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Chapter Twenty-Five
Friends. Sure. I could do friends.
When I walked out my back door on Wednesday, Piper was walking towards my ute.
If that’s what she considered space, then this was going to be very difficult.
I was supposed to be letting her go, and there she was bouncing on her fucking feet like nothing had happened. I was glad she seemed excited to see me. For about two seconds. We paused where we stood for a moment, then I decided fuck this, I was getting in my car and going to school.
She cleared my throat. “Roman, I know I said–”
I winced. “Space, Barlow. I thought we were having space?”
“Yeah, I know, Roman. I said I needed space–”
“We needed space.”
“Roman… Please, just talk to me.”
“About what Piper?” I asked, flailing my arms wildly. “What could there possibly be left to talk about?”
“Everything? Anything–”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing is good.”
Uh-uh. No way. We didn’t do everything. We didn’t do anything. And we certainly weren’t going to touch nothing.
“Barlow, what do you want?”
“I want us to be friends.”
She fucking what now?
“Friends? Barlow… Fuck…” I huffed a rough and humourless laugh, and ran my tongue over my teeth. “Friends? Barlow, what makes you think we can do friends? Last I recall, we both realised we may as well have been accidentally dating and we needed space to work ourselves out.”
“Last I recall you had nothing to offer me. But I don’t believe you.”
“Piper, we’ve been through this. I will never be that guy.”
“I’m not asking you to be!” she yelled. “I’m not asking you to be anyone but you, and you’re my friend–”
“I’m the town degenerate that you happened to fuck. I wouldn’t equate that to friends.”
“Why are you making this so hard?”
I shrugged. “I’m not doing anything but being honest. You want the truth, Barlow? When I said I had nothing to give you, I meant anything. All right? I can’t be there for you the way you want me to be–”
“Why? Because we can’t keep our hands to ourselves?”
“No. Because I’m not that guy. I don’t do feelings and hand-holding bullshit. I drink. I smoke. I fight. I fuck. That’s what I know. That’s who I am.”
“Fine! I can live with that. I keep telling you, Roman. I don’t want you to be anyone other than who you are. You say I’m in your soul? Well, you’re in mine. You’re as much a part of me as Mum, Dad, Hadley, Celeste… Just like them, you’ve become woven into the very fabric of who I am, Roman, and I don’t know how to be Piper without you.”
“I’ll bet Carter loves that.”
“Mason can deal with it. I’m friends with Craig and Tucker. He really wants to be with me? Well, he’ll just have to accept you’re my friend too.”
