The Twelve Dates of Christmas by Catherine Hapka Page A

night, too.” He gulped, his face turning red. “I think she, you know, likes me. And—and you and I . . . well, I feel like we haven’t really been communicating lately. Like you’re not that into, you know,
us
anymore.”
    â€œOh.” I forced myself to stop there. I didn’t want to throw him off.
    â€œSo anyway, I was thinking.” He paused and took another deep breath. “What do you think if we, you know, take a break for a while. See other people? I—I think that might be for the best, you know? What do you think?”
    He gazed at me with those earnest, puppy-dog eyes of his, and I almost lost it. Yes, he was kind of digging Jaylene right now. And no wonder. She was fun-loving and interested and available. All the things I
hadn’t
been lately.
    But I knew Cam well enough to tell that he believed that maybe this was what I wanted, and that he wanted to save me from having to do it. I also suspected that all it would take was for me to tell him that it
wasn’t
what I wanted, and Jaylene would be out of the picture just like that.
    But I didn’t say it. I couldn’t let myself. If I backed down now, all the hard, painful work I’d done would be for nothing. And nothing would have changed. The facts would still be what they were. I couldn’t let my emotions overcome logic.
    â€œYou may be right, Cam,” I said softly, not quite daring to meet his eye. “Things haven’t been the same between us lately.And I understand. I really do. We can still be friends, right?”
    â€œOf course!” His hand twitched, as if he’d started to reach out to me and then caught himself. I pretended not to notice.
    â€œGreat.” I made my smile as sincere as possible. “That’s the important part anyway, right? So consider us officially friends from now on, okay? And as a friend, I hope you and Jaylene will be really happy together. Really.”

After Cam left I had that same sort of breathless, almost out-of-body feeling I always got whenever I aced a big test or won an academic award. Cam always jokingly called it the “rush of success.”
    This time, though, it was undercut with a feeling of sadness. Even more than I’d expected, actually. It had been a good four years—
really
good—and it was hard to believe it was over. But I tried not to dwell on that. Instead, I focused on the positive. That rush. I’d done it, against all odds! Now I could relax and look forward to the future without the constant, nagging worry over what would become of us next year. I could stop worrying abouthurting Cam and know that he was going to be okay.
    Allie let out a wail when I called and told her. “I can’t believe he did it!” she cried. “I never thought this would actually happen. I mean, I know you said it was going to happen, and so I believe it because you’re usually right about stuff. But still, I never thought it would actually happen!”
    â€œI know. You’re a hopeless romantic,” I said. “But this is all for the best. You’ll see.”
    â€œHmm.” She didn’t sound convinced. “So what now?”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œAre you going to start dating right away?”
    I hadn’t really thought about that. “I guess there’s no reason to wait,” I said. “I mean, Cam already has someone. Knowing him, he’ll probably feel all guilty and weird if he thinks I might be lonely without him.” I nodded, switching the phone to my other hand. “You know, you’re right, Allie. That’s very logical of you! I definitely should start dating other people right away.”
    â€œThat’s not what I meant,” she protested. Then she sighed. “Okay. But don’tforget about the Rebound Guy Theory.”
    â€œRemind me on that one?”
    â€œYour rebound guy should be someone as different as possible from your