AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You go relaxand let me handle this,” Esme said, when I tried to sneak into the kitchen to see how the dinner progress was going. Inspired by my story, she’d decided to make spaghetti, but with her own sauce recipe and fresh meatballs, and I was trying not to stress.
Disgruntled, I went into the living room as she rolled up more meatballs and set them on a baking sheet.
I was just about to turn on the TV when a message came through on one of my social media pages.
Wyatt.
I probably shouldn’t read it, but that didn’t stop me from clicking on it.
I give it a week. She’ll get tired of you not satisfying her.
My face got so hot that I started sweating.
Oh fuck him.
I shouldn’t respond. I shouldn’t respond.
“What’s that?” Esme said from over my shoulder. I hadn’t noticed that she’d left the kitchen and was peering over my shoulder.
“Nothing,” I said, closing the message without deleting it.
I felt sick. There was no way I could eat anything now.
“Hey, are you okay? What was that?” she asked.
“Wyatt,” I said as tears started to slide down my cheeks. Fucking hell. Why couldn’t he just leave me alone?
Esme went to turn off the simmering sauce so it wouldn’t boil over and came to sit with me on the couch.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing.” I didn’t want her to know. It was too embarrassing.
“You can tell me. I’ve had awful exes too.” She rubbed my shoulder and looked at me with such open compassion that it made me want to cry harder.
“He’s just a terrible person and I loved him. What does that say about me?”I asked.
I didn’t mean to tell her that. I didn’t mean to tell anyone that.
“It doesn’t say anything. It’s not your fault. You’re not responsible for anything he does, and you don’t deserve anything he does,” she said.
Esme hugged me for a long time.
“Why are you so good to me?” I whispered.
“Because I think I’m falling in love with you,” she whispered back.
I sat back and stared at her. “Wait, are you serious?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I am.”
“Oh. Wow.” This was a lot to process.
“You don’t have to say anything right now,” she said. “I just wanted to share with you how I feel.”
Several moments of silence passed between us as we both tried to figure out where to go from here.
She was waiting for me to say something, but there was only one thing to say: the truth.
