“Yeah, I asked Harriett if she would take it to him and she said no,” I say. “Then I was going to mail it, but Priority shipping cost too much.”
“Why did it have to be Priority shipping?”
“Because I want the box out of my face sooner.”
“Regular shipping would’ve done the trick too.” Dylan raises his left eyebrow. “You couldn’t do it, could you?”
I put down the box I should’ve mailed or thrown away or tied to an anchor and dropped into a river. “Stop seeing past my bullshit, it’s my bullshit.”
Dylan gets up and hugs me. “Shh-shh-shh-shh.” He rubs circles into my back.
“Your soothing voice isn’t soothing me.”
Dylan kisses my cheek. “It’s okay, Pudding Pop.”
I sit down cross-legged on his bed. I’m tempted to reach for my phone to see if I’ve missed any texts from Hudson, or to check Instagram to see if he has uploaded a new selfie. But I know there won’t be any texts, and I’ve unfollowed him on every platform.
“I don’t want to see him fail out of summer school because he’s avoiding me. He’ll get left behind if he’s absent three times.”
“Maybe. But that’s his problem. If he doesn’t show up, you won’t have to spend the summer with him. Problem solved.”
It wasn’t that long ago when spending my summer with Hudson was all I could think about. A summer as boyfriends in pools and parks and each other’s bedrooms while our parents were working—not exes who are in summer school because we spent more time studying each other than doing our chemistry homework.
“Wish you were in the trenches with me,” I say. “He has his best friend, and I should have mine too.”
“Oh man, remind me to never commit a crime with you. You’ll get caught and out me so fast.” Dylan checks his phone, like we’re not even talking, which is my least favorite thing about humans. “That class would be all drama anyway. I can’t be there with my ex, that’s not a healthy environment.”
“I am literally in there with my ex, Dylan.”
“No you’re not. He didn’t show up, and if he does, don’t forget you got the edge here. You won the breakup by being the Breaker Upper. It would double-suck if he broke up with you. It only single-sucks for you.”
I’d trade my poor kingdom for a universe where single-suck heartbreak isn’t a victory. But here we are.
Recent breakups prove that we should’ve never screwed up our friend circle by trying to date. Not to point fingers, but Dylan and Harriett started this. The four of us had a good thing going until Dylan and Harriett kissed on New Year’s Eve. I was kind of into Hudson and I was pretty sure he was into me too, but when we turned to each other that night we didn’t kiss, we just shook our heads because I knew my best friend and he knew his. This was never going to last. Maybe Hudson and I wouldn’t have been inspired to give it a shot ourselves if we hadn’t been left with a lot of alone time while Dylan and Harriett spent their weekends together.
I miss the squad days.
I get up and turn on the Wii because I need some shit-talking and entertainment to cheer me up. The triumphant opening of Super Smash Bros. blasts from the TV. Dylan’s top character is Luigi because he thinks Mario is overrated. I go for Zelda because she teleports and deflects projectiles and shoots fireballs from great distances, which are all optimal moves for any player looking to avoid hand-to-hand combat.
We get the game going.
“On the sad scale, how are you feeling today?” Dylan asks. “Opening-montage-of-Up sad? Or Nemo’s-mom-dying sad?”
“Whoa, no. Definitely not opening-montage-of-Up sad. That shit was devastating. I’d guess I’m somewhere in between, like last-five-minutes-of-Toy-Story-3 sad. I just need time to bounce back.”
“No doubt. Okay, I need to tell you a thing.”
“Are you breaking up with me?” I ask. “Because not cool.”
“Sort of,” Dylan says. He does this big dramatic pause while hammering down on one button so Luigi keeps shooting green fireballs at Zelda. “I met this girl at a coffee shop.”
“That is the most Dylan sentence you’ve ever said.”
“Right?” Dylan’s chuckle is very charming. “Okay, so after my doctor’s appointment yesterday I went uptown to try this coffee spot.”
“Of course you leave an appointment for your heart condition by going straight to a coffee shop. You’re a little too on brand sometimes.”
“The yearly ritual,” Dylan says. He has a heart condition called mitral valve prolapse, which isn’t as shitty as it sounds—at least not in Dylan’s case. I don’t know what he’d do if his doctors actually banned him from coffee. “Anyway. I walked past Kool Koffee, which I have avoided forever because you know I don’t find cutesy spellings cute, and she stepped outside to throw away some trash and I became trash for her.”
“As you do.”
“But I couldn’t walk in there wearing a Dream & Bean shirt.”
“Why not?”
“Uh. Do you walk into Burger King with a Happy Meal? No. That shit is disrespectful. Have some common sense.”
“My common sense is telling me to make new friends.”
“I just didn’t want to be disrespectful.”
“You just disrespected me.”
“I’m talking about her.”
“Of course you are. Wait. Is that why you gave me this shirt last night?”
“Yes. I panicked.”
“You’re so weird. Go on.”
“I braved Kool Koffee today dressed appropriately . . .” Dylan gestures at his solid blue T-shirt. Nice and neutral. “. . . and she was humming an Elliott Smith song while making someone’s espresso, and I was done. Overdone. Big Ben, in a single moment, I gained a future wife and an unlimited supply of coffee.”
It’s really hard to be happy for someone finding romance when I’ve clearly just taken a loss in the same department, but it’s Dylan. “I can’t wait to meet my future sister-in-law.”
“You remember that BuzzFeed post with the Harry Potter wedding? Samantha and I will do something coffee-themed. Everyone will wear barista aprons. Toasting with mugs. My face drawn in everyone’s espresso.”
“You are too much.”
“One downside though.”
“She has a downside already?”
“She’s a huge supporter of Kool Koffee because they donate some portions to charities, and she thinks serious coffee drinkers should be better about where they’re buying coffee. I mean, I’m not ready to be monogamous with Kool Koffee.”
“Did she actually ask you to do that?”
“No, but . . . she asked without asking. And when the One comes along, there are things we must sacrifice.”
“There’s no way you’re quitting Dream & Bean coffee.”
“Oh hell no. I’m quitting drinking it in front of Samantha. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt.”
“Only you could make drinking coffee sound nefarious.”
“Anyway. I added other coffee shop shirts into your drawer so I don’t get tempted.”
I check out the shirts because maybe there’s actually a winner in here. And yeah, I have a drawer in his bedroom and he has one in mine. We’ve slept over at each other’s places enough that it makes sense. When I was first getting cool with the coming-out thing in school, I always felt super self-conscious in gym, like everyone thought I would try and check them out. It’s really dope having a bro like Dylan who is super cool changing in front of me and me changing in front of him. I hope I don’t lose his awesomeness again like I have every time he meets the One.
“Wait. Why didn’t you tell me about seeing Samantha last night when you came over?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Dylan says. Like that’s a satisfying answer. Like I’m about to just go “Okay, cool,” and go back to kicking his ass in Super Smash.
“You never tell me when you first get a crush,” I say.