AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“So—hang on.” She tossed hers back, pounding the two fingers in two swallows. When she set it down, she must’ve seen my raised eyebrows, because she shrugged and said,“What?”
I just shook my head and motioned for her to continue.
“The first apology is for being a shitty friend.” Sophie glanced down at her phone, resting on the counter, before saying, “I should’ve asked you if you were okay when Lilibeth resurfaced in your life, or how it made you feel that she was engaged. A good friend would’ve wanted to know what it was like talking to her after all this time, but I was jealous and selfish and wasn’t there for you. I’m sorry.”
“That’s... okay,” I said, shocked by her apology.
That definitely wasn’t what I’d been expecting her to say.
“I want to circle back to this and discuss because I care,” she said, glancing down at her phone again. “But I’m kind of on a mission and need to keep going, if that’s okay.”
“Did I just see bullet points on your phone?” I swear to God it appeared she was looking at a PowerPoint.
She stared at me for a minute, squinting a little as if deciding whether or not she should come clean. “I might’ve made a quick presentation grid, just to be sure I didn’t forget anything.”
“Carry on,” I said, not feeling good about the possibilities ofthat, though it was absolutely on-brand for her.
“I also want to apologize for taking the wedding when you asked me not to. Just like my previous point, instead of respecting your feelings, I charged forward with what I wanted to do because ofmyfeelings.”
Her feelings. What the fuckwerethey?
“And that brings us to the topic of my feelings.” She glanced down at the phone again, but instead of continuing to use it as a reference, she raised it in front of her face and just started reading word for word.
Like she was regurgitating white paper information she’d read while having a lunch and learn.
“I don’t know how it happened, Max, but somehow, in spite of every attempt we made to avoid it, there are feelings between us. I cannot labelyourfeelings, but mine are—”
“Stop,” I interrupted, taking another sip and letting the whiskey burn down my throat. I couldn’t believe she was giving me a PowerPoint breakdown of her emotions.
She looked up, a crease between her eyebrows. “What?”
“I want you to tell me how you feel.”
“I wastrying,” she said defensively, with her eyebrows scrunched together, and her eyes returned to her phone. “Where was I? Oh—here.”
She cleared her throat. “I, um, I cannot labelyourfeelings, but mine are—”
“Dear God,stop,” I groaned, unable to take any more of this.
She sighed and lowered her phone, scowling at me. “Why do you keep doing that when I’m trying to tell you how I feel?”
“Because I don’t want the fucking presentation,” I said, suddenly angry, though not really sure about what. “I want you totalkto me, to give me the unedited version of what’s going on inside your head.”
“I can’t do that,” she said, disbelief in her voice as if I’d asked for something impossible. “Because I don’t even know or understand that. What I’ve come up with, instead, is a solid—”
“No.” I slammed my drink on the counter and took a step closer. “Tell me how youfeel.”
“How do I feel?” she said loudly, her eyes narrowed as she lookedup at me. “I feel like shit. I feel terrified. I feel like everything has changed and nothing’s going to work out and it’s all going to explode in my face. Is that what you want me to say?”
“If it’s how you feel,” I said, frustration boiling through me at her unwillingness to open herself up to me, “then fucking yes.”
“Oh, okay,” she said in irritation, her eyes flashing. “Well, if we’re doing this, then, I should tell you that I hate the way I want to talk to you and be with you all the time. I hate that you were the only person I wanted to call after my interview and oh, yeah—the thought of you and your ex made meliterallysick to my stomach. As in I puked out my car window when I heard you blew me off to see her.”
Her eyes were intense as she started going off. “My brain now associates the smell of lavender with you in the hotel shower, so that sucks, and I keep replaying mirror sex in my headall the timelike a porn addict and I think I want to get a dog with you and these are all nightmarish thoughts that will absolutely destroy me.”
“But—”
“No.” She pointed a finger at my chest, eyes blazing, and bit out through gritted teeth, “It will. I know this, that it is the death knell of my fucking heart, yet I cannot stop myself from wanting it all and I don’t want to want that, Max.”
