His obnoxiously self-assured grin. His infuriating confidence. That same confidence that eroded my self-esteem, whether I knew it or not. I should hate him for what he did.
I don’t.
I’m angry. Hurt. I feel his betrayal deep in my soul, scorched and burned the very pit of me. But the ember is still there. It lit up when I finally bought a new phone and had an array of messages from him. I blocked the number before I finished reading them, but I keep reopening the old ones.
I’m sorry.
I miss you.
Please let me fix this.
He can’t. And the worst part isn’t even the betrayal itself—it’s that he didn’t know it was me. That everything I do, everything I’ve built, my profession, was a joke to him, and he only acted like he cared after we started sleeping together.
I’m lonely. I didn’t feel this bad when my ex cheated on me. I didn’t feel this bad the day the investors pulled out, or when my father told me it was my fault.
Maybe he was right. Maybe I am a fraud.
Devon doesn’t think so. Neither does Easton.
But Easton’s my best friend, and Devon is his friend, and maybe they’re all just rallying around me, trying to keep me from falling apart, because that’s what friends do.
The door rattles open a few minutes later. I’m sprawled across the living room floor, staring at the ceiling. Easton walks in, still sweaty from the gym, takes one look at me, and heads straight for the kitchen. He comes back with two glasses of wine and sits down on the coffee table.
“You’re too heavy for that. It’s gonna break.”
He laughs. “I’ll buy a new one.”
I hate that phrase, and he knows it. I push myself up, the room tilting. “It’s the middle of the afternoon.”
“So?”
“You’re in the middle of your season. You shouldn’t be drinking alcohol.”
He ignores me and hands me a glass of the cold vinho verde I’d been saving for later. I take a sip. It’s perfect. Fruity and tart. Only slightly effervescent.
“Do you think my mom would have liked him?” I ask.
I don’t have to explain who I mean.
Easton shrugs. I half expect him to go off—like he did the night he flew home from an away game and found me on the kitchen floor, a mess of tears, and I told him what happened in Georgia. The plane crash, the drive through the storm, all of it. Watched him cycle through disbelief, then happiness for me, then barely contained fury.
But he doesn’t go off. He just says, “Yeah. She would have.”
“You’re supposed to say no. That she would have hated him. He’s all wrong for me.”
“Aside from his spectacularly stupid actions, which I’m pretty sure he feels bad about, he’s actually good for you. I didn’t see you two together, but I saw how you looked when you talked about him. She would have liked him because you do.”
“I hate him.” It sounds less convincing out loud than it did in my head.
“I hate that you’re going through this. That everyone in your life keeps taking massive dumps on you.”
“Gross.”
“It’s kinda what they do, though, right?”
“Is this your pep talk?”
“I didn’t realize we were doing pep talks. Okay, pep talk. I’m sorry for what you’re going through. You’ve had it tough. But things will get better. I promise. I know it will.”
