Oh God. I think I really messed up.
Jasmine’s words had landed between us like a dropped puck in an empty rink. It was soft at first, then echoing louder the longer the silence lasted.
“I…I think I messed up, Ry,” she whispered again. This time her eyes didn’t meet mine. She was staring at her own fingers, white-knuckled on the sticky edge of the arcade table. The half-smile she’d worn all day—the museum grin, the goofy arcade grin—was gone. It was all gone.
The arcade around us kept doing its thing: bells ringing, kids squealing at claw machines, coins clattering down metal shoots. But all of it faded into a weird muffled hum until it was just me, her, and that sentence.
Oh God. I think I really messed up. I…I think I messed up, Ry.
My stomach did a slow, icy slide. “Jas…” I kept m
