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He stared at her, his heart breaking for her, but his face remained neutral.
She sniffed. "Okay. If this is how you want to make things between us, fine."
He nodded. "I can say the same to you."
"Very mature." She turned on her heels and walked toward the door.
His heart sank. "Never leave during a fight." The words left his mouth, but they echoed in Rose's voice.
Giselle stopped, apparently reminded, too, of her mother's words. She turned around to look at him, her eyes filling up. She blinked, and the tears fell on her face.
He repeated, "Never leave during a fight." His own eyes glistened. "Always end it."
She shook her head. "What do you want me to say? I agree, okay?" She sniffed. "It's your choice in the end. My life, sure, but your choice. Only because I care about you. I care about you so much I would sign away my life. But you don't care about me enough to consider what makes me happy."
He took a step toward her and spoke softly, "I care about you more than you can imagine. More than any boy can care for you. Every choice I've ever made in my life has been for you."
She nodded, her tears falling. "And I hate you. There! I ended the fight."
His heart broke.
And she walked out.
Chapter 12
Giselle couldn't believe what had happened a few moments ago. Chris? Chris for her? Impossible! They were nothing but great friends, and she wasn't ready to let herself think about him that way when she clearly loved someone else.
She wrapped her sweater tighter around herself as she passed through the deserted alley toward the café Xavier waited for her in. The dusk was only an hour away. This was her last evening with her boyfriend, and she couldn't untangle the clutter inside her mind.
Her mind drifted back to her father's words, and she wondered what had led him to such thoughts. Chris was her childhood friend.
Sure, here and there, she thought about him in a way that burned her cheeks, but she never acted upon them. Even that didn't matter because it'd been a long time since she had a wicked thought about him. Besides, she wasn't ready to let anything ruin her friendship with the only loyal person she knew.
Chris had always been there for her. He was there even before she understood the difference between a boy and a girl. She recalled moving into her new house in Phoenix when she was five years old. She met the son of her father's friends who was taller and five years older than her, but she'd befriended him instantly. The first words he'd said to her were, "Nice pigtails."
She smiled at the memory despite herself.
She remembered him having his own friends, but he'd ditch them to play with her, whether he liked the games she chose or not. One time, she'd fallen off her pink bicycle and scraped her knee. Chris had steadied her on her feet, dusted off her clothes, wiped her tears, and to make her smile, he'd kicked her bicycle and called it "doodie" for hurting her. It had made her giggle.
Later, they'd had ice cream and watched cartoons.
On rainy days, they'd play in the park till they were drenched. They'd let it fall all over them. They loved playing the game of catching each other, where one would run and the other would try to grab. They'd always end up falling in the mud, and their laughter would echo.
But as they grew older, she started wearing looser clothes, embarrassed about her new curves. She was always painfully aware of how she looked around him. They'd stopped playing catching games, for his touch would send tingles through her body.
Sometimes when he looked at her a certain way, her stomach would knot, and she'd curse herself for it. She hated the new feelings, hated that the brown of his eyes mesmerized her. Especially when he looked at her under the rain, his pupils would turn from brown to black. She used to always find that intriguing.
Throughout her entire life, she never found a better friend than him. No one treated her the way he did. No one clicked the way they did.
She was there to cheer for him when he tried out for football, and even in his final year in college when he was the team captain. She'd visited him for the final match, and she was the first person he'd hugged after winning, even when all the cheerleaders were chanting his name.
Maybe, that was why they made no other friends because they were enough for each other.
Chris did have one other friend, though, from high school. She'd seen him a few times when she was young. Last they'd seen each other was seven years ago. He and Chris had gone for a small summer trip to Aquaville when they were in college, but that was it.
But ever since he'd moved to the UK, it was always just Chris and Giselle.
A few months before that trip, Chris's father and his stepmother were in a car accident when they were coming back from a restaurant on the top of a hill on their fifth wedding anniversary. Both had died on the spot when their car hit a rock and fell off the edge.
