Page 71 of Something Spontaneous

She lowers herself down onto the towel next to me. “Yeah, it’s not your fault you didn’t know, and it’s certainly not your fault that it happened. He finally admitted it to me—or more importantly, himself—that he didn’t want you to know.”

“Why?” I barely breathe out the word.

She hums to herself. “I think that’s between the two of you. If I had to guess, though, it’s probably the same reason you’re sitting here crying.”

“What?” I huff, bringing my hands to my face. Sure enough, I feel the stray tears that have rolled down my cheeks, confirmation that she’s right—I do still care about him.

I wipe them away and look down at the towel between us and see the assortment of snacks she brought.

She laughs. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got snacks. Go talk to him.”

I grab one of the bags of chips from her before standing. “Thanks, Sisi.”

She smiles. “Don’t mention it.”

Walking into Sly’s old bedroom feels weird, and shutting the door behind me feels like an even weirder milestone of adulthood. Unlike when we were teenagers, neither of his parents are there to make sure it’s cracked open so we wouldn’t get into any kind of trouble. We always found a way of getting into it anyway.

“Hey,” I say, spotting him on the bed. Looking around, I note that outside of that piece of furniture, the room now appears to be a regular guest room. There’s not a trace of his vintage car posters or die-cast model cars that used to cover every available surface. There’s only the one model left in the room. It’s the red muscle car—a perfect replica of the one he spent years restoring—that he’s holding now.

The only other sign that this was his old room is how comfortable he looks lying on his bed. He’s on his back with his knees bent, feet up on the bed.

Or foot? Do they both count as feet? I don’t know, and now hardly feels like the right time to ask.

He looks up from the car in his huge hands, and I nearly have to do a double-take. With his beard gone, he looks more like the boy I loved, except now, his full-size man body is comically too large for the twin-sized bed.

“Hi.” His voice is so soft and quiet, at complete odds with how he’s been since I got to town. It reminds me of the shy boy next door who would walk with me to school every day.

“Sly. Can we talk?”

He says nothing, and I take his silence as permission to come closer and sit on the edge of the bed.

“I’m—”

“I’m sorry,” he nearly whispers.

“What? Um—” I point to my chest in confusion. “I was going to apologize to you.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Josie.”

“Neither do you.”

“Yes, I do.” He lets out a long breath and drops his head back into the pillow that deflates with a rush of air. “I shouldn’t have reacted that way.”

I snort a puff of a laugh. “Well, you’re not wrong. You were an ass.”

He arches a questioning brow at me.

I sigh and nod. “But I haven’t exactly been great to you since I’ve been back either.”

“You did take care of my Meredith problem.”

I bob my head side to side. “Yeah, but you know that’s not what I meant, and clearly, I was being a bit selfish that night too. And you were right that night.”

“About?”

I bump my hip into him. “Scooch over.”

He gives me a questioning look but slides over as far as he can on the tiny bed to make room for me.