62 A Secret

During the week-long break between semesters, Justin and Emily got to work on her cookie project. As she set up the materials she needed to make an obscene amount of cookie dough, he would ask her questions about what she wanted her website to look like. Emily honestly had no clue. She had zero experience with setting up websites.

"Why don't you make it like yours?" she asked, expertly cracking an egg with one hand.

Justin raised an eyebrow. "My website uses entirely neutral colors and is used for something completely different. I don't think that would work very well for what you're trying to do.

"Have you looked at any baking business websites? I only checked out a few but they're usually done in pastels with cutesy patterns like polkadots."

"Looks like you already know more than I do. Do whatever you want. I trust your expertise."

"Alright, but I'll need your input later on when I need to actually add information about the business and you're picking the fonts."

Emily could live with that. She knew a bit about different fonts.

They worked in silence for a while. The only sounds that could be heard were the clicks of the keyboard and the whirs of the hand mixer.

Once the dough was done she entreated Justin to help her cut out cookies because it would go faster with two people. He stopped typing immediately and hopped off the couch.

He let out a low whistle at the spread in front of him. "That is an insane amount of cookie cutters."

"I know," she let out a heavy sigh and put her hands on her hips as she surveyed the giant pile. "And we need one of each. As soon as you're done with one, put it in the sink so we don't accidentally use it again."

"What if a cookie breaks? Shouldn't we do two of each just to be safe? You don't have to decorate the extra ones," Justin suggested.

Her brow furrowed. "I'm not sure if we have enough dough for that."

"If we don't we can always make one more batch."

She didn't want to think about that right now. She needed to focus on the dough in front of her.

As she watched him work he seemed content. Relaxed. Happy, even. Was this because of those pictures she saw on Friendbook?

Justin and Alexa looked awfully close. Those were the kinds of poses girls did with their boyfriends. Had she accepted his confession?

Deciding to test the waters gently, Emily casually mentioned that she had seen the pictures and asked if he had fun at the graduation. Justin seemed confused.

"Are graduations meant to be fun? We all sat there on our phones, completely bored for most of it."

"We?"

"Remember the group of people we went to the movies with? Zack graduated too so a lot of us went to support them."

Once again, Emily's impression of Justin's social life changed. She knew that at least as of last semester that he was a hermit who hardly even talked to her despite sharing a car every day.

Had he changed his habits for Alexa's sake? The thought weighed on her heavily. He went out of his comfort zone for a girl who didn't give him the time of day.

"Did Alexa introduce you to them?"

He looked up at her as he finished cutting out a clover-shaped cookie. "Yeah. Zack was the president of a club that she dragged me to, which was how I met everybody else. Not sure what we're going to do leadership-wise now that he's gone."

She never would have imagined someone as reserved as him joining a club on campus. Alexa certainly had an effect on him.

"What club is it?"

"Indie game club. She insisted I needed more practice interacting with other humans and thought I'd get along with them. A few of the guys are in my major so we have a fair amount to talk about even though I haven't played all the games they have. I like it better than I thought I would."

Emily frowned, deep in thought. Maybe Alexa wasn't completely bad for him. She still didn't like the way the girl disregarded his affection.

"Does she…know you like her?"

He gave her a strange look. "No. Why on earth would I tell her that? I told you before, she'd hit me. Alexa doesn't like me. I know that for a fact."

Justin seemed 100% certain that she didn't like him. Why was that? Did she like someone else in the group of guys that surrounded her at the movie theater?

"Not to be rude…but if you know she doesn't like you, why bother?"

He continued cutting out cookies, not meeting her eyes. "Can you control your feelings?"

That reminded her of something RoboCat had said once about his love of many years, the girl who didn't know he existed. A dull ache settled in her heart.

"You sound like a friend of mine. He's been in love with the same girl since eighth grade and never said a word to her about it."

A cookie cutter fell out of Justin's hand and clattered on the floor. He hastily bent to pick it up and clean it.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I've told you about him before, my online best friend. The one that I don't really talk to anymore because he resents me for trying to meet him in real life," she said sadly.

Justin may have filled the best-friend-shaped hole in her life that RoboCat left but she still missed him. They had been together for so long and he threw her away in the blink of an eye.

"I don't think he resents you…" he said softly. "There are probably extenuating circumstances."

Emily let out a short, sharp laugh. "What kind of extenuating circumstances make someone drop you like a hot potato after telling each other everything for nearly six years? Six years! That's almost a third of my life. I guess it didn't mean anything to him after all but that friendship was my lifeline. It meant a lot to me."

Justin's face fell. He tapped his fingers on the flour-covered table before hesitantly speaking up.

"If your friend had a secret that made him stop talking to you…a secret that might make you mad if you knew…would you rather know it or not?"

She looked at him funny. "What kind of secret?"

"I don't know…what if he wasn't who you thought he was? Would you hate him for it?"