Wariness replaces some of the anger, and I take my boots off before going to sit down on the couch next to him. “What’s going on?” I ask. “You’re being weird.”
“I have no fucking clue,” Blaze says. “Do you want to know how Pandora provoked me?”
No.
Not really.
I don’t think I’m going to like the answer to that question.
“Yeah,” I tell him anyway.
Blaze stares me in the eyes.
Normally, I can read him easily. He’s my best friend. We’ve been at each other’s side almost daily for the past eight years. I can’t remember ever going more than a few days without talking to him.
I should know immediately whether this is a good or bad conversation.
But he’s completely inscrutable to me right now.
“Okay?” I prompt. “What did she say?”
Blaze licks his lips. “She told me about your pledge secret.”
My heart drops into my stomach.
Rage and shame crash into me like a tidal wave, and I’m not sure which is stronger.
That was supposed to be a secret. No one was ever supposed to find out about it, let alone Blaze himself.
My jaw clenches, and my hands ball into fists at my sides.
“Guess that would be enough to provoke you, yeah,” I say, my voice strange even to my own ears. Distant. Cautious. Empty.
Why the fuck would Pandora have done that? I thought she was done punishing us, punishingme. She’d pushed Blaze and me apart once before. Why is she doing it again?
I don’t understand.
“You actually did that?” Blaze’s tone is still uncharacteristically even.
I can’t keep looking at him. I can’t meet his eyes.
I get up, starting to pace as agitation races through me.
And fear, visceral and soul-destroying, because this might be the very thing that finally drives Blaze away from me.
I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose him.
I guess I’m going to find out, and bile rises up in my throat.
“Yes,” I choke out. “Do you want me to leave?”
Blaze lets out this strange, garbled laugh. “I have no fucking clue, Asch.” He rests his jaw on his hand. “I watched your confession. Drugged me, huh? I didn’t even notice.”
I can’t look at him. I stare down at the floor instead as my steps carry me from one end of the room to the other, then back. “Yeah,” I repeat. “I’m… Fuck, sorry doesn’t even start to cover it, does it?”
Despair makes me regret every second of that decision.
It had been so fucking stupid, and I’m going to lose my best friend over it.
