You Win

“I’m dying.”

I stopped what I was doing at the sound of Maggie’s voice, coming from the front hallway.

“I’m dying and you couldn’t even bother to unlock the door for me?” She came into the kitchen, where I was trying to find the perfect milk-to-chocolate-syrup ratio. “Ooh! Can you make me some?”

I noticed that she scratched her forearm with a vengeance.

“Dying girls should not have chocolate,” I said, getting a spoon from the drawer and stirring my chocolate milk.

“But it’s mostly milk,” she reasoned, still scratching. “And milk is good for you.”

I rolled my eyes and got out another glass for my dying best friend. She stayed silent while I made our chocolate milks. When I was done, I went over to the kitchen table and sat down across from Maggie, handing her one of the glasses. Once I was in the chair, it almost seemed like we were in some kind of business meeting.

“We have much to discuss,” Maggie said, straightening her spine and folding her hands together. I did the same.

“The first order of business would be,” I said in a formal tone, “why you have been absent for the past two days. Is there a logical explanation for such thoughtlessness?”

Maggie took a large drink of her chocolate milk. It left her with a milk mustache tainted brown, and it made her burp so loud I thought one of my eardrums might have burst.

“I already told you,” she said, daintily wiping her mouth with a napkin, suddenly remembering those manners. “I was grounded.”

“I realize this,” I said, taking a sip of my own chocolate milk. “But you never told me why.”

I had called Maggie when I left Tulip’s house, but she hadn’t answered. So I called her twenty more times, and finally her mom answered and told me Maggie was grounded. This didn’t satisfy me, so I called again at one in the morning, and Maggie answered on the first ring. But her mom caught us before I could say much more than, “The newspaper thing worked! Luke came over and—”

And that was it. After two days of keeping it inside me, I was ready to burst. I didn’t really have anyone else to tell. Carter? Yeah right. My mom, Tulip, Tulip’s mom… none of them really fit the bill.

So Maggie finally called me earlier that morning—two whole days after Luke had come over!—and she decided that she didn’t want to hear it over the phone. Apparently, it was too “big”. I personally thought a long phone call would do the job. Maggie disagreed.

Before we had hung up, she informed me that she was dying. Her reasoning for this was that her skin had suddenly started itching all over the place, and she couldn’t stop scratching it. I thought she was just paranoid.

“It’s not even a big deal,” Maggie said, dismissing her grounding with a wave of her hand. “My mom decided she was going to be a parent for once in her life, and she thought grounding me would be the best way to do that. Actually, my mom thinks grounding me is the only way to be a parent. But whatever.” She shook her head and pointed directly at me, a grin spreading across her face. “Tell me about Luke.”

I felt myself smile, and I looked down at my milk. “Well…”

I was about to go into full-on gush-mode, when Carter walked into the kitchen, keys jangling from his hand.

“Hey,” he said to me, looking distracted.

Maggie didn’t even look at him. I found this odd, because she would usually always tease him, at least a little. But she didn’t even acknowledge him.

“Hey,” I said. “Where are you going?”

He opened the fridge and peered inside. “Katie’s place,” he said into the refrigerator.

Maggie made a face but stayed quiet.

“I’ll be back whenever,” Carter said, closing the fridge with no food and exiting the kitchen quickly.

As soon as we heard the front door slam shut, Maggie opened her mouth to speak. “Your brother is an asshole.”

I looked at her incredulously. “Why?” I asked. “I mean, I know he’s an asshole—but what did he do now?”

She groaned. “Nevermind.”

“Maggie—”

“Tell me about Luke!”

“You have to tell me what’s going on first, becaus—”

“Caroline,” she said, cutting me off. “Tell me about Luke. Everything. Every last detail. You know you want to.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. I really wanted to spill my guts out to her, and she knew that. “Okay, I’ll tell you about Luke. But you have to tell me why you suddenly hate Carter so much. Promise?”

She looked up at the ceiling, praying for patience. “Fine.”

“Pinky promise?”

She looked at me like I was the scum of the Earth, but reached across the table, pinky out. “Pinky promise.”

I smiled. “Okay…” I took a deep breath. “Luke came over on Monday. By then I was kind of freaking out because, you know, it had been a full twenty-four hours.” I told her absolutely everything. How delicious he had looked. How glad I’d been to see him. What I had said. What he had said. But then I got to the part that I didn’t like. The part I would rather not re-tell.

“So…?” Maggie pressed. “What happened then?” She paused, cocking her head to the side and examining me. “If he forgave you, then why do you look so sad?”

“He wants to be friends.”

It should have been a good thing! Luke wanted to be friends with me. He didn’t hate my guts. But this was almost worse than him hating me. He was right there, and I couldn’t have him.

“Friends. Nothing more,” I said to Maggie.

“So he didn’t kiss you?” She looked outraged. “Are you kidding me?”

“I’m sorry you’re so disappointed.”

She frowned. “He’s an idiot, obviously.”

I laughed, but it came out small.

Maggie crossed her arms. “I’m serious. Luke is blind.”

I sipped my chocolate milk to distract me from the lump in my throat. How could I have expected him to like me like that? It was so stupid! Of course he didn’t think of me like that. How could I have expected him to? Luke was Carter’s friend. He was my brother’s best friend, and that was it.

“Do you want to go mini-golfing or something?” Maggie asked. Her voice was concerned. “We could get our nails and hair done and be total girly-girls.”

I shook my head. “I’m okay.”

She gave me a look. “I know you’re not.”

I waved her off. “I’ll be fine as long as he stays single.”

It was meant to be a joke, but I realized how true it was. School was starting soon and there would be girls swarming around Luke like flies to a pile of poop.

“I can make sure of that,” she said with a cheeky smile.

“Maggie…” I warned, but was secretly pleased by her implication. She waved it off, so I decided to change the subject. “Now that I told you about Luke, you have to tell me why you hate Carter so much.”

She shrugged. “There’s nothing to tell. He’s just an asshole.”

“You have to have a reason.”

“Nope,” she said, popping the “p” and looking at me innocently. “Can’t a girl hate anyone without being questioned anymore?”

I narrowed my eyes at her but let it go. “Tulip Leevy’s having a bonfire before school starts up again. You should come.”

“Tulip Leevy?” Maggie asked, skeptical. She wasn’t one of the kids at school who made fun of Tulip, but she wasn’t exactly her friend either. She was somewhere in the middle. Hesitant.

“Yeah. Come on, it’ll be fun.”

I had always secretly wished Maggie and Tulip would become the best of friends and we could have our own little triangle of fun and frolicking through fields of flowers, or whatever normal girls do together.

“Fine, I’ll go,” she said, like she was doing me some huge favor. She was just being difficult because she could. “But on one condition.”

I raised an eyebrow expectantly.

“You have to bring Luke, too.”

“Maggie,” I huffed, giving her a not-so-nice look. “Stop. Don’t push it.”

She held up her hands like she was innocent. “You don’t have to,” she said. “But if you don’t, then I’m not coming.”

“No.”

I was putting my foot down. I didn’t want Maggie interfering with me and Luke anymore. I just didn’t want her there.

“Then I’m not going.” She scratched her forearm.

“Then you’re not going,” I concluded. If Maggie was going to be difficult, then I was going to be difficult too. She would just have to miss out on awesome bonfire fun because of her stubbornness.

She stared me down, but after a few seconds the moment passed and we were back to normal—talking about how much we weren’t looking forward to school and all the things we would rather do than sit through one of Mr. Reed’s lectures. It was amazing how we always reverted back to that baseline of friendship in the end. No matter what.