The Night We Said Yes Read Online Free Page B

understand the sound better than any assortment of words. I lean back against the wall and close my eyes as I wait for my hands to stop shaking and the lump in my chest to dissipate. I can’t erase the memory of him glancing down, looking almost pained. I won’t cry. Not here, not now.
    “That good?”
    “Why is he here?” I whine, frustrated with him, myself, everything.
    “Did you ask him?”
    “Yeah. He’s going to UCF now. Like, he’s back. For good.”
    “Seriously?”
    “Seriously.” I open my eyes.
    “You’d think he would’ve let one of us know,” Meg answers, going back into her angry self. I know she’s thinking of me, but I know she’s also thinking of Jake, and the friendship he lost when Matt left. “I mean, coming to my brother’s party like this? What the hell? He had to have known we’d be here. It’s ridiculous, and it pisses me off that he thinks he can just worm his way back in.”
    “Right?” I continue where she left off, feeling myself getting heated up. “And what does he want, anyway? Him here, acting all shy? Does he want to be friends again or something? Because, no.”
    “Where is he now?”
    “He’s still outside,” I answer, joining her by the counter and leaning my head on her shoulder. “Why does this suck so much?”
    “Because he sucks,” she answers, and I laugh a little. I can always count on her to make me feel better. “And because he’s important to you,” she sighs.
    “Yeah, he was, like, a year ago,” I answer, shaking my head, but she eyes me and I stop.
    “When you and Nick broke up, how long did it take you to get over him?”
    “Like, a day.” Which isn’t exactly true, but close enough.
    “And after Matt?”
    I want to say a day, too, but that’s a lie. It took longer, much longer. And seeing him now—I guess the feelings never fully went away. So I don’t answer, but Meg is already eyeing me again.
    “Exactly,” she says. “It sucks that it hurts so much. But it hurts because he’s still important to you.”
    She’s right, of course, no matter how much I don’t want to admit it.
    “I guess,” I mumble. I stare across the room at the wall I was previously leaning against. I can’t meet her eyes, not yet, because despite myself, I know what I should do, but I’m not ready for it. I know that if I look at Meg, she’ll agree with my right and logical conclusion, despite oftentimes not being right or logical about her own life. For the moment, though, I just want to bask in the melancholy of the situation because it’s easier than dealing with it. I want the feeling to wash over my body and take me hostage.
    “You should go back out.”
    “Why?” I still won’t look at her.
    “As much as I hate the fact that he’s doing this to you—and as much as I want to kill him right now—you need answers. You spent half a year wondering what happened. This is your chance to find out. It’s why I left you outthere alone in the first place.”
    “Yeah, about that.” I sigh and shut my eyes. “And Jake?”
    “Oh, I’ve already texted him. There were a lot of expletives in his response.”
    I laugh, shaking my head. “I can imagine.”
    “Plus, despite Evan’s best efforts, this party kinda sucks.”
    I finally look at her. She’s turned to face me, leaning her right side on the counter. Her perfectly colored lips have a slight smirk, as if she’s daring me to go back out. It’s always a game with her, and right now I’m not sure whether to love or hate her for making me play.
    Especially because she’s reminding me of all the little dares Matt and I used to have, ones where we pushed each other to do something different or scary or necessary. How he dared me to submit an article to the school newspaper, despite my fear that it would be rejected. (I did; it wasn’t.) How I dared him to play a song he wrote for the rest of the band, despite his conviction that Jake would hate it. (He did; Jake didn’t.)
    As I hear the song