How the fuck? What did I say that alluded to that?
“Don’t sound so terrified. I’m just asking. I mean, you’re pretty weird about him—whenever he’s brought up, you get squirmy, and you seem very against me being with him. So if you don’t likeme, there really is only—”
“Maybe I like you, then,” I interrupt.
She laughs. “Get real. We’ve been best friends for so long that if you truly did, and you’ve held out this long, you’d deserve a medal.”
“It’s not like that,” I whisper. “I just… we were close. Atticus and I.”
I don’t tell her in what way we were close, but it seems to placate her either way.
“Well, as his friend, you’d want him with someone nice, right? You know I’m nice. You should want him with someone you trust.”
She’s right. But unbeknownst to her,Iam that person.
“Alright,” is all I say, because I can’t very well admit my feelings to her.
Not when it’ll end in a full-blown jealousy match. And whether I blame her partially for what happened, and whether she gets him or not, sheismy best friend. I love her.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah? Have a good night.” And with that, Cassie hangs up.
I guess she became just as tired of this conversation as I was getting.
There’s nothing I can do now but show up and try to prevent the inevitable. Their happily ever after.
As I roll to my side, finally drifting off to sleep in the heat of my bedroom, I eye the shadow in my window.
It’s here more often than not, and I really should figure out which tree is making a human-shaped silhouette appear outside of my bedroom.
With that, I slip into a torturous, pleasurable dream.
A memory.
THE FRONT DOOR SLAMSshut, footsteps sounding against the kitchen floor until he enters the living room.
“Hello, sweetheart,” Atticus calls out, grinning at me where I sit on the couch.
“Hey, how was your midterm?” My hands sit clasped in my lap as I stare at him, my mind already conjuring up all of the ways he might touch me tonight.
“Easy, of course,” he answers, cocky as ever. “What are you doing, watching a blank TV?”
His eyes flicker between me and the dark screen.
“No… I was waiting for you,” I admit.
I also didn’t want to pick the show we’d watch when he arrived. What if I get it wrong? What if he hates it?
“Such a sweet boy,” he replies smoothly. “Waiting for me so beautifully.”
I flush down to my toes, dropping my gaze to my hands. “I’m not beautiful. I’m not a girl.”
“And men can’t be beautiful?” he pushes, suddenly appearing before me.
“I don’t know.” It comes out as a murmur, an embarrassed plea for him to drop this line of conversation.
“Well, I know. And I can tell you that you are most definitely beautiful. And sexy, and so very compelling. You believe me, don’t you? You trust me?” He’s forcing me to say it, to agree that I’m all of those outrageous things.
Atticus knows that I would never say I don’t trust him.
