AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh? What would you call it?”
“Fed up with your bullshit to be honest.”
“Excuse me?”
“I never did understand your issue with me. It was like you hated me so much, and I never understood why. So finally, I just stopped trying.” He shrugs. “You didn’t try either, so I figured that was that. Only in the last year or so have you started coming around, and my guess is that has to do with Charlotte. I saw a change in you. She made you happy. You should have seen your face that first time we went to that bar all those months ago. I knewthen. I knew there was someone.”
“I didn’t hate you, Drew,” I murmur as I lean on the counter, putting my head in my hands. “I envied you.”
“Envied me?” I look up and he’s equal parts confused and horrified. “Why would you envy me? You have a badass house, and a job that you love, helping people. You have a woman that loves you.”
“I don’t have those things anymore.”
“You have them, they’re just on hiatus. But what could you have to be jealous of?”
“All those years ago, I mean. I envied you because you had the one thing I didn’t have. The one thing I’ll never have.”
“What is that? A big dick?” He smiles.
I raise an eyebrow at him and shake my head. “No. Mom and Dad’s approval.”
“Mom and Dad? Like…ourmom and dad?”
What the fuck? God, he really is clueless.“Yes, who the fuck do you think?”
He drops onto one of my stools that line my marble bar. He doesn’t say anything for a second and his face is one of pure realization as if all it took was my words for him to see things in a new light. “Will…”
“You are Mom and Dad’s favorite. The favorite Montgomery child.” I rest my arms on the counter, as I stare into similar eyes. “You were right, I did push you away. I hated you when we were kids. You always got your way, they always tookyourside. You were the model child, the first born, I was the second born that never lived up to you. I lived in your shadows for…my whole life.”
“That’s not true. Mom and Dad were thrilled when you became a doctor.”
“What parent wouldn’t? It took years and three degrees, one of which they didn’t even see me receive, for them to recognize me. Do you know what that does to a person? Do you know what that kind of rejection did tome?It’s why I can’t handle Charlotte walking out right now. It feels like everyone else that’s left me, because I wasn’t perfect.”
“Charlotte didn’t leave you because you aren’t perfect, Will. She left you because you need help. She left you because she chose your child over you…and herself. And I wouldn’t necessarily call itleavingyou.”
“What would you call it?” I clench my fists.She left me, stop fucking sugar coating it.
“Space.”
“Well, that’s not what I want!” My voice booms through my kitchen, reverberating off the walls.
“What about what youneed?”
I’m about to speak when I hear my front door opening again and my ears perk up immediately. “Charley?”
8:00 pm
“I should call him.” I set down the sausage pizza I suddenly craved and look up at Lauren.
“And say what?” Lauren grabs my phone before I can pick it up and sets it in her lap, out of reach.
“That I love him. That this isn’t over. He thinks I left him!”
“Drew says he’s handling it, and that he’s trying to talk some sense into him. He says his therapist showed up?”
“Tucker?” I groan, letting my head fall into my hands. “God, he probably hates me.”
“Why would he hate you?”
