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As if he’d flipped a switch, Jonas swiveled on the couch, completely turning away from the TV, and Hendrix went so far as to turn it off. They both gazed at him expectantly.
That was way too much attention. His chest started to hurt.
“We were waiting for you to admit there was sympathy needed,” Jonas allowed, his dark eyes warm with compassion. “You do too have a stick. You’re way too proud of yourself for sticking to that ridiculous pact. I’m guessing that’s why Tilda is on a plane and you’re not on it with her.”
“The pact is not ridiculous,” Warren countered and couldn’t even celebrate the fact that his temper had started simmering. It just meant that he wasn’t numb, after all, and frankly, he’d prefer to continue not feeling. “Just because the two of you broke it and figured out how to justify your faithlessness to yourselves doesn’t make—”
“Hey,” Jonas cut in quietly. “I get that you’re upset Tilda’s gone. But we were not faithless to the pact. Maybe the letter of it, but not the spirit. You’re missing the point. We’re still here, still friends after a terrible tragedy.”
“I’m not upset.” They didn’t even have the grace to accept that lie.
“We haven’t forgotten Marcus,” Hendrix added, setting his beer down on the coffee table and leaning back into the couch cushions with a contemplative expression. “I like to think that what I have with Roz is a fitting tribute to his memory. I never would have married her if I’d thought there was a chance I’d fall in love, and yet, it grew between us, anyway. Without the pact, I would still be alone and I’d have missed out on the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“The key is that you have to understand when to admit defeat.” Jonas jerked his head toward the door. “After the woman you’ve fallen in love with gets on a plane to go to the other side of the world is too late.”
“I’m not in—”
Too late. It was too late. He couldn’t even finish that sentence because the falsehood wouldn’t form. Warren’s head started to spin in time with his heart.
The pact was irrevocably broken.
He had fallen in love with Tilda. That’s why all of this hurt so much.
“It’s okay,” Jonas said with every bit of the sympathy Warren had railed at him for not providing. “Give it a minute. You put up a good fight.”
“The problem isn’t that I can’t admit I broke the pact.” Wearily, Warren let his head fall back against the chair. Not a problem. But not easy, either. “It’s that I kept the pact for a reason.”
“We all did.” This from Hendrix. “I didn’t want to lose our friendship. It’s important to me. So I used it as an excuse to avoid what I was feeling. Jonas had his reasons, too. You’re sticking to it because you can’t imagine loving something more than work, I imagine.”
At that, Warren’s head came off the back of the chair and he glared at Hendrix. “Really? You think that’s the reason? Because Flying Squirrel is more important to me than Tilda?”
Hendrix shrugged. “Seems like as good an explanation as any.”
“Except it’s not true. I kept the pact because it’s my fault Marcus died.” Something broke inside as he verbalized the thought that he’d kept quiet for a decade. He’d never uttered those words out loud.
Sitting up straight, Jonas rubbed at his temples. “Warren, Marcus committed suicide. Unless you put him up to it, it’s not your fault.”
“I…” Yes. It was his fault. What could he say to explain this decade-old crime? “I don’t mean I killed him. I mean, I thought he was going to snap out of it. I believed that firmly. So I started talking to him. Looking up bits in psychology books I found in the Duke library. At one point, I read that you should pay attention to the depressed person’s cues and counter the messages they’re giving themselves.”
You were supposed to do it nonverbally. Like the way Tilda startled easily. No big mystery how to handle that—you moved slowly and always showed your hands so she got the message that you weren’t a threat. It had worked more often than it hadn’t. It was only when he’d let his temper get the best of him that he screwed up.
Like he had with Marcus.
So, frustrated with the lack of progress, he’d blurted out “Get over it,” totally convinced that Marcus could have moved on from his broken heart if he’d just tried. Instead, his roommate had swallowed a bunch of pills while Warren had been at a party. Stumbling over his roommate’s lifeless body just inside the door of their condo had sobered him up quickly.
