Everything That Makes You by Moriah McStay Page A

feeling.
    â€œIt’s been two hours.”
    Fiona looked at the—even grayer, like burnt charcoal—sky. “Wow. I didn’t realize—”
    â€œWhat are you doing ?” he said, in a furious panic.
    She folded the Moleskine, resting it on her knees. “I was walking. And then writing.”
    â€œIt’s a thirty minute walk home—tops—from the coffee shop, Ona. It’s”—he looked at his watch—“six thirty.”
    â€œWait, doesn’t Gwen have a thing?”
    â€œYes, she does. You’ll notice I’m not there.”
    It was bad, she knew, to feel a little triumphant about this. “What, you thought I was abducted or something?” She pointed to the long row of large, turn-of-the-century houses lining the street. “We’re not exactly in a high-crime area.”
    He sat beside her and pulled at the weeds growing throughthe cracks in the wall. “Anything could have happened. I didn’t know.”
    Ryan looked tense and edgy, not yet recovered from his ridiculous—but sweet—panic. Fiona’s heart broke a little for him. For the moment, she forgot her problems and stepped out of her mood. She nudged his shoulder with her own. “You’re a mess. Talk to me.”
    He rested his hands in his lap and looked straight ahead, toward the house across the street. “I just get lost in your story sometimes.”
    â€œLost in my story?”
    He nodded. “Like . . . there’s this place you’re supposed to be, and it’s my job to get you there.”
    â€œWhere am I supposed to be?”
    He shrugged. “If I knew, I wouldn’t keep screwing it up.”
    â€œHow are you screwing it up?” she asked, thoroughly confused. It was like someone had sliced the pivotal chapters out of the “story” before she even got a chance to read it.
    Ryan’s eyes rested on the house across the street. “How am I not screwing it up? I push you to talk about things you don’t want to. I push David to ask out the girl of his dreams. I push you to do open mic night. I push you into a surgery you don’t want. I just push.”
    Fiona had never thought of it like this. Not at all. “I like that you’re in my story.”
    He shook his head and kept staring across the street. “I think about it a lot—if the accident never happened. Do you?”
    â€œSure sometimes, but it’s pointless. I’m not a poor-me kind of girl.” He looked at her then, one eyebrow raised. “Well, not usually,” she said, nudging his shoulder again and acting breezier about the whole thing than she felt. He looked so burdened. “I was little, Ryan. There’s no way to know what I’m missing, or who I’d be otherwise. Stuff happens every day that sets us in one direction or another.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œI don’t know. Stupid stuff.” She considered a minute then said, “You have this killer caffeine headache but somebody else gets the last Coke so you do awful on a final. Your class rank gets screwed. You don’t go to the right college, where Mr. Yeah Probably is waiting. So you meet Mr. Well Maybe, instead. He talks you into switching majors so you get a job that doesn’t really do it for you but it takes you out of the country all the time and you—”
    He cut her off. “Your comparing caffeine withdrawal to a face covered in scars?”
    â€œHalf-covered.” She followed Ryan’s gaze back to the house across the street. Light blazed from all the bottom floor windows. Flickering blues of a television created the only light on top. “Anyway, plenty of everyday things can make just as much impact. Remember how you tried lacrosse in fourth grade? What if you’d stuck with that? You could potentially be someone else completely.”
    Ryan shrugged.
    â€œIf we tried to analyze how every little thing