AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Whether he’s right to be angry doesn’t change the facts. You and he both made choices that, looking back, maybe you would have made different ones, but you can’t change that now. All you can do is move forward and move on. Give it a chance, Little One. Maybe finding your way back to each other is another part of your healing journey.”
“Yeah.” I scoff, not believing that for even a second.
We stay on the phone a little longer, the conversation moving as Maisie says hello to my parents, and they spend a couple minutes talking to, and getting to know her.
By the time we’re saying our goodbyes, my body is fraught with tension, and the skin on my lip is raw from how much I’ve chewed it. Silence follows the line going dead, and Maisie watches me, her eyes soft and a slight frown on her lips as I tug the hair ties from the end of my braids and release the strands of hair, massaging my fingers over my scalp.
“Wanna go get a drink? And I’m not talking about the caffeinated kind.”
I shrug, not really a drinker, but she shakes her head and pulls me toward the door. Grabbing my keys from the counter where I chucked them, she locks the door behind us and stuffs them into the back pocket of her jeans.
Less than an hour later, we’re sitting tucked away in a booth at a small bar, where, luckily, we don’t get carded every time Maisie orders a fresh cocktail. The fruity liquid is sweet, and way too moreish as it slides down my throat.
“Ready to talk?” Maisie asks, fiddling with the pink straw of her glass.
Sighing, I push my now-empty glass away and grab a napkin to wipe up the condensation that has dripped onto the table. I’m procrastinating, I know, and Maisie is right. She deserves to know at least a little of the history between Maverick and me, if only to understand his anger toward me and the conversation she heard with my parents.
But my stomach curdles as I open my mouth, and the only thing I hope is that she doesn’t look at me differently afterward. We may have only been friends for a few days, but friendship is something I’ve been seriously missing recently.
“Maverick, the guy from the hall?” She nods, keeping her expression neutral as she listens. “I’ve known him since elementary. We moved into town when I was eight years old ’cause Dad needed to be closer to the studio his band bought. Maverick’s sister, Willow, and I became inseparable from the moment we met in English class, and wherever Willow was, he was always two steps behind. They weren’t just siblings, they were best friends, so when we became friends, he was like a package deal. You got her? You also got him.
“Where Willow was my best friend, Maverick was something else entirely. Not a friend, exactly, not a brother, just . . . something else. But when I was fourteen, and I finally started noticing boys, I met my ex, Sebastian. He was everything you wanted your first boyfriend to be. Kind and charming. He drew me in instantly.”
Maisie nods, silently ordering another couple of drinks from the waiter while I lose myself in memories. “I thought I was so cool, you know. The cute, older boy asked me to be his girlfriend, and how could I say no?”
My heart races as I talk about him, and my hands prickle with beads of sweat as memories flash through my mind.
“At the start, he was so nice. Always buying me little presents, taking me on cute dates, but as the first year passed, he started to change.”
The drink in front of me tastes bitter now as I close my lips around the straw, suckling gently to try and clear my suddenly dry mouth.
“Bea,” Maisie starts, her eyes soft as she watches my hands tremble around the glass. I shake my head, heaving in a deep breath.
I’ve never spoken about this to anyone but my therapist, not even my mom and dad. I’ve always been too ashamed of my relationship with Sebastian. Logically, I know not any of it was my fault, but that doesn’t stop the shame that washes over me every time I think of him and our years together.
But something is telling me I can trust Maisie with these things and she’ll listen without judgment, so I keep going.
“I’ll never forget the first time he hurt me,” I whisper, closing my eyes so I don’t have to look at her face and see whatever horrified expression is staring back at me. “I’d been hanging out with Maverick the day before. We watched a few movies in his parents’ theater room. Willow was at a study session, and Nash—Mav’s best friend—was busy with his girlfriend at the time, so it was just the two of us.
“We’d done it a hundred times before, so it wasn’t even a thought in my head that I was doing anything wrong. But when Sebastian came over to my house the next day, it was like something possessed him the minute I said Maverick’s name.
“I’m not even sure he had a conscious thought at that moment, but he just grabbed me out of nowhere and pushed me across my room. My head smacked the wall, and God, did it hurt. And he just froze, his hands suspended in midair.”
A harsh intake of breath sounds across the table, a hand closing on mine and squeezing gently.
“My mom came running up the stairs, she must have heard the bang when I fell. She walked through the door just as I got up, and I was so close to telling her what happened, so fucking close.” I laugh, though there’s no humor behind it. “But he looked at me with these big sad blue eyes, mouthing his apologies over and over again. So, I told her I fell, tripped over my school bag.”
The napkin in my hands falls to the table in pieces, broken apart as I am. “That was the first time I ever told a lie in my life. But it wasn’t the last.”
“Why did you stay with him?” she asks softly.
“Because I loved him, or I thought I did. And he loved me. We were so young, and I believed him when he said he’d never do it again.” A tear spills down my cheek, and I run my hand through my hair, holding my breath for a long moment. “I was wrong, so very wrong. Over the next two years, he just got worse.”
As the hours tick by, Maisie learns every single painful detail of what happened during my three-year relationship with Sebastian Marks, finally finishing on that last day. The last time I saw both Sebastian and Maverick. “I lied, again. For Sebastian.”
“Oh,” Maisie breathes, tears streaming over her lashes as she pushes off her seat, rushing over to me and wrapping her arms around my shoulder. She cries against me, offering me warmth and comfort, though it does nothing to stave the chill settling in my bones. “I’m so sorry, Beatrice. So. Fucking. Sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?” I ask, pulling away from her. Where she sniffles softly, wiping her nose with a napkin from the table, all I feel is empty.
