Page 82 of The Debutantes
“Yeah,” she said, her voice high-pitched, trying too hard to be normal. “I just have to get home. My parents are being annoying about curfew again.”
And then I saw her hand drift up to touch her necklace.
Without another glance our way, Lily pulled her keys out ofher pocket and started walking toward the back gate. I got up to follow her.
“Wait,” I said, when I was close enough for her to hear me without raising my voice. “Did something just happen?”
Lily looked at me, a tear slipping down her cheek. She brushed it away with the back of her hand. “I’m fine.”
“Lily…”
“I said I’mfine,Viv.” It was the harshest she’d ever spoken to me. “Just leave it.”
With that, she walked through the gate.
I didn’t think it through. All I knew was that Wyatt had just done something to hurt my best friend, and I wasn’t going to let that go. Ignoring Sav’s worried look, I marched through the Johnsons’ back door and up the stairs to the second floor, where I knocked hard on Wyatt’s door.
He opened it quickly, looking hopeful for half a second before realizing it was me and not her.
“What the hell just happened?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Lily just left in tears, so obviously it wasn’t nothing.”
For a moment, he looked like the five-year-old kid I grew up with. “She did?”
“Yeah. So what did you do?”
“Why are you assuming it’s my fault?”
“Because you’re an idiot.”
He stormed over to his bed and flopped back onto it, pressing his hands to his face.
“A moody idiot,” I added. “You should join drama club with Sav. I think you’d crush it.”
And then I realized he was crying. “Shit. I—”
“It’s over,” he said. “She’s done with me. I think she has been for a while.”
I was too stunned to say anything at first. “Y’all broke up?”
“No.” He wiped his tears, staring up at the ceiling. “Not yet. But it’s going to happen. I can tell. She’s just—” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I’ve never been good enough for her.”
For a second, I thought he meant that Lily’s standards were too high, and I felt the instinct to jump to her defense, but then I realized that wasn’t what he meant. He meant Lily was too good for him. That he wasn’t enough, period. And looking at Wyatt, this golden-boy quarterback breaking down in front of me, I said the only thing I could think of to make it hurt less.
“She loves you.”
He laughed hoarsely. “Right.”
“She does. The way she talks about you, it’s literally disgusting.”
Lilydidlove Wyatt. I knew, because the way she talked about him made my teeth ache like I ate too much sugar. It made me want something I didn’t even know how to talk about, because I hadn’t felt it yet, still haven’t: loving a boy and knowing he loves you back.
Wyatt turned to look at me, a soft haze in those stupid ocean-blue eyes. “What does she say?” he asked. “About me?”
I rolled my eyes as I sat on the edge of the bed a few feet away from him. “Oh my god, was this all your master plan to get me to, like, massage your ego?”
