But I couldn’t hold it in any longer. The truth I was concealing was driving her away.
It was time I stopped messing around and stepped up.
“Oh, hello, Levi,” Mr. Dietz greeted me at the door, and he did not look very happy to see me.
“Hi, Mr. Dietz. Can I speak to Macallan, please?” I almost didn’t recognize my own voice, there was so much pleading in it.
He sighed, but opened the door. “She’s out back.”
I went through the house and saw Adam, who looked at me stone-faced. I’ve never seen him look so serious. That was when I knew I was in big trouble. I went to the door to the deck, where Macallan was sitting on the steps that led to the yard. My heart almost broke when I saw there were crumpled-up tissues at her side. I slid open the glass door, and her dad stopped me from closing it.
“Levi’s here,” he announced. She turned around and her eyes were red. “You going to be okay, Calley?”
I’d never heard her dad call her anything but Macallan. This was worse than I’d thought.
She gave him a tiny nod.
Then I heard Adam’s voice. “I’m going to be standing right here if you need anything. Anything at all.” He nodded sternly at me, like he wouldn’t hesitate for a second to take me down.
Adam’s loyalty was a stark contrast to how I’d been behaving. I’d never been so ashamed of myself.
“Hey,” I said as I gently maneuvered myself next to her on the step. “I know I’ve been saying this a lot lately, Macallan, but I’m sorry. I was being a grade-A jerk. I was confused about a lot of things and was trying to fit in. But I realize that none of it matters, none of it matters to me. I mean, except you.”
I’d never had to declare my love to anybody before. But I was pretty confident I was doing a horrible job.
“I got so mad, because, I think, I mean, I know now that, well, I have feelings. I mean, you know, not just feelings, but I … Let me start over.”
“You made a promise to me, Levi. You promised you’d be there for me. But you haven’t been. And I never, never saw you as my ‘whipping boy’ at my ‘beck and call.’ ”
Those words, the words I used just hours earlier, stung. I could only imagine how much they’d hurt her.
She continued while tightly holding on to a tissue. “I didn’t realize what a burden it was for you to hang out with me.”
“No,” I said forcefully. I couldn’t believe she would have ever thought that, no matter what I said. But I had been ignoring her. So I guess I could see why she thought that.
She disregarded my comment. “It’s great that you’ve got your own friends. It would be selfish of me to keep you from them. That was never my intention.”
“No, that’s not it. I’m horrified that you would ever think that.” I took her hand in mine. “I’ve been a complete idiot. And I know why I’ve been so confused. I guess I have problems expressing myself and, um …”
She wouldn’t even look at me. I cautiously took my other hand and gently maneuvered her head so she looked at me. Her eyes were filled with tears.
“Macallan, I, I love you.” It was as if those words lifted a ton of weight off my back.
“I love you, too. You’re my best friend.” She gave me a weak smile.
I didn’t think my love and her love were the same.
“No, Macallan.” I brushed her face lightly with my thumb. “That’s not what I mean.”
I pulled her closer to me and leaned in. We were only inches apart. My body tingled with the anticipation of another kiss. One that didn’t have to end so abruptly.
Macallan’s eyes widened when she realized what I was about to do. She jumped to her feet. “I’m going to Ireland,” she blurted out, her voice a lot louder and higher than normal.
“You’re what? When?”
“I’m going to Ireland to spend the summer with my mom’s family. I’m leaving in a week.” She said it in such a dead tone, I almost didn’t believe her.
“Macallan, please.” I had a feeling I was responsible for this last-minute escape route. “When did you decide this?”
“Just … recently.” She was a horrible liar. “You know they’ve asked me every summer.”
“So why now?”
“Why not?”
WHY NOT? WHY NOT? I wanted to scream. BECAUSE I JUST CONFESSED MY LOVE TO YOU, THAT’S WHY NOT!
She took a step back. “Look, Levi, I know things have been … different. And now you have your summer to hang out with your friends and we can pick things up again when I get back.”
“Pick up what exactly?” I was testing her. Was she going to acknowledge that I wasn’t telling her I loved her only as a friend?
She looked lost. “This! Our friendship.” That word stung. “Clearly we need some time away from each other. You need some time with the guys, I need some time with my family. We need to figure out how to make this work. I don’t want to get in your way. So I’m giving you the freedom you so desperately want.”
“Macallan,” I pleaded. I went to grab her hand and she backed farther away.
“It’ll be fine,” she tried to assure me. But I wasn’t sold. “I’ve been thinking it was time for me to visit. Really, I’d been thinking about going this year for a while. You can ask Danielle.”
Now I cursed myself for never answering my stupid phone. Maybe one of those times she was going to ask my opinion. If only I had answered.
She tried to pretend everything was normal. “It’s not that big of a deal. We’ll email and chat while I’m gone, and if you’re lucky, I might bring you back a leprechaun.”
I didn’t know if I should feel relieved that she was making a joke like normal, or if I should be devastated that she certainly wasn’t going to confess any un-friendlike feelings toward me.
We were at a standstill. I knew I had two options at that point. I could confess my love to her again and make her realize we could be more than friends. Or I could swallow my pride and keep whatever was left of our friendship intact.
“A leprechaun, huh? I bet it would probably fit in the overhead compartment.”
I hated myself for it, but I didn’t want to push her any further away.
Who knew how far she was willing to go to avoid me?
Ireland was far enough.
Just so we’re remembering this correctly: When you kissed me, I went home and splashed cold water on my face. When I tried to kiss you, you ran away to Ireland for the summer.
Perhaps not the best timing on my part.
Understatement of the millennium.
I had a lot of time to think about what I was running away from. I had the two-hour drive with Dad and Uncle Adam to O’Hare Airport. I had the connection in Boston. I had the long flight to Shannon Airport. And then the drive with Gran and Gramps to Dingle.
At one point I stopped thinking about what time it was back home. I only concentrated about what was waiting for me in Ireland.
Which wasn’t much of anything.
I loved seeing my grandparents, but the town of Dingle was tiny. I’d only visited my grandparents once, years ago. Mom and I had visited two summers before. We went when they still lived and worked in Limerick. Then they decided to retire and move to this quiet fishing village.
Gran got a part-time job at the tourist center while Gramps worked on a book tracing the origins of famous Irish folk songs. Gran said that was his typical Irish excuse to go to pubs at night and listen to music. I always laughed when Gran made fun of Gramps’s Irish ways, because she sounded more and more like an Irish-born person with each year.
One of my favorite things about my grandparents was their story. They’d met their first week at college in Madison. Gramps said he fell in love with her when he spotted her across the quad during orientation. He was too shy to talk to her that day. He beat himself up over it all weekend. Then he walked into his first class the following Monday and saw her sitting next to the only other empty seat in class. He went right up to her and told her he thought she was the most beautiful human being on earth. And then the teacher started class. Gramps said he could hardly breathe for the rest of the class, especially when he realized he was in the wrong classroom. But instead of excusing himself, he waited until it was done. He thought Gran was taking diligent notes, but instead she was writing him a letter since she had noticed him as well. The letter was read at their wedding, after graduation.