Page 127 of End Game

“I’m already comfortable here, because you’re here,” she says. “I’m not afraid of taking things to the next level with you. We’re mature adults. We can handle our friendship growing and transitioning.”

“What’s with the pile of underwear?” I count at least five pairs of satiny, silky underthings. Some are boy-short style, some are thong style, some I can’t identify.

She pins me with a flat look. “I’m still missing my favorite panties, the ones I was wearing that night. I’m hoping if I have a few days’ worth here, I can get my favorite pair back.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m not some conquest. You don’t get to keep a souvenir like the letters we used to get at summer camp,” she says. “I’m here to stay. You can see my underwear any time. I’ll show you right now if you want. I only want my favorite panties back.”

I frown. “Of course you’re not—it’s not a souvenir. It’s a memento.”

“It’s underwear,” she tells me flatly. “My underwear. I’m not saying you can never see them again. I just want them back.”

With a sigh, I stand and move to my desk, pulling out the second drawer. From within I pull out the soft pink panties and pass them over.

“What else is in that drawer?” Diana asks.

“Not much,” I lie.

She rolls her eyes. “You know I can tell when you’re lying?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She laughs outright. “Show me. Please?”

Clearing my throat, I open the drawer again and withdraw my special Diana box.

“It’s all the things that remind me of you, going back years.”

She lifts the lid. Slowly she pulls out the contents, looking them over one by one. A squishy yellow hair tie she wore around her wrist to my freshman homecoming game. A keychain she got me from her trip to Green Bay in middle school. A letter she wrote me while at soccer camp the summer before eleventh grade. The friendship bracelet I made during our second summer at Chinese camp when we were nine years old—it was on her wrist for four years straight.

She gasps, holding up the frayed thread bracelet. “I thought I lost this!”

“It fell off your wrist. I was going to try to fix it for you, but I couldn’t figure out the clasp. I didn’t steal it,” I assure her quickly.

“I believe you,” she assures me. “I can’t believe you kept it all this time.”

“I’m not, like, some creepy stalker. I don’t have a shrine to you.”

“I wouldn’t care if you did,” she says. She reconsiders. “Well, maybe. I don’t think so.”

“You’re my best friend. I kept things that reminded me of you, of how I felt about you.”

Ticket stubs from a concert we went to the week after I got my driver’s license. The invitation to her Sweet Sixteen party. A postcard she sent when her soccer team traveled to England for a tournament. Tickets for my high school football games, where she sat in the stands by herself for four hours and cheered me on, rain or shine. Little things I kept over the years that reminded me of her, of us.

“Barrett…” She looks up at me, her thumb rubbing the fraying braided bracelet.

“Yeah?”

“I really like you,” she admits.

I swallow. “I really like you, too.”

She frowns. “You’re awfully far away.”

“I am?” I’m only at the edge of the bed.

Diana nods. “I think you should come closer.”