Page 111 of Secrets on Ice

She looks up, eyebrows raised. “So, rebound sex with my brother. Bold choice.”

I wince. “Cass, I’m so sorry. It was stupid. We were drunk. It won’t happen again.”

Cassidy takes a sip of her coffee, studying me for a long moment. Then she lets out a soft laugh, shaking her head. “Honestly, I’m more grossed out than mad. My brother? Really? But I get it. And if anyone was going to help you get over Kevin, I guess it makes sense it was Sully. He was always there for you when we were younger. I mean, it’s not the first time I’ve busted the two of you.”

She's talking about that moment when she and Trevor walked in on Sully declaring his feelings for me.

“It’s like we’re back in high school again.” She laughs.

Her words hit me like a punch. She’s right, it is high school all over again. I used Sully as an emotional crutch then, and I’m using him now. Every time Kevin hurt me, I ran to him. And now I’m doing it again. I swallow hard, tears pricking my eyes.

“Hey …” Cassidy says, looking at me with concern on her face. “It’s okay, you don’t need to cry,” she says as she quickly gets off her armchair and rushes over to me, pulling me into her arms. “I’m not mad, seriously. Will I have nightmares? Yes. But we’re good.” She squeezes me tightly. “I never thought you’d move on from that toxic relationship with Kevin. And I’m saying this as your bestie, you two were toxic when we were kids, and I was worried that you might not be able to break his toxic spell even though he is with someone else,” she confesses.

“Really?” I look up at her.

She wipes the tears from my eyes. “Kevin cheated on you all the time in high school, and here I thought it was just fucking Rachel Meyer who was the problem.” She scoffs.

“That would have made sense,” I mumble.

“Right?” She chuckles because we hated that girl, she made our lives hell in high school. She was the cheer captain, and she thought she ran that school. “You know she hooked up with Trevor too.”

I still. “What?”

“Yeah, I found out after we were married. He said something when he was drunk about Rachel being a slut and sleeping with everyone. He explained that when we were on a break, he hooked up with her. She caught him at a party one night when he was drinking because he was trying to get over me or some bullshit. And she was there to help him get over me.”

“No way. Why did you never tell me?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I knew she triggered you, and it was so long ago I just ignored it.”

“And to think those morons ended up cheating on us with each other, not Rachel Meyer. Now she would have made sense,” I say.

“Right? Fucking morons.” She chuckles.

“Do you ever wish you had made other choices in high school?” I ask her.

“Regarding Trevor?”

I nod. “Yeah, like I wish I had more confidence back then to leave Kevin.”

“Seeing where we are now, yes. My family hated Trevor, and even after all those years of marriage they still only tolerated him. Should have read the signs, but I wanted to prove everyone wrong. Maybe I wanted to prove myself wrong too.”

“We were dumbasses, weren’t we?”

Cassidy chuckles. “Yeah, we were, but that’s our karma for not reading the massive red flags the universe was giving us when we were younger.”

“Facts.” I smile. “I’ve been thinking back on my past, and I’ve realized that all the good times were because you were there.” Cassidy raises her brow. “All our holidays we went on. My happiest memories are of all the things we did together, not what Kevin and I did.”

“You’re right. This would have been so much easier if we were lesbians.” She laughs.

“Guess that’s why our husbands turned out gay then.”

“True.” She smiles. “This has been enlightening, hasn’t it? Like therapy.”

“It has.”

“Look, if you want to do whatever it is …” she shudders, “with my brother, then I’m okay with it. But please, I don’t want to know about it.”

I don’t know what to say to that.