Unfriended Read Free

Maxwell on call.
    Occasionally, the situation was really frustrating, because it meant that Nate could be called away at a moment’s notice. But it also meant that he sometimes had whole days free, which made me
very
happy. Ever since school had let out, Nate and I had been spending as much time together as possible. But even so, it still seemed like it was never enough. I was utterly smitten with my boyfriend.
    I scrolled through the Constellation updates on my phone until I came to Nate’s, and saw that he was still at the library. I touched the screen, zooming in onhis über-adorable profile picture, and felt myself smile involuntarily.
    “How’s Nate?” Ruth asked, and I glanced over at her, dropping my phone onto my towel in surprise. She gave me a knowing look, and I felt my cheeks get hot, realizing that I had probably been gazing dreamily down at my screen.
    “He’s good,” I said, and Ruth shook her head, smiling.
    “You two,” she said. “So cute.”
    “So?” Lisa asked, leaning forward. “Have you said it yet?”
    Schuyler frowned. “Said what?”
    “One-four-three,” Lisa said, raising an eyebrow at me. “Have you?”
    Ruth turned to me and Schuyler hoisted up the brim of her hat, their expressions expectant.
    One-four-three was Lisa’s code for “I love you,” derived from the number of letters in each word. We’d been using it a lot around six months ago, when Lisa became fixated on if Dave was going to say it to her, or if she should say it first, and what it would mean if she did, and what would happen if she said it and he didn’t say it back. Finally, she and Dave had exchanged one-four-threes. Lisa still claimed that Dave said it to her first, but we disputed this, as technically she’d said it first to him—just in French.
    I shook my head, wishing that Lisa hadn’t brought this up. One-four-three had been on my mind altogether too much lately. When I’d initially asked Lisa how she had known that she loved Dave, she had just shruggedwith one shoulder and told me that she just
knew
. At the time, I’d found it an entirely unsatisfactory answer, but now I finally understood what she meant.
    It had happened a little over a week ago. Nate and I had just had dinner at The Good Person of Szechuan, my favorite Chinese restaurant. As we were heading out to his truck, he walked around to the passenger side and held my door open for me, then closed it after I got in. And as I watched him get behind the wheel, buckle his seat belt, and look over and smile at me, I realized that I loved him. It was that simple. Like the fact had just marched into my brain, waving a tiny YOU LOVE NATE sign, and was now refusing to be ignored. It turned out that Lisa had been right—when you felt it, you
did
just know.
    “No,” I said, as I realized all my friends were still looking at me, waiting for an answer. “We haven’t said it.”
    “But do you?” Schuyler asked, batting her brim away.
    I could feel my face heat up as I looked down at the blue-and-white stripes of my towel. “Yes,” I muttered.
    Schuyler clapped her hands together excitedly. “I knew it,” she said, turning to Lisa. “Told you!”
    Lisa sighed, rummaged around in her purse, and tossed a five-dollar bill onto Schuyler’s towel. “
D’accord
,” she muttered.
    “Wait,” I said, staring down at the bill, “did you guys have a
wager
going?”
    “So why haven’t you said it yet?” Ruth interjected quickly, clearly trying to distract me. But it worked.
    I brushed the sand off my hands, then brushed that sand off the towel. “I don’t know,” I murmured. I looked around at my friends and realized that if I could talk to anyone about this, it was them. “It’s just … things are really great with us right now. And I don’t want to rock the boat.” I saw Schuyler flinch, as she had been doing recently whenever we mentioned anything vaguely nautical. “Sorry, Shy,” I said quickly. “I mean … I don’t want to