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He leans back into his seat again, eyeing my alpha-like pose before him, smirking as if it truly entertains him. As if he gets off on it.
“Yeah, Lake. Bitch shit,” he reiterates while nodding. “You copped out. You folded,” he says definitively. “You took away the one thing that woman had going for her.”
The tension in my back has the muscles on fire. I breathe heavily through my nostrils as I try to put it together.
“The choice.”
I soften my stance, slumping my shoulders as I run my hands down my face, letting out an exasperated sigh.
“You didn’t let her choose, did you? You let her go before she could leave you. Because, God forbid, another amazing, selfless woman slips away from you.”
I can’t breathe.
His sentence is filled with so much honesty and truth that it hurts. It hurts in places I didn’t know I could hurt. Places that have never felt such a void.
Candy knows my story. He knows the battles my mother has fought. He knows about my childhood and our difficult past. It rips through the heart I didn’t know held so much in it. It’s bleeding out, endlessly depleting me until I’m drained and empty. I’m not okay without her. I need Dylan like I need air, but I chose to suffocate instead.
“But she wouldn’t have left you, Lake,” he whispers, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. “She wouldn’t have left you, and Colin would have forgiven you.”
I slump back onto the bench beside him again, resting my hands on top of my head. The guys are giving their all as the offense runs another play.
“She’ll never forgive me now, though,” I choke out, admitting the inevitable.
Candy sighs. “She might not.”
The truth feels like bricks on my chest. The weight, practically unbearable. There’s so much I’ve destroyed. I hear the echo of her voice cracking as she yelled at me in that stairwell. See the pain in her eyes when she reminded me of what I’d promised her. What I’d promised them.
“So what do I do now?” I ask, exasperated.
“I mean, what would Ross do?” he says.
“Ross?” I contort my face.
“Yeah, man. Ross. You know, he was obsessed with Rachel, always feeling as if he wasn’t good enough for a girl like her. But they were endgame, my dude. Endgame.”
Before I can even comprehend what the fuck he’s talking about, my phone rings in my hand, and my heart nearly beats out of my chest.
But the name on the screen isn’t the woman I love. It wouldn’t be.
The person on the phone is Dale.
And the feeling I get from a call from him at this time of day sends shivers down my spine.
56
Dylan
Iwalkbackintowork after an extended weekend and see Jaden already here.
It’s not like him to be here as early as me, but I’m trying not to overthink things.
The door slams shut behind me, the ring of the bell circulating the gym. I feel sick to my stomach. I walk forward with my bag slung over my shoulder, approaching Jaden, who’s refusing to look at me.
Please tell me I haven’t lost what friends I have left over this, too.
I stop alongside him, where he’s cleaning a machine that doesn’t need to be cleaned, when I hear my name called from the office.
“Dylan! Come into the office!” Greg yells out.
