“You should be in sales,” I replied, feeling safer with him beside me than I felt when he was out of the room, or just distant emotionally.
“So I’m told. I need to tell you something, but it’s uh… I dunno. Bad? Wrong? Good?”
I frowned at him, wondering what the hell could be confusing him so much about whatever he was about to drop on me.
“Will it hurt me?”
He reached for my hand, hesitated, and then followed through on it, holding my fingers gently.
“I hope not. It’s… we’re going to get rid of him,” he finally said, shaking his head at himself, because we both know he could have worded that better. I wanted to feel something about it. Relief? Fear? I had nothing. I felt cold inside.
“Kill him?”
He scratched his jaw, staring past me, all things that hinted at his evasiveness.
“I mean, eventually… yeah.”
“Eventually?”
He swallowed hard, his fingers tightening on mine, his other hand landing on top of them.
“He needs to suffer.”
He was right. He did need that.
“I need to be there.”
“What the fuck! No!”
I wrenched my fingers from his and glared at him, and it wasn’t shock or frustration he reflected back at me. It looked like relief, recognition. Something about my reaction pleased him, I think.
“You don’t get to decide this for me. Nobody gets to decide but me!”
He nodded slowly. “Are you sure it’s not going to traumatise you further?”
“To see him suffer like I did? To see him expire and be gone forever? God no. I think I need to see that happen, to believe he’s truly gone.”
He nodded again, looking resigned to my decision.
“Okay, but talk it over with Lissa first, yeah? Make sure she knows how to support you through it, because I’m next to useless. I want to help, but I just don’t seem to have whatever it is that calms you right now. Maybe that was never what I gave to you in exchange for your friendship.”
“You do. You don’t see it, but you do. And besides, what you gave me was laughter, and great food, and nights that I still think back on, and remember as being the best times of my life.”
He squeezed his eyes shut as the breath rushed out of him and his fingers tightened on mine.
“Fuck,” he breathed, swallowing hard, “I can’t…”
“Nate, you’ve always been the best thing in my life, I was just blinded by him and it was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.”
His breath was even more ragged, his fingers now vice-tight on mine.
“I’m not like him,” he breathed, lowering his head so I couldn’t see him, like he had to hide from me, from his words and their impact.
“I know that. I’m so sorry I said that before. I didn’t mean… I was just at my limit, and it was fear speaking, not me.”
“I’ll never hurt you.”
“I know. You couldn’t.”
