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My brow twitched up he’d been here and hadn’t said anything, and when I asked him why, he laughed.
“I guess I wanted to be around in case you wanted to be social.” He lifted his big shoulders. “You’ve been spending a lot of time by yourself.”
I had, and that was necessary too but for a different reason. I couldn’t be around my family or friends for longer than a few minutes within the imploding feeling of guilt.
I only wished that was because I’d lied to them about Fawn.
The lies, unfortunately, only started there, and I knew with Bru coming home I was hitting a deadline. With him here, my family and friends literally all here now, I had no choice but to face a reality I’d definitely been trying to run from. Fawn Greenfield had provided a distraction, but it had ended up being for me more than my family.
It had been for you.
I think I knew that and long before going into it. I knew exactly what would happen when I found out certain things about her. She had fulfilled a need, but it wasn’t to be my fake girlfriend or serve a purpose.
It’d been for me.
“Can’t really say it, can you…”
Her voice in my head again, I watched my buddy take a seat on my mattress. He flicked at my book with his car keys. “Where’s your sketchpad? I feel like I haven’t seen you sketch in months. You’re always reading now or doing homework.”
Of course, he noticed. He was one of my best friends, and he wasn’t the first to say something.
Thatcher and Wells weren’t here, but they too had commented that they never saw me with my sketchpad or charcoal anymore. I never went out of my way to work in front of the guys. Actually, I went out of my waynotto work in front of them. When it came to my art, I’d always been private about it, my process.
Even still, they did see me with my sketchpad from time to time, and my sister did all the time. She did because she was an artist too and was about the only one I’d sketch around.
We didn’t do that anymore.
We didn’t because of me, and I picked up my book. I closed it. “You didn’t need to stick around. I’m okay by myself.”
I realized I avoided answering his question, and he obviously did too, eyeing me. He shook his head. “That’s why I was here without actually being here. Just in case. It was either that or let Thatch and Wells bum-rush you. When you mentioned you weren’t going shopping with your family in the group chat, they almost came over here and forced you into their cars. They wanted to get you out of your mood.”
“I’m always in a mood.” I smirked, and Dorian lifted his eyes.
“Yeah, but you were in less of one when you were dating Fawn.”
The smile instantly left my face. I started to open my mouth, but right away, Dorian raised a hand.
“Don’t. I’m not trying to get my head bitten off today. I’m just saying…”
“Well, don’t,” I gritted. He knew that was a forbidden topic. We didn’t talk about Fawn because there was nothing to talk about. As far as he or anyone else knew, I’d dated someone. It ended, and that was it. “There’s nothing to say, and Fawn and I ended amicably.”
Again, as far as he knew.
I fought the jump in my throat. “We were two different people.”
“Yeah, well, whoever that person was happened to be a lot happier than you as of late.” He sighed. “Anyway, I’m not going to argue with you about this. Like I said, I just came to check on your ass.”
“Well, don’t do that either.” I opened my book. “And tell Thatcher and Wells to stop texting me.”
After I’d mentioned I wasn’t going shopping, they’d called me the Grinch and shit. I just wasn’t in the fucking holiday spirit.
Kind of hard to be.
A tingle hit my digits, a tingle I once again ignored. I squeezed a fist until it disappeared, then quickly got back into pretending to read a book. The words blended into one another on the page, but that had nothing to do with my eyes. Focus lately was impossible. I was too frustrated. Too…
Angry.
It was like I was in a haze all the time. Rageful. Because I was, I constantly did push people away, but they hadn’t done anything wrong. My anger mostly surrounded myself and how I’d decided to deal with the issues in my life. I hadn’t done things well and still wasn’t.
