I caught them up on the call from my mother and her offer to push through my application as well as the fallout.
“You’re kidding!” Layla gasped.
“Unfortunately, no.” The medicine helped, but the combination of a hangover, the knock on the head and the on-and-off crying left me wrung out and my head aching.
“You’ve been busy,” Ember said after checking on her siblings, who thankfully hadn’t been disturbed by my arrival after their sitter left.
“You could say that.”
“Do you want to talk about Liam?” Layla asked gently.
At the mention of him, my heart twisted in my chest. “I’m not sure what there is to talk about.”
Ember handed me a cup of hot coffee. She knew me so well. “We assumed after Layla’s mom’s mixer that something was going on between you two.”
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it,” Layla added hastily after taking her own mug.
“It sounds like it happened so fast, because the physical aspect did, but we’ve been friends for so long it felt natural to move on to something more.”
“I always thought there was something between you two,” Ember said as she sat next to me on the loveseat.
“You did?” I asked.
“Duh,” Layla answered with a laugh. “You both fit together so well. The only reason we never said anything was because you didn’t seem ready to settle down. It would have been a disaster if you dated before you were ready.”
“You mean like now?” I stared down into my steaming cup.
“No,” Ember rushed to say. “Not at all. You never would have rushed into anything with Liam if you weren’t serious about it.”
Layla nodded. “No way you’d risk it unless you really care about him. You do care about him, don’t you?”
“I do. Much more than I ever thought possible.”
“So what happened? You both seemed fine last night.” Ember asked.
My whole body hurt remembering our argument, and not just the residual aches and pains from the accident. “I don’t know. I didn’t mean to blow up about it, really. I just woke up and saw the notification on his phone that he’d been accepted to all these schools. Schools as far away as California, apparently and he’d never said a word about it to me.”
Layla frowned. “He didn’t tell you where he was going?”
I shook my head and took a sip of coffee and nearly groaned. Ember understood my love for all things caffeine. Since she often took calls at all hours of the night, she knew the horror of settling for gas station slop and made it a point to make the good stuff whenever she could. “I hadn’t even thought of it because I was so focused on how good things were going. Maybe that’s why he waited. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a good thing this happened.”
“What are you going to do about volunteering?” Layla asked.
My eyes felt like they’d been filled with sand and then set on fire. I needed about a month of sleep. Maybe that would help the ache that had taken up residence in my heart. “I’m not sure. I’ve never been in this position before. Part of me gave up going for him, which was something I said I’d never do.” Before they could pipe up, I added, “And don’t you dare tell me never say never.”
“I think this is a good thing,” Ember declared.
“You do?” Layla and I said at the same time.
“Yes, I do. You’ve been so closed off for so long, there was bound to be someone who broke you out of your shell. Even better that it was Liam, who we already know is a good guy.”
“But he lied to her,” Layla said with a scowl.
“He’s probably just as confused as she is. Relationships are hard enough without being friends first.”
Layla and I both held our tongues. Ember and her boyfriend had been together for years, but things had been rocky since he started university in Miami. Long distance had been rough on them both.
I sighed. “I don’t know what to do.”
