AllFreeNovel
Share Us
All up for grabs.
No makeup. Stinky breaths. Diarrhea. Bad decisions. Hangovers.
We’d seen the breakups and the breakdowns. Been broken in. Comfortable. Like an old couch, battered and ugly but perfectly conformed to the body. Something you just collapse into and never think about again.
It’s obvious in retrospect. Where I went wrong. Where falling into him so snugly ruined my chances of falling out of love and moving on.
Maybe I could have been bold. Years ago. Maybe I could have made a move.
But I didn’t.
Kastle was still struggling. He was still trying to balance his own hurts, a family who barely cared when the cameras were off, and all the crap that came with being exposed on a reality TV show for decades.
Whenever he was with me—
I tried to ease that burden.
I wanted that for him. Even if the love inside me begged to be unraveled. Even if I couldn’t stand watching him date other women. Kiss other women. Screw other women.
He was happy being my friend.
For a long time, I was happy with that too.
There’s a painful side to denying that part of me, but there’s also another side. This freeing, uncomplicated, fun side. It covers us in the best way. Protects us from ourselves. It really does.
But moments like tonight, finding out he’s been signed to a matchmaking agency, well, it makes me sick.
We’re two old souls in a rocking chair on a sunny porch. Predictable. Steady. And, if one day the routine that I’ve come to know changes and the woman he’s with is someone he’s chosen, a decision he’s made, I can do it.
I can watch him leave and come back with the stain of her on his shirt. With the scent of her on his clothes. With her name on his lips, mentioned in casual conversation and in the memories he made without me.
I can watch him walk away.
If it’s his choice.
If it’s his move.
But I can’t let it happen because he’s been pulled along. Manipulated. Strung up on the Jameson family clothesline.
The things they’ve already had him do.
The things I’ve heard with my own ears.
We’ll have a Jameson Family special in China to revisit that orphanage. Huge ratings.
Let the cameras follow you on your first kiss. Won’t that make great TV?
Your dad needs to give you The Talk. Sex sells, you know.
My body hisses with righteous anger.
Then frustration.
Because, after a certain age, Kastle could have stopped it.
And he didn’t.
He wouldn’t.
