Our Year of Maybe

She frowns. “No. Independence. That’s different. You with the dance team girls—you have fun, don’t you?”

I nod.

“That’s independence.” She straightens out a rumpled part of my sheets. “You and Peter are nothing like me and Steve. You two have always been complicated, so wrapped up in each other. Your dad and I worried so much about you when you were younger. We didn’t know if he’d get better and what that would mean for you if he didn’t. . . . It makes us sound like awful people, but we were so concerned. For him, and for you.”

“I know.”

“He’s a wonderful boy, Soph. Don’t get me wrong. But . . . is it possible—not intentionally—that he’s holding you back?”

I think again about how I am with Montana and Liz. How I want more nights like that one in the hotel, more book signings with Liz and more choreography with Montana. Those moments are when I’ve felt fully myself.

With Peter this year, I’ve been chasing something I can never quite catch.

“I don’t want to lose him completely,” I say finally.

For a moment I’m worried she’ll reassure me. She’ll tell me I won’t lose him, that he’ll come back to me eventually. That the two of us will be okay.

But I’m not sure we will be, not now, and I’m relieved by her response.

“You are going to stop feeling this way. I can promise you that. I wish I could tell you when, but this kind of unrequited love doesn’t last forever, kiddo. It just can’t.” She smiles sadly, running a hand through my hair. “Our hearts wouldn’t be able to take it.”

CHAPTER 34

PETER

THE REST OF THE WORLD should stop or at least slow down after Sophie and I shatter, but of course it doesn’t. It goes on, in the most infuriating way.

On Tuesday—how is it only Tuesday?—I bus to school and stay quiet in class and eat lunch alone in the band room. In English, Chase and I exchange pleasantries and awkward silence, but I can’t bear to talk to him outside of school. Not yet, not until the hurricane in my brain has calmed down. Eleanor Kang has succ

umbed to the flu, but I can’t even bring myself to enjoy playing piano in band. It suddenly feels like a massive responsibility to be in charge of an instrument like that.

Wednesday is the same robotic pattern, and it’s not until I get home Thursday that I realize I can’t keep feeling sorry for myself. I need to do something.

The first task is my room. There’s so much in here I haven’t used in years. I make a stack of books to donate, and after significant deliberation, part with a few of my records, too. Mark stays, of course. I love that little guy too much, and he’s the only one who isn’t mad at me right now.

Summer’s only a few months away. I was anticipating a lazy, languid one, but it turns out there are a lot of transplant organizations that could use volunteers. I send a few e-mails, along with an extremely sparse résumé. The most impressive accomplishment on it is my GPA. I’ve got to fill that up. Maybe a job, too—make some money of my own.

After I send one last e-mail, I close my laptop and migrate over to my Yamaha. All day I’ve had a melody stuck in my head, and I’ve got to play it out. I might even write some lyrics.

It takes all my courage to meet Chase on Friday. The place I picked, a coffee-slash-chocolate shop along Green Lake, is nearly empty on a Friday night after services, except for a couple college students huddled over textbooks.

I grab a corner table and stare down at our message history. Yesterday I texted him a location and a time and he responded with k. That single letter kills me a little. There’s no worse letter in the English language than k.

When Chase arrives a few minutes past eight thirty—the time we agreed on—he’s wearing a gray jacket I’ve never seen before. Probably because I’ve only known him in winter. It makes me ache for other seasons we haven’t spent together. I imagine the two of us on the beach in West Seattle, daring each other to dip a toe into the chilly water. Bonfires, ice cream, sunsets.

I was hoping—expecting—he’d look wrecked by the past week, but he looks as good as ever, no bags beneath his eyes, no lost expression on his face.

I used to love the newness and novelty of him, but what strikes me now is his familiarity. Though we were only officially together for a few months, it’s easy to picture him draping an arm around the back of my chair or me sliding my hand into his, tracing his knuckles with my thumb.

“Hi,” I say as he takes a seat across from me.

“Hi.” He sips his coffee, but it must be too hot because he makes a face and sets it back down right away, so forcefully that some of it splashes the table. He didn’t get a napkin, but I got two, so I hand him one. “Thanks,” he says as he mops up the spill.

“Thanks for meeting me.”

A brusque nod. Then: “Have you listened to the new Tarts album? It just came out.”

“Oh—no. I haven’t yet.”