“What did I do to her?” I mutter.
Natalia takes a bite of a carrot from the random vegetable platter thrown haphazardly on the table next to us. “No idea. Maybe you pissed her off when you told her to stop cheating on all her boyfriends.”
I look from my best friend to her brother. “And now she’s flirting with your brother. Are you going to do something?”
A look of sheer confusion replaces the smirk she had. “Why would I do that?”
I shrug incredulously. “You’re fine with her dating your brother and cheating on him?”
Sam and I have been friends for a long time. Almost as long as Natalia and I. But while she’s an okay friend—or so I thought—she’s what my mom called boy-centered.
“Some women have been taught their whole lives that validation from men comes before anything else,” she had told me. “It’s not necessarily someone’s fault that they were taught that, but at some point it’s their responsibility to grow from it and realize that it won’t actually get them anywhere in life.”
Natalia shrugs it off. “I’m not worried about it at all. He’s not going to go for it.”
I pout. “How do you know?”
A short snicker escapes her. “He’s my brother. I know him. He does not have eyes for that girl, I can promise you.”
I spent another half hour watching Sam flirt with Coop, and Coop act completely oblivious.
And when she tries to sit on his lap, I make an excuse to go home.
I’m being unreasonable. I know that. But it’s one thing to suck it up. It’s another to stay in an uncomfortable situation longer than you have to for the sake of what? Making yourself even more miserable?
I’m halfway down the driveway when he catches up to me.
“What are you doing?” Cooper asks, grabbing my arm.
“Going home.”
I don’t turn to him.
“Why?”
“Just not feeling great,” I lie.
Cooper scratches the back of his neck. “I was thinking we could go to the beach.”
Snow has started falling again, and while the skies are gray, the sun will be going down soon.
“Why? It’s so cold.”
“It’s sosnowy,” he says, and when he looks up at the sky, his face lights up in the most dazzling smile.
“Sure,” I agree quickly.
It’s a quiet walk, with only the light crunching of snow and ice under our feet; the sound of the waves feels like it fills my skull.
I let Cooper take the lead, walking along the wooden path until we were on the main beach. My foot slips on the slick layer of snow covering it.
The setting sun casts an eerie, bright, golden glow behind the thick gray clouds, lighting up the snow on the sand just slightly. The waves continue to crash. It’s a weird feeling, being out here with no one else.
“How often do you come out here during the winter?” I ask Cooper.
He sits in the snow, looking up at me. “I love it here. It’s so different than in the summers. And the ocean feels,more.I don’t know how to describe it.” He smiles as he looks out into the waves, and I take a seat next to him.
“It really is beautiful, I agree.
