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My bedroom door opens, and I don't even look up from my computer—that is, until the voice I hear is not my boyfriend's.
"Couldn't even come to the door to greet me? Rude."
I whip my head up to find my best friend standing there, looking every bit like the comfort I've been craving for the last few months. It only takes me a second before my computer is damn near thrown off my lap, and I'm scrambling off my bed to get to her. I run into her arms with such force it knocks us into the hallway. She chuckles and hugs me just as tightly.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I ask in disbelief.
Becca shrugs and smiles brightly. "You didn't honestly expect me to miss your birthday, did you?"
My face drops instantly, and all I can do is stare back at her. Being as we're so connected, she starts to laugh and pinches the bridge of her nose.
"You forgot your own birthday."
"I've had a lot going on!" I argue.
Leveling me with a look, she follows me into my bedroom. "It's your twenty-first birthday, Paige. We've been talking about this for as long as I can remember!"
I throw myself onto my bed and shut my computer. Now that I have Becca here, it can definitely wait. I think I only have fifteen minutes left of work to do on it anyway.
"I know, but everything has been a total shitshow. I'm not even kidding."
She sits cross-legged on the desk chair across from me. "Yeah, I'm gathering that. I thought you were breaking up with Jace. I take it you didn't?"
I shake my head. "I didn't have to. He chose me."
"Chose you?"
"Yeah. I mean, it took a week to get him clean, but he did it. He's actually at a therapy appointment right now."
Putting a hand up, she stops me. "Wait. Drugs? Therapy? What the hell has happened since I left this place?"
I sigh as the weight of everything rests heavily on me. "I wish I knew the answer to that. I really do."
"He hasn't told you?" she asks.
"No," I reply. "He's not able to talk about it yet. From what Carter has told me, and what I've heard him talk about in his sleep when he's having a nightmare, it was pretty fucking traumatic, though."
She drops her head and looks down at her hands, fiddling with the sleeves of her hoodie. It's something she always does when she's trying to convince herself to keep her mouth shut. But what she should realize is that I can always see right through it.
"Spit it out," I tell her.
Her eyes roll. "No, because you're only going to get mad."
"I won't. I promise."
Taking a breath, she comes to sit next to me and rests her head on my shoulder. "I'm just worried about you. I don't want you to lose yourself trying to save him. And with everything you have going on right now, I'm just not sure if Jace London is a good idea for you right now."
I get her apprehensions. I do. Becca watched as I was head over heels for him, and he only looked at us as a good time, not a long time. Granted, he explained the other day how that wasn't the case, but for Becca, it was. And she saw how much it broke me when we left for college without him trying to define our relationship.
"I love you for worrying about me," I say honestly. "And I get it. But I also know how I feel when I'm around him, and how he feels about me. We're not just friends and fooling around this time. It's for real."
She sits up and looks at me like I've gone crazy. "He just started recovering from a drug addiction, Paige. Did you hear that? Drug. Addiction. I'm not sure he's even ready for anything real right now."
I shrug. "Maybe he is, maybe he's not. But I also know I'm not going to leave him if he's given me no reason to." My bottom lip juts out in a pout. "Just give him a chance. Please? I'll love you for it."
"You love me anyway."
"I'll love you more."
