my shoulder like we were suddenly besties.

“Uh …”

Ash’s face was blank. Completely blank.

What the fuck was I supposed to say to that?

“I’m from Birmingham, and I’d die to go to this game. I know we just met and all, but you seem really cool,” Charlie continued. “We’ll be quiet as a mouse. You won’t even know we’re there.”

I highly doubted that.

“Sure,” I said finally. I caught Ash’s surprised gaze. “I’ll probably be spending the night with my boyfriend anyway.”

His eyes hardened. “That’s nice of you, Lila.”

“You are my new best friend!” Charlie said enthusiastically. “Allow me to make this huge favor up to you by showing you where the hidden liquor is at this place.”

Charlie linked our elbows together and directed me back toward the house. I only looked back once to catch Ash’s eye. I might be standing with his new girlfriend, but one thing was perfectly clear: he wasn’t over me.

11

Athens

September 15, 2008

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Marley asked me over the phone. It had to have been at least the twentieth time since she’d found out about Ash. Her face at the party when she’d seen us together should be painted and hung in museums.

“No, I’m not sure.”

“And you’re going to tell Cole?”

“Yes, I’m planning to run it by him today actually.” I put her on speaker as I tugged a dress on over my head and slid on a pair of wedges. “He’s picking me up any minute.”

“He’s not going to like this.”

“He doesn’t know anything about Ash.”

Marley made a small sound of protest. “For one, Lila, he should know about what happened with Ash. And for two—”

“It’s going to be fine,” I insisted. I picked the phone back up and took it off speaker. “I swear, I’m only doing this for Charlie.”

“Not to get back at Ash?”

“Of course not.”

Marley sighed. “Fine. But I was there, remember? I don’t want to see you like that again.”