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Chapter 29
Tara
Tina throws open her door as I get off the elevator to her apartment. “Girl, I have missed you, ever since you moved we haven’t seen each other much, I think the last time was when we watched Stranger Things a few months back.” She scolds while bear hugging me.
“I know, I’m sorry, I’m such a shitty friend. Can we go inside to talk, I have so much to fill you in on.” She pulls back from the hug, and a worried look covers her face.
“Yeah, of course.” She lets me walk ahead of her into her place. Shutting the door and locking it, she turns around. “Okay, spill, what’s going on.”
I sit on her couch and toss my bag and purse to the floor. “I’ve been sleeping with Drew.”
Her eyes pop open in shock, “What?! Why are you now just telling me this? What about Keller?”
She drops to the floor in front of me, looking like a little kid waiting for story time and it makes me laugh. I start to fill her in on everything. My feelings for Drew, us together while Keller’s been gone, to finding out he had been cheating on me the whole time, to which she flinches, then to the whole baby mama drama that has her floored.
When I finish, ending it with what happened in the kitchen, she just stares at me in silence. “I just, I, wow. I have no words. Fuck, I’m sorry, Tara. I should have tried harder, forced us to get together, something.” She gets up and hugs me tight, my tears dropping on her shoulder.
“I love him,” I whisper into her hair.
Her arms tighten around me. “Who? Keller or Drew?” she sounds hesitant to find out the answer, I really need to ask her what on earth is going on.
“Drew of course, but it’s all so fucked up.” Moving out of the embrace I get up from her couch and start pacing. “What Keller did wasn’t right, not even a little, but what Drew and I did, it’s just as bad. I’m a cheater. I was a twenty-five-year-old virgin, who never had a boyfriend, and all of a sudden I cheat on my first ever boyfriend. Who does that shit?”
Tina gets off the floor and goes to come to me, but someone starts knocking on her door making it sound as if someone is gonna kick her door in. “Who on earth?” she says sounding confused as she starts heading for the door. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” she asks, her voice loud and shrill. . I hear someone speak, but can't make out a voice or what is said, and Tina replies again, “You need to leave; she doesn’t want to see you right now.” Shit.
“Tara, I know you’re here, and if you don’t get your guard dog out of the way, I’m not afraid to knock her down to get to you.” Holy shit, Drew found me. How? I don’t think I ever talked about Tina to him, except that one time he overheard me talking to her on the phone months ago. Doubt he even remembered she existed, unless Keller did something good for once and told him. It wasn’t that I was hiding her from him, we were always too busy doing and talking about other things. Discussing friendships wasn’t ever really high on our list of things to chat about.
I look to Tina, and I see her looking defeated. Moving out of his way, once he’s inside, she closes the door.
“What are you doing here Drew?”
He crosses his arms as he stands in front of me. “I’m here to bring you home. There is nothing wrong with us. I love you, I want to marry you one day, have kids with you. How we went about it, wasn’t great, I get where you’re coming from. But it’s us Tara, as shitty as our relationship started, it’s us, we’re forever.”
Tears well up in my eyes, and a sob comes up my throat at his words, but it’s not enough. “I’m a cheater now though, I.”
Drew cuts me off, looking pissed as his arms grab mine, giving me a slight shake. “You need to stop beating yourself up over this. Everything is out in the open now, you’re right, how we went about it was wrong, but you and I, we’re not wrong. Hell, you even admitted to me that you never really wanted Keller, so stop it, stop beating yourself up over something that can never be changed.”
He’s right. I love him, I want a life with him.
A throat clears behind us, and Tina looks ticked. “Sweet words and all but wasn’t it also you that knew the entire time that he was cheating on her?” There she is, my girl defending me, but right now, she doesn’t need to. Before I can speak up, Drew’s body goes tight, rage flows through him and he turns her way, leaving me in his arms feeling confused as hell.
“You wanna go there? Fine, how about the fact that you’ve been fucking Keller for the last few months.” My body goes still, my face pales as I look to Tina, who’s looking as if she’s about to pass out.
“What?” I whisper.
Drew turns to me with a sad look on his face. “After you left, I forced Keller to help me find you, he spilled all about Tina.”
“I may not have loved Keller, but I cared for him, and you knew that. How could you do this to me, Tina?” I ask her, how could she be my friend and do that?
She doesn’t even have to speak, her face says it all, but she still does. “It wasn’t supposed to happen, the first time at least. It was a mistake, and I felt sick over it. But then you would bitch about Keller, talking about how you didn’t love him, so I stopped feeling guilty. But then it happened again, and again. And well, you get the picture.” She starts to smirk, her voice starting to edge towards smug. No matter what I did, no matter how wrong I was with the relationship, she was my friend, my best friend. Did I ever really know her? Why would she do this to me?
“That’s why you wouldn’t ever get together with us, wasn’t it? Cuz you were sleeping with him. It wasn’t just me being a shit friend and not managing to get together, it was you too.” Then something dawns on me. “Oh my God. He was the one you told me about months ago. He was the one that took you for the abortion.” Drew’s body goes still, anger vibrating off him.
Tina’s face goes pale again, losing its smugness and nods. “He said he loved you and didn’t want to fuck up again,” she tells me quietly.
Makes sense, what with him knocking up his side piece while he was dating his last girlfriend. My god, what an idiot I’ve been.
Drew’s had enough of our chat and finally cuts in. “We can blame each other and about fifty other people until the cows come home, but this is done. I knew what Keller was doing, hell I knew what he was doing when he was with his ex. I told him repeatedly he was gonna get caught, and I was fucking sick of him. I didn’t purposely set out to steal Tara. You—Tina, what you did, was different. And we all know that. Fuck, I have a list of married men you purposely set your sights on, and I will gladly get into those names if you wanna try and defend yourself right now.” She flinches and turns her head to the side. He turns to me, using his thumbs to wipe the tears from my face. “We’re going home, and if you don’t come with me right now, I will just have to kidnap you. Keller’s gone, you and I can be just that, you and me. Forever.”
