Cook the Books

relief. I thought you two were...”
    “I guess that’s what I wanted you to think.” I was not about to confess that I had, in fact, made an idiotic play for Kyle and been rebuffed. “It’s just that after you left, well, I was pissed. Actually, I’m still pissed. This,” I said, waving a finger between us, “is the result of temporary insanity.”
    “Don’t say that. Please don’t say this is temporary.” Josh leaned down and kissed my stomach, and I let him work his way up to my lips.
    “Last August you were only thinking about yourself and what you wanted. You didn’t stop and think about what leaving would mean for me. You left me, Josh. Don’t forget that.” I might have been talking tough, but I felt anything but.
    “I left, yes, but I didn’t mean to leave you. I know that sounds stupid, but it’s true. And I wasn’t thinking about myself. Okay, not just about myself. I really thought you’d want to come with me. The couple I work for put me up in this great guesthouse, I looked up a program where you could have kept going to school, and I just... I don’t know. I thought after the year we’d had that maybe it would be good to get away for a while. To go somewhere where we could just relax and enjoy each other. But you just said no so quickly... I screwed up, Chloe. I really screwed up.”
    “It was escaping, Josh. That’s all it was. Going to Hawaii meant avoiding everything here instead of tackling problems head-on. How were things supposed to become normal if we ran off?”
    “Babe, what’s wrong with escaping once in a while?”
    It was true that Josh had had good reason to escape. Josh and I had been madly in love, so that part of my year had been great, but chaos had sullied much of our time together. Its principal source had been his work. As a chef, he’d worked hideously long hours in return for terrible pay and little appreciation. Most of all, he’d had all-around crummy bosses.
    “I didn’t know that you’d looked into schools for me,” I said. “But you wanted me to just up and leave my life here! Leave Ade, Owen, and Patrick...” I trailed off. Adrianna had pointed out to me that, as much as they loved me, they could certainly function without me. “I mean, I have responsibilities here. I have school. I have... I have responsibilities. Big responsibilities. Of all sorts!”
    Josh nodded. I could tell that he was trying not to smile. “I know. I didn’t mean for you to think that I don’t take your life seriously or that I don’t respect everything you have going on in Boston. You’ve worked really hard in school, and I’m proud of how much you’ve put into it. I was just hoping that you would’ve continued in Hawaii. You know, I found this great community center not too far from where I live. They have a program for underprivileged children, and I talked to the dean at the grad school nearby, and he said they’d consider letting students do internships there, and—”
    “You talked to the dean?” I sat up in bed, totally surprised.
    “Have you really not read any of my e-mails? Even the Facebook ones?”
    “Well, no. I deleted all the ones you sent at first, and then after that, I blocked your address.” I hung my head, slightly embarrassed. “I guess I forgot about Facebook.”
    “Go look. Right now.”
    I leaned off the bed, pulled my laptop onto my lap, and checked my inbox. Oh my God! There were twenty-six messages, all from Josh. I started at the beginning and skimmed over the screen as my vision became blurry with tears. There were long e-mails in which Josh poured his heart out, begging me to forgive him for leaving and insisting that he still loved me. I tapped through message after message as Josh stroked my back and rubbed his cheek against my arm. What if I had read these messages earlier? Would things have changed? No, I told myself. Last summer, I wasn’t ready to up and leave. And who knew if I would ever be ready. I had worked so hard to build an independent life for myself, and I wasn’t about to chuck it for some guy. But Josh wasn’t just any guy. I promised myself that I’d read Josh’s letters more thoroughly later, but there was a limit to how much I could absorb right now.
    “Seems like you made a lot of friends in Hawaii,” I said as I pulled up the gaggle of girls on the screen. “Lots of very sexy, scantily clad friends.”
    “That,” he said pointing to one of the girls, “is my friend Fritz’s fiancée,