Page 144 of The Build-a-Boyfriend Project

“I’m okay, it’ll be nice to get out for a bit.”

“M’kay, let me know if you change your mind.”

“I will.”

Eli helps them put away the groceries before he places an order at the pizzeria down the block. Rose and Patricia join him on the couch as they watch old episodes of Top Model, Rose and Patricia sending Eli whatever job applications they find online.

Patricia even sends a form for an internship at InVogue, though Eli isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do with an unpaid internship that doesn’t even begin until the following spring. And Rose sends an application for the maintenance crew at her school that Eli happily fills out even though his experience with fixing things around the apartment begins and ends with putting duct tape on the slow leak in the kitchen sink.

At some point, the applications stop, and Rose breaks out her edibles. She takes a generous portion, leaving Eli and Patricia to nibble on the corners. Enough to relax the both of them as Janice Dickinson of all people shouts at some poor girl, and Rose snoozes from her impromptu pillow fort on the floor.

“How are you feeling?” Patricia asks, putting a hand on Eli’s knee.

“I wish I knew how to answer that question,” Eli says over the reality show, volume turned low. “It hurts. That’s all I know for sure.”

Worse than when things ended with Keith. Which is saying a lot considering Eli didn’t feel human once everything was said and done with Keith.

“He hasn’t contacted you at all?”

Eli shakes his head, though Peter hasn’t blocked him on Instagram, so that has to count for something. Even thinking that makes him feel even more depressed, though.

“God . . .” Eli wipes at the corners of his eyes, his body feeling weighted down in a comfortable way. “I fucked up so hard, Patricia. And I wish I knew how to fix it.”

“I know . . .” Her nails trace his skin as she lets him rest his curly head on her shoulder. “That’s the awful part, though. Sometimes we can’t fix it. Life isn’t a movie.”

“You mean I can’t just wait for him to hop on a plane to go somewhere just so I can stop him at the gate and make some grand statement?”

“Don’t I wish.” Patricia takes a Nerds gummy candy from the one-pound bag they broke out after dinner and passed around. “It’d make life a hell of a lot easier.”

“I told him.” Eli peers over at his best friend. “That I love him.”

“What did he say?”

How could he forget the words, the way they’d taken ahold of his brain, absolutely refusing to let go of him?

“That he was in love with me too.”

Past tense. Was.

How could he still be once he knew the truth?

“Eli?”

He buries himself deeper into her shoulder, desperate to hide his face in the sweatshirt that she’s wearing. He hadn’t expected the words. Hoped for them, yes. But to hear Peter say them out loud, to hear him admit that they could’ve had something together.

It stings.

Stings worse than anything else Peter could’ve possibly said to him.

Because that meant that Eli’d had Peter.

Eli had had Peter’s heart in his hand in much the same way he’d offered his own to Peter. In another world, he and Peter could’ve been happy together, they could’ve worked things out. But then again, maybe they were never meant to. And maybe it’s wrong of Eli to think that it could still work out.

“What do you want to do?” Patricia asks.

“I don’t know, I can’t talk to him, I—”

“Not what I asked.” She straightens, reaching for the candy again, this time grabbing the entire bag. “Treat this as a hypothetical. If you could do what you wanted to do with Peter, what would it be?”