“That’s sweet,” Molly says in a nice, dismissive tone—abandoning the all-consuming intensity of our conversation rather than conceding my brilliant argument. I can’t even be annoyed because getting into it with her like that—like we’re alone and the only thing in the world is our brains—has made me extremely nostalgic for when we were sixteen and obsessed with each other.
I roll my eyes at her. “Don’t condescend to me, Marks.”
“I’m not. It’s nice that you think that. I just know you’re wrong.”
“Who hurt you?” I ask. I am completely kidding, but she winces.
Because someone did. Badly.
I shouldn’t have said that.
“Let’s just say I’m not cut out to be anyone’s soul mate,” she says.
Those words make me sad.
I don’t know what to say.
She certainly wasn’t cut out to be mine.
CHAPTER 5Molly
Goddammit, Molly.
It is one thing to be brutally honest about my failings in my own head. But I try not to do it out loud.
At high school reunions.
To an ex-boyfriend who hates me.
What makes it even more excruciating is that Seth knows I’m right. He pities me for it. I can see it on his face.
“Sounds like you’re pretty hard on yourself, Molls,” he says quietly.
But I’m not hard on myself. I’m hard on the people who make the mistake of trying to love me. Because, unfortunately, I know how that ends.
“Marks!” someone yells from across the room.
It’s Alyssa. Thank the universe.
“I’m just gonna go say hello—” I say to Seth, but he’s already waving me off, like we were not just absorbed in each other. Like we were not just debating something more personal than the bullshit of rom-coms.
“Jon and Kevin and I have an appointment with some expensive shellfish,” he says, gesturing to his two childhood best friends, who are standing in line for lobster rolls.
He waves at them. Kevin does a double take at the sight of me next to Seth.
I can’t stand up fast enough.
I weave my way through the crowd over to the bar, where Alyssa is already ordering a San Pellegrino on the rocks with five limes. Her locs are piled on top of her head, giving her five-foot-ten frame an extra six inches of loft, and she’s wearing a floor-length marigold wrap dress that sets off the gold undertones in her dark-brown skin and shows off her baby bump.
“Look at you,” I squeal. I haven’t seen her since before she got pregnant.
She puts a hand to her belly. “I know. Whatever happens, promise me you won’t let me give birth on the dance floor.”
“I don’t know. If you do, I can steal it for a screenplay. Excellent set piece.”
“How are you faring?” she asks in a low voice.
A guy she dated for ten minutes in tenth grade passes and high-fives her. “Go Flamingos!” he yells.
