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“No, Jude,youcome on. I see you. I see your twitchy hands and runny nose. You’re high in the home of parents who lost their son to drugs. You’re trying to talk to the person you promised forever to while your brain isn’t even your own. So no, Idon’tforgive you. I don’t forgive you for any broken promises or betrayal. We’re never going to be friends, and we’ll never be getting back together.”
I pressed the heels of my hands into my watery eyes. I shouldn’t have stayed once I knew he was here. I felt like I’d returned to the same emotional place I’d been in when he was driven away in the cop car.
“I don’t want this,” he said.
“Neither do I.”
He turned to me, exhaling a great breath. “Are you happy? I mean, in your life. Or…?”
I didn’t want to answer. He had no right to me, which only made me more sad. How could we have been so in love, and now neither of us even knew which city the other lived in?
But here we were, grieving our friend at his parents’ house, and it didn’t feel quite right to wallow in my anger—not on this day or in this place.
“I’m good. Busy, as always, but good.”
“Are you still in New York?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He rubbed the spot between his eyebrows, then slid his fingers through his gelled hair.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
My eyes flicked to his, leveling him with a sharp gaze. “I’d rather not talk about that.”
“It makes me sick thinking about you being with someone else. It makes me want to smash things. Tear down the world.”
Hearing Jude say that was dangerous for me. Knowing he still cared, three years later, made me want to lean into him and remember why I’d loved him in the first place.
“You shouldn’t feel that way,” I said, my voice firm, though I wasn’t sure if I was admonishing myself or Jude. Maybe both.
“I’m not happy, Stripes. I can’t write, my voice sounds like shit lately, the band is always at each other’s throats, I’m never in one place for more than a week…” His hand brushed mine again. “And I miss you. I miss you every day.”
My fingers dug into my legs. I didn’t want to hear these things. They affected me more than they should have.
“I’m going to bed.” I gathered my wine and glass and hauled myself up from the edge of the pool. “Goodnight, Jude.”
His head fell forward. “Goodnight, Tali.”
