She bites her lip, then shrugs. “Who knows if it’ll ever happen. But it’s what I think about when everything else sucks.”
I sit there for a second, watching her fingers brush over the frayed edge of her blanket.
“That’s probably why I like watching rom coms,” she adds, her eyes flicking down. “Because it gives me hope. Like maybe someday I’ll find someone who looks at me like that.”
I shift a little, propping the laptop against my knee. “Why do you say it like it won’t?”
She shrugs again. “I just… I don’t think I’m the kind of girl a guy would run through an airport for. Or fall in love with, for that matter.”
She says it with a little laugh, like she’s joking. But it doesn’t feel like a joke.
“Sometimes I feel like a side character in my own life,” she continues. “I don’t mind being single, but I just wish someone looked at me and thought,that’s the one. I wish I was loved like that.”
I swallow hard. I look at her, and all I see is someone I can’t imagine not being in my life. Smart and sharp and funny, and so fucking beautiful. Her fingers are still curled tight around that penguin, and I want to reach through the screen andhold her.
I shift closer to the screen. “Maisie?—”
She looks up.
I open my mouth to say something— though I’ve got no clue what—but my phone buzzes and lights up with a call.
Mom.
“One sec,” I mutter toward her, reaching for my phone.
I mute the FaceTime and answer. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Hi sweetheart,” my mom says, her face filling my screen. “I just got home and wanted to check in. Did you eat yet?” she asks, narrowing her eyes. “And don’t roll your eyes.”
I let out a laugh. “I wasn’t going to.”
“You always do,” she replies with an arched brow.
In the background, I hear my sister’s voice. “Wait. Let me talk to him!”
There’s some shuffling, and then Scarlett’s face fills the screen. “Hi, loser!”
“Hey, shrimp.” I smile. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”
“Shouldn’t you be studying?” she fires back.
“Brutal.” I laugh, shaking my head. “I don’t know where you get it from.”
“Who’sthat?” my mom asks, squinting at something behind me.
“What?” I glance over my shoulder, realizing the camera’s angled straight at my laptop, where Maisie’s face fills the screen.
I shake my head. “No one. Just a friend.”
“A friend?” she says, drawing the word out.
I groan. “Mom.”
“She’s pretty,” she says with a smile.
I look back at the screen. Maisie’s zoned in on the movie, totally unaware.
Yeah, she is.
