Our Year of Maybe

Peter texts me at eleven thirty, when I’m on the brink of sleep.

Can you talk?

Yes, I type back right away.

Woods behind my house?

I’ll be there in 6 minutes.

I spring out of bed, brush my teeth again though I already did an hour ago, and throw a coat over my pajamas. Slowly I creep downstairs and across the dark street. Someone smashed a pumpkin, and the ground is littered with candy wrappers.

Peter’s waiting for me, bundled in a plaid scarf his mom gave him for his birthday a few years ago and his REI coat. N

ormally I’d hug him, bug him to share his scarf with me. Tonight I don’t.

“I’m so, so sorry,” he says. Peter. Apologizing to me. “I didn’t know we had plans.”

“I shouldn’t have assumed,” I say quickly. A pause. “What, um, concert did you go to?”

“Oh. A local band. Some friends from school.”

“Oh.” I jam my hands into my pockets, gritting my teeth against the cold.

“Are . . . we okay?” he asks, and it’s such a strange question. Our relationship isn’t something we discuss—not until lately, at least. I guess because we’ve always been okay, never needed to confirm it.

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

“I’ve . . . been thinking. About what happened on Saturday.”

“Yeah?” I ask, daring to feel hopeful.

“I love you so much,” he says, but in those words, I can tell: It’s not the kind of love I’ve been craving. “And with the transplant, I can’t imagine that becoming more than friends wouldn’t complicate things more than they already are.”

I try to untangle his words, all the negatives in his sentence, hoping they cancel each other out, giving me a solution I could be happy with.

They don’t.

“What if . . . ? What if it made our friendship better?” My voice is tiny, my heart already sunk.

“It’s just . . . we know each other so well already. I mean, I have a part of you inside me.”

I wish those words—“inside me”—didn’t sound sexual.

“I don’t want to risk ruining this,” he continues. “It would kill me if you ever regretted what you did.”

“I wouldn’t,” I say quickly, touching his shoulder in reassurance. I draw my hand back quickly, though, worried he’ll misinterpret the gesture. He doesn’t even blink at it, like me touching him is the same as petting a cat or accidentally brushing up against a wall. “I could never.”

And that’s the horrible truth of it all, isn’t it? Peter could slash me open and steal my other kidney, and I would let him. If it would keep him alive, I’d dig it out for him myself.

“You’re okay with this, then?”

“Super okay,” I say, forcing a smile. “You’re my best friend, and the party . . . I was drunk. It didn’t mean anything, right? We were probably both just curious.” I have to bite out each word.

He hugs me, though I am stiff with cold and disappointment. Still, I don’t want him to let go. “Nothing’s going to change,” he says in a tone that he probably means to sound reassuring. “We’re going to stay exactly like we’ve always been.”

CHAPTER 16

PETER