Underage

[30] It's Complicated

Underage

[30] it's Complicated

She loves him. I love him. Does he love her? Does he love me? Questions circle, spinning so quickly around my mind I can't keep up.

Grace loves Cooper. Grace is in love with Cooper. It's hard to wrap my mind around it. My best friend, who has kept all the boys before at a distance, has fallen in love with Cooper, of all people. Why him? Why now? Why, after all these summers and flings and boyfriends, does she decide now is a good time to fall in love? Is she even really in love?

I thought I was in love once. How wrong I was. Maybe she's confused. Maybe she doesn't know what she's feeling right now. Maybe... No, she's in love. She wouldn't have that look on her face if she wasn't.

She's staring off into space, her eyes wide as she absentmindedly takes bites out of her pizza. We've been through an entire box already, and are now working on our second. Neither of us is paying any attention to the movie playing, or the sounds of Grace's family downstairs.

It's a shock when my phone beeps twice. For the last hour, it's been Grace's phone. Cooper's been trying to get in touch with her non-stop. Ethan probably told him of the 911 and he's worried. But, now, he's moved on to trying to get a hold of me. Grace, who has now turned her phone off, reaches for mine.

"How is she?" Grace reads off the screen of my phone. "Why is he so nice to me? It would be so much easier to think of a reason to break up with him if he wasn't so nice and worried about me."

"Grace."

She holds her hand up to cut me off. I roll my eyes, but I don't say anything.

"I know. You don't want me to break up with Coop." I've never seen my best friend act like this before. It's a completely different side to her. The confident girl is nowhere to be seen. The fitness freak has eaten about an entire pizza by herself. The girl who never breaks up with a summer boyfriend before summer is over is trying her hardest to come up with a reason to dump Cooper.

Cooper is hands-down the nicest boy she's dated by far. It's why he's always been friends with Ethan. They level each other out. Where Ethan jumps at the first offer to break the law or get in trouble, Cooper makes him think twice about it. Cooper has always been there to question Ethan about whether he really wants to do something, like spray paint a train. But, if Ethan is insistent and still wants to do it despite what Cooper says about it, Cooper will go with him and make sure nothing goes wrong.

"Ethan told me to tell you at the beginning of the summer not to break his best friend's heart. Cooper really liked you before you even asked him out. If you tell him you love him, he'll probably say it back."

"Because he would feel obligated."

"No," I say. "Because that's how he feels. Cooper wouldn't say he loved you if he didn't. I think you're more afraid of having him say it back, than not at all. If you tell him that you love him and he doesn't say it back, then you can break up with him and have an actual reason, instead of just leaving him in the dust."

"I love him and hate him at the same time."

"I think that's generally how it works. Look at me and Ethan, for example."

Grace stops chewing mid-bite as she turns her head to look at me. Her mouth is open, giving me a perfect view of her chewed up food. Her eyes are searching my face, looking for something. "What did you just say?"

"What?" I ask her, not understanding.

"You love Ethan?"

Look at me and Ethan, for example.