AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My fingers gripping the knob tightly. My heart slamming in my chest.
He chuckles at my outward reaction. “I know you thought that you were very subtle. But you weren’t.”
My grip on the doorknob tightens even more.
And he cocks his head to the side. “I’ve known since the first moment. Since the first night that I saw her in the woods. I could see how smitten you were with her. How fucking gone for her. I didn’t blame you. There was something about her that just made her irresistible. She had that effect on me too. And I thought you’d come to me about it, tell me. Maybe even tell me to back off when I told you that I liked her. But you never did. You never fucking said a single thing. You never said that she was yours. Instead you went out of your way to be an asshole to her. To practically push her my way. Which was pretty funny when you think about it. All the times I had to tell you to back off, to behave.” He chuckles again. “I admit I did it to amuse myself more than anything, and maybe that makes me a bad friend. Because while you were doing it all for our friendship, I was letting you. But I wanted her.”
I’d expect his words to cause a roar in me.
A rush in my ears. A drumming in my chest.
But there’s nothing.
All there is is a pin-drop silence as I listen to him.
As I absorb every single word that he’s saying into my bloodstream.
“I wanted her like I’ve never wanted anything in my entire shitty life,” he says, his eyes pinned on me, his eyes hard,calculating. “And my life was shitty. You know that, don’t you? It always has been. And so I thought I was owed that. Ideservedher for all the crap that I went through growing up. Not to mention, we both know that you aren’t much of a catch anyway. Yeah, you’re rich and handsome and all that fucking bullshit that every girl wants. But you’re not exactly the kind of a guy a girl can take home to her parents now, are you? We both know that you aren’t the kind of guy who could ever make a girl like Echo happy. You don’t have it in you. You aren’t made that way. I could though. I could make her happy. I could give her love and commitment and be the kind of boyfriend she deserves. So I wasn’t going to give her up. I wasn’t going to just hand her over to you when I knew I was so clearly the better choice. When you didn’t even fight for her.
“So yeah, Iknewfrom the beginning. How much you wanted her. And I took her anyway. And then she fell in love with me and for the first time in my godforsaken life, I had something good. I had something of my own. Even soccer wasn’t mine. You remember that, don’t you? How they’d bully me, my teammates. Because I was small. They didn’t care about my talent. They didn’t care that I could play as good as any of them. That I could outplay them even. They didn’t care about any of that untilyoucame around. Until you made it known that I was your friend. So yeah, I had nothing of my own, except her. Even though you pushed her toward me, I made her love me.Imade her fall in love with me. I even got her parents to like me.
“Butthen, you had to go and take that away from me. You had to make it all about you, didn’t you? You had to stab me in the fucking back because how could you not. Because that’s who you are, aren’t you? That’s all you’re capable of. Betraying people, screwing them over. Disappointing them.”
I call her a drama queen.
But I don’t think I’m being dramatic when I say that it feels like something has died inside of me.
I’m not beingfucking dramaticwhen I say that I have grief.
Deep in my chest, my gut.
And that in the last however many minutes he was speaking, I’ve gone through all five stages.
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
Denial that the thing I wanted to hide from him, the thing I tortured myself over, is something he already knew. And how is that possible?
He’s lying. He has to be.
But unfortunately, he’s not.
So then theangerthat he knew while I was burning in my own hell. When I was longing and pining andhatingmyself for it, he was letting me.
Bargaining that I’d give up anything to go back, to not enter this room. To not stand here and listen to him say all the things that just killed our friendship.
Because he did.
He killed it.
Depression that the only friend that I ever had is dead now and there’s no way that we can ever go back. No way that I’ll ever get my best friend back.
Not that I ever thought that I could — not after my whole confession about something that he already knew — but still. Now even the tiniest hope has died.
And finally acceptance that whatever he just said is true.
I did push her toward him and I did it because of our friendship. Because I did think he deserved her. He deserved good things after the life he’s had. And yes, I’ve more or less had the same life but he’s a better man than I am.
He has more to offer than I ever did.
