Friends Like Us Read Online Free Page A

Matt, laughing at his jokes, staring, rapt, as he talked, mostly about baseball. I flirted tirelessly with him, a skill I had just picked up and hadn’t yet perfected. When Ben got up to leave abruptly at the end of the meal, I gave him a quick hug good-bye, and then I asked Matt if he wanted to order dessert. He did.
    We could sit here all night without saying anything real. But a high school reunion, even an eight-year one, is nothing if not a reminder that time passes. “I’m glad you showed up,” I try. Ben doesn’t answer. “And I am pleased that you, Willa, showed up as well,” I say, my voice pitched low.
    He stares straight ahead, the muscles in his jaw working. He exhales loudly, as if he’s been holding his breath. Without warning, he smacks his palm against his forehead. “Jesus!”
    The force of this—whatever it is—takes me completely by surprise. A sudden pressure builds behind my eyes. I move toward the door, my fingers on the handle. Given the option of fight or flight, I’ll always flee. But seven years of silence and repressed feelings will make their inevitable escape. “What?” I say, pressed against the door, my voice loud and shaky. “What is it?”
    “Who did I like?” I can see, even in the dim glow of the parking lot lights, that Ben’s face has gone red. “Are you that stupid?”
    This is not my friend. This is someone else—Ben’s mean but distractingly manly cousin. “Apparently, yes, I am, thank you.” And just as I’m saying it I understand, and then four years of friendship vaporize, just like that. I look down at my hands, long and alien, pinkish in the snowy light. “Oh. Shit.”
    “Which, in all the years I’ve thought about it, is not the response I’d hoped for.” His voice is quieter, slightly hoarse, as if there are big Swiss-cheese holes in it where the nastiness has just been.
    I scan the dashboard, trying to make sense of this revelation, but understanding only that the car has 78,997 miles on it. I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear; I can tell without looking that it’s gone frizzy in the damp heat. If I had met Ben tonight, my boyfriend detector would have been clicking away; I might have positioned myself at a table near his, made some clever comment, and then turned away, waiting, faking quiet confidence. But this-Ben, new-Ben is just a superimposed image on top of the boy I used to know, my short, chubby, hygiene-challenged pal, my friend, my best friend.
    “I just mean, you know, I had no idea,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
    “Also not on my list,” Ben says, but he sounds more like himself, like he finally remembers that beneath every statement lies the opportunity for self-mockery.
    And all of a sudden I’m thinking about Jane, Jane whose friendship is a direct descendant of this one, Jane who wears sparkly eye shadow to clean a house, who never met a karaoke machine she didn’t love, who dressed up last Halloween as a turkey sandwich, the why-not to my no-way. What would Jane do? I ask myself this question frequently; for her birthday last year, she bought me a WWJD bracelet. I move toward Ben, unsure of myself, but certain of the answer. He’s still sitting straight in his seat, staring at the foggy, wet window as if there is an important answer encoded in the dripping blobs of slush. “Well,” I say. “Like what’s-her-name said, high school was a long time ago.” I reach over and put my hands on either side of his face. We’ll tell our grandchildren that we were friends for years before we realized we were in love, that Ben knew long before I did, that it all came together in our first kiss, in a steamy car on a freezing cold night.
    His jacket makes a shushing sound as he leans toward me. He reaches his hand around the back of my head, cradling it like a baby. His mouth meets mine, and for one perfect second I’m in laser-sharp focus, I’m the culmination of Ben’s drawn-out affection, I’m the fine point on it, and I close my