Page 38 of Chasin’s Surrender

“I hate them but I hate myself more,” I whispered.

“What?”

“You’re right. I allow it—all of it. I let them infest my life. I’m so weak, I can’t fight it. They fuck me over every chance they get. And every damn time, I’m thirteen years old again listening to my mother screaming at me that I ruined her life. That it was my fault my dad drank because he couldn’t stand me. It was my fault Gramps cut them off. I hate them. But I do it to myself.”

“There’s nothing weak about you. That’s bullshit. Wishing you had good, decent parents isn’t a weakness. And the emotional scars that bitch saddled you with isn’t a weakness. Look at yourself. Look at all you’ve achieved. You did it, all on your own. No help. No handouts. You. All. You. Fuck her. Seriously, Viv, fuck her. She’s a liar. A piece of garbage who’s been jealous of you your whole life. You represent everything she never was, everything she couldn’t be, she’s blinded by your beauty. Your mother looks in the mirror and hates what she sees. She’s the weak one. So fucking weak she made you pay for all her many flaws. She blames you because she’s a pathetic excuse for a human.”

Needless to say, I missed my friend, really missed her. Bobby had always been the one person in my life who didn’t hold back—until I froze her out. Then she had no choice but to keep her peace. She didn’t hide her feelings. She didn’t tiptoe around anything. She said what she felt, and meant what she said.

“I miss you. How do I fix what I broke between us?”

Bobby’s hand spasmed in mine and I heard her inhale, then I watched the tears start to pool. “Think you just fixed us. And, Viv? I missed you, too, a lot. More than I can say.”

For a moment we both sat in silence, tears streaming down our cheeks, but neither of us moved to wipe them away. Inexpressible relief washed through me, and at that moment staring at my best friend, a weight lifted. A big, heavy weight I’d chained around my neck and drug everywhere where I went.

No more.

I wanted it gone.

No, I needed it gone.

I had one life to live and I wasn’t doing it with an elephant sitting on my chest any longer.

“So, Chasin?” she asked. “How’d that happen?”

I smiled, Bobby chuckled, and it was safe to say I was seriously happy to have Bobby back. Not just because she was my BFF and I hated that I put distance between us and hurt her. But also because she said what she felt, and meant what she said, and that went beyond her laying me out about my parents. Beyond her sound business advice.

She was a human asshole-detector, which worked well for me because I was an asshole magnet. I hadn’t spent time with very many men, but the ones I had, she warned me straight away which ones were the normal garden variety assholes and which ones wanted to take me for a ride, which would include bleeding me dry both emotionally and financially. She’d never been wrong.

It was like she had a sixth sense. I, on the other hand, was born with the opposite.

“I was on the pier moving Uncle Clifford’s Adirondack chairs and I lost my balance and fell into the river. Chasin was paddling by, saw me fall in, and came over to help,” I told her.

“Right. I could totally see how that could lead to five orgasms, in one go.” Bobby laughed.

“Well, he did save my life and all, so I invited him in.”

“Riiight.” She drew out the word three beats before she continued. “Because you weren’t on the high school swim team or anything, so you would’ve totally died had he not stopped to help.”

I had my Bobby back.

Thank God.

Her sassy sarcasm couldn’t be missed, then she added an eye roll and a crooked smile. I couldn’t help it, I shrugged my shoulders, smiled back, and burst into a fit of laughter.

I needed some serious advice. Chasin had made it clear he’d found a pair of bolt cutters and was prepared to use them to cut through my emotional padlocks. But I had Bobby back and it felt damn good to laugh. So I let myself have it, a moment of giggling with my best friend.

“Okay, spill. Start to finish. I want all the details,” Bobby demanded.

So that’s what I did—I spilled.

From start to finish and everything between, I told Bobby all about Chasin. I opened up and told her how he had no idea who I was at first—which made her eyeballs comically bug out. I told her about inviting him in, me being, well, just me. Not Vivi Rush but the real Genevieve. I told her we laughed a lot, we had great sex—though I didn’t get into the details of what made it so great. Then I told her Chasin and I laughed some more, we cuddled on the couch watching bad reality TV—something that Chasin had never watched.

I told her how in a weekend I’d fallen totally in love with a man I barely knew. Then I told her about the ill-timed phone call, Chasin overhearing and reacting like a supreme dick, watching him walking away, allowing him to go without defending myself, and finally freezing him out.

And Chasin’s mission to defrost me.

When I was done, Bobby’s eyes were still big but she was smiling.