Page 147 of Never Not Friends

“And what about Juliet?”

“It’s going to be tricky. I’m not going to sugarcoat it for you. I’m not saying that Juliet’s going to be okay with it all tomorrow. She might be mad at you for a long time. I would be. But you can’t spend the rest of your life making every decision based on whether or not Juliet will be hurt by it. You’ve done that already, and it backfired.”

I want to believe Avery.

But I can’t stop the tug of guilt every time I think about a future with Vinny.

“All the juicy drama aside”—Avery places her hand on top of mine—“I bet Saturday was horrible for you. Are you okay?”

My automatic answer of saying I’m fine sits on the tip of my tongue, but instead, I say what I’m really feeling. “No, I’m devastated.”

“As you should be.” She squeezes my fingers. “Anything I can do?”

“Can you house Chili the Chinchilla?”

“No.”

I smile. “Then I guess you’ll just have to keep eating lunch with me until school is out in two weeks.”

“Easy.” She grins back at me. The bell rings, causing her to groan. “I feel like we barely scratched the surface here.” She stands and gathers her food. “Do I need to come over tonight for another debrief? I feel like I do.”

I laugh. “If that’s what you need to understand all of this.”

“I think we both need more debriefing to understand all of this.”

That’s allll I’ve been doing since the wedding.

I think about Avery’s words throughout the rest of my day in between being Miss Lawson.

For the longest time, I did base my decisions on what would make Juliet happy. And I can see myself falling into that trap again, desperate to make her stop hating me. Still thinking that I can’t be with Vinny because it would hurt Juliet too much.

I mean, I say that, but the truth is, I don’t even know what Vinny really wants. Juliet said that he has feelings for me, but I don’t know what will happen when all the dust settles.

Maybe it’s finally time for Juliet to decide what Juliet wants.

Vinny to decide what he wants.

And I finally get to decide what Emma wants.

This is uncharted territory for me.

And it’s scary.

When I pull into my parents’ driveway after school, my mom is unloading groceries from the back of her SUV.

I take two bags from the trunk. “Need help?”

“Thanks.” She grabs the last two before shutting the hatch. We’re halfway to the house when she says, “I hope you know the last thing you should do right now is get involved with Vinny.”

My parents were at the ceremony Saturday. They saw the whole thing. But since they didn’t say much about it the last two days, I thought that they’d remain blissfully unaware of my true feelings, like they have been the last twelve years.

Yeah, I misjudged that.

My grip tightens on the plastic handles. “I haven’t even spoken to him.”

“Good,” she says. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

She makes it three steps before I say, “No, we’re not on the same page.”