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“You have to keep trying,” I hear my friend whisper.
A sense of betrayal sinks inside of me at hearing her words. The woman is supposed to be my friend, and she should know better than to meddle. At the same time, she’s a kind and generous woman, and not the type to watch someone hurt and take sides.
“He’s going to end up hating me,” Drake says, his eyes locked on a twig he’s been turning over and over in his hands for the last half hour that I’ve watched him. “I can’t keep pushing. If he doesn’t feel how I feel, then I’m just wasting my time.”
He’s saying exactly what I thought I wanted to hear, but the pain in his voice makes my chest ache in a way I’ve never felt before. I told him to walk away, urged him to do it, but hearing that he may actually do what I asked pains me greatly.
“What does your heart say?”
Drake shakes his head, his face upturned, his eyes blinking rapidly as if he’s fighting tears. “It doesn’t matter what my heart says if his doesn’t say the same thing.”
“So you’re just going to give up?” My lip twitches at the unfamiliar irritation in my friend’s voice.
“One-sided love doesn’t work, Ali. I can’t love him enough for the both of us. The man can’t even look at me.”
My throat threatens to seize when they both grow quiet.
Anger is the first emotion I let see the light of day because this wasn’t supposed to be this way. Drake was meant to be fun. No matter what I thought or how I felt about the man, he was supposed to remain the flirty playboy that didn’t have an issue doing a little messing around. Our time together was supposed to be easy to walk away from, both on my part and his. He was supposed to remain carefree and flaky, just as I viewed him before I ever brushed my lips against his.
He has no right spilling his guts and sounding all broken to the person I hold most dear in this world. Getting her involved complicates things. She’ll confront me for it, and I’ll want to make her happy.
I shake my head, clearing it of those thoughts. Blaming others has become a very bad habit, and not something I’m proud of.
My choices are my own, just as Drake’s choices are his.
He only thinks he wants me. He’s delusional, thinking he cares for me as much as he’s telling her. It’s only because I was the one to take a step back, when I’m sure he’s the one to pull the plug most often. It’s the sting of rejection that’s making him upset, not the actual loss of me.
Drake is a playboy, the man not selective in who he spent time with. What we shared was supposed to be no different. I picked him because of how easy it was supposed to be to walk away after the fun was had.
He was never supposed to be the one capable of offering me everything I ever wanted. He wasn’t supposed to be the one that made the risk of my soul worth it.
I watch, a little heartbroken and definitely uncertain of my future, as Alyssa wraps her arms around him, pulling him close to her in a motherly way that tells me she’d take his pain and mine if it were possible.
I don’t deserve her any more than I deserve him.
She cups his jaw, saying something too low for me to hear before getting up and walking back over to Harley.
I watch Drake for a long moment, feeling an even greater loss when he stands and walks across the campground.
I ache for things I shouldn’t want when he disappears into his tent.
I spend the next hour wishing I could teleport to a deserted island someplace a thousand miles away before heading back to my own tent.
I said things I didn’t mean, hoping it would be the truth someday.
From the conversation I overheard between the two of them, he’s starting to believe the things I said. It should make me feel better, but the idea that Drake thinks I hate him eats away at me as the evening turns into night.
It’s too early for bed. I imagine the guys will stay up by the fire drinking and laughing just as late as they did last night. But instead of going to hang out with them, I stay in my tent, the man less than twenty feet away in his own tent the only thing I can think of.
I thought I made my decision. What I told him was final.
Yet, as I stare up at the tree branches’ shadows dancing across the outside of my tent, I find myself hoping that he doesn’t believe what I said, that he’ll do exactly what Alyssa urged him to do and keep trying.
