First Love, Lasting Friendship

There it was - the opening she wanted. A quiet place, a few minutes without Megan, Tyler, or the rest of the team orbiting Brian like he belonged to all of them. Charlotte had rehearsed what she planned to say while sitting in the bleachers: You’ve been acting strange. Or maybe: Do you ever think about what happens after graduation? She had not decided which question was more dangerous.

The crowd thinned near the far end of the lot. Brian’s friends headed toward a row of cars, calling goodbye. Charlotte slowed, hoping he would notice.

He did.

“Sidewalk?” he asked, nodding toward the path that curved past the school and toward the neighborhood.

She tried not to smile too quickly. “You have somewhere to be?”

“Not for another hour.”

“Then walk with me.”

“I was planning to.”

His answer was simple, but it settled warmly beneath her ribs.

They left the bright parking lot behind. Their shoes scraped over damp leaves, and the smell of wet asphalt gave way to cold grass and the faint sweetness of someone’s woodstove nearby. Brian swung his gym bag at his side. Charlotte kept his jacket closed at her throat, breathing in laundry soap and the clean, familiar scent of him.

“So,” Brian said. “You were very intense during the second half.”

“I was cheering.”

“You were yelling at the referee.”

“He missed three fouls.”

“You threatened to throw a pretzel.”

“It was a stale pretzel. No one wanted it.”

Brian laughed, and Charlotte watched his face instead of the sidewalk. The game had left a flush across his cheeks. He looked happy in the unguarded way he rarely did around other people, as if he had forgotten that anyone might be measuring him.

She wanted to keep him like that. Not possess him - not exactly. She wanted one piece of the evening that belonged only to them.

“You played well,” she said.

His smile softened. “You noticed?”

“I notice when you play well.”

“You also notice when I trip over my own feet.”

“That happens more often.”

“Still counts as noticing.”

They reached the narrow stretch where the sidewalk ran between the school fence and a line of overgrown bushes. The lamps were farther apart here. Their shadows appeared, disappeared, then appeared again.

Charlotte stopped.

Brian took another step before turning back. “What?”

“I wanted to ask you something.”

His teasing expression faded. “Okay.”

She rubbed her thumb over a loose thread on his sleeve. “Do you ever feel like everyone else already knows what they’re doing?”

Brian leaned against the fence. “With what?”

“Everything.”

“That narrows it down.”

“Brian.”

“I’m listening.”

The joking had gone out of his voice. That made it harder. Charlotte looked past him at the dark windows of the school. “Everyone keeps talking about next year. Colleges, applications, who’s leaving, who’s staying. You act like it doesn’t bother you.”

“It bothers me.”

“You never say that.”

“You never ask.”

“I’m asking now.”

Brian looked down at his shoes. A leaf skittered between them, caught by the wind. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

“The truth would be a start.”

He exhaled through his nose. “The truth is that I don’t know where I’ll be next year, and I hate when people ask because they expect me to have an answer.”

Charlotte’s hand fell from his sleeve. “You could have told me.”

“I’m telling you now.”

“Only because I asked.”

His eyes lifted to hers. “Would you have listened if I told you before?”

The question landed harder than she expected. “Yes.”

“You say that.”

“Because it’s true.”

Brian’s gaze moved over her face, searching. For one strange second, the noise from the parking lot seemed very far away. Charlotte became aware of how close they stood, how his jacket hung heavy around her shoulders, how easily she could reach for his hand.

“I don’t want you to go,” she said.

His expression changed - not dramatically, but enough. The corners of his mouth stopped trying to smile.

“I’m not going anywhere tonight.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.”

The words left a quiet space between them.

Charlotte’s pulse fluttered, and she hated that he could probably see it in her throat. They had been inseparable for years. He knew how she took her coffee, which songs she skipped, and that she cried whenever she was angry even if she denied it. He had slept on her family’s couch after late movie nights and let her steal fries from his plate without complaint.

But standing there in the cold, with his jacket around her and his eyes fixed on hers, friendship felt suddenly too small for everything she wanted to say.

Brian lifted his hand and brushed a damp strand of hair from her cheek. His fingers barely touched her skin.

Charlotte forgot how to breathe.

“Your hair,” he said, though neither of them believed that was all he meant.

She did not move away. “What about it?”

“It was in your face.”

“It’s still in my face.”

His hand stayed suspended between them. “Do you want me to move it again?”

The question was soft, careful. Charlotte nodded.

This time, his fingers lingered near her temple. Heat traveled through her despite the cold. She looked at his mouth, then hated herself for doing it because Brian noticed everything.

His eyes lowered too.

A car horn burst from the parking lot.

They both stepped apart.

“Brian!” someone yelled. “Your phone!”

A figure waved from beside the gym entrance. Brian’s phone screen glowed in his hand, bright against the dark. He frowned when he saw the number.

“Who is it?” Charlotte asked.

“I don’t know.”

The phone rang again. Brian answered. “Hello?”

Charlotte folded her arms inside his jacket. She could hear only his side of the conversation, each word clipped by the wind.

“Slow down.”

“No, I’m outside.”

“What happened?”

His face tightened.

Charlotte watched the warmth leave it. The moment they had been standing inside - fragile, unfinished - seemed to retreat behind a locked door.

“Where are you?” Brian asked.

He started toward the gym, then stopped and looked back at her. “I have to go.”

“Go where?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“That’s not an answer.”

He covered the receiver and lowered his voice. “It’s my brother. He needs me.”

Charlotte knew Brian’s older brother had been having trouble at home, though Brian never explained much. The knowledge should have made it easy to say, Go. Instead, disappointment rose sharp and immediate.

“Do you need me to come?”

“No.”

The answer came too quickly.

Brian seemed to hear it after he said it. His expression shifted. “I mean, you don’t have to.”

“That’s different.”

“I can handle it.”

“You always say that.”

“Because I can.”

“Then why do you look like you’re about to fall apart?”

His jaw tightened. “Charlotte, please.”

The plea stopped her. He almost never said please like that - not as a request, but as a door he needed her not to open.

The phone crackled in his hand. Brian turned away to listen, shoulders hunched against the cold. Charlotte stood beneath the weak lamp, wrapped in his jacket, feeling suddenly like an outsider in a life she had believed she was part of.

When he ended the call, he did not look at her.

“Brian.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For leaving.”

“You’re not leaving because you want to.”

“That doesn’t make it less awful.”

Charlotte swallowed. “You could tell me what’s happening.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

He flinched.

The question had been unfair, but she could not pull it back. She had wanted honesty, and now honesty seemed to mean discovering how much he kept from her.

Brian rubbed both hands over his face. “I don’t know how to let people help me.”

“I’m not people.”

“I know.”

“Then let me.”

He looked at her finally. His eyes were tired, and beneath the tiredness was something frightened. “If I let you in, you’ll see how bad things are.”

Charlotte’s anger loosened, leaving something more painful behind. “You think I’ll leave?”

“I think everyone leaves when things get hard.”

The words hung between them.

Charlotte stepped closer. “I’m not everyone.”

“I know that too.”

“Then believe me.”

Brian’s mouth trembled into a humorless smile. “You make it sound easy.”

“It isn’t easy. It’s just what friends do.”

He looked down at the jacket she wore. “You’re more than my friend.”

The world seemed to narrow to the space between them.

Charlotte’s fingers curled around the zipper. “What am I?”

Brian glanced toward the gym. Another car rolled out of the lot, tires hissing over wet pavement. The interruption was still waiting for him, pulling him away by the sleeve.

“I don’t know,” he said.

The answer hurt, though she had asked a question he had no reason to be ready for.

He reached for her hand. His palm was cold, but his fingers closed around hers with careful pressure. “I know I don’t want tonight to be the last time we talk like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like we’re the only two people here.”

Charlotte looked at their joined hands. “Then don’t make it the last.”

“I won’t.”

“You promise?”

Brian’s grip tightened. “I promise I’ll meet you here tomorrow. Same sidewalk. After school.”

“Even if your brother needs you?”

“Even then. I’ll call.”

She wanted to trust him. She wanted the promise to fill the hollow place the interruption had opened. Instead, it rested there, bright and thin, something that could be broken by a ringing phone or a truth he was not ready to share.

“Tomorrow,” she said.

“Tomorrow.”

Neither of them let go.

Brian stepped closer, his shoulder brushing hers. For a moment, Charlotte thought he might kiss her. The possibility moved through her like a spark. She could feel his breath near her cheek, could see the question in his eyes.

Then the phone rang again.

Brian closed his eyes.

Charlotte released his hand first.

He answered, turning away, and she stood beneath the lamp with his jacket around her shoulders and their promise unfinished between them. When he looked back, he mouthed, I’ll call.

Charlotte nodded, though she no longer knew whether she was agreeing to wait - or warning herself not to.

End of chapter one. 29 more chapters in the full book.