AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Truthfully, Rory hasn’t known for long. A few months. She’d found out by complete accident, and I made her swear, swear, swear, not to say a thing. It’s easier to hide truths when your relationship mainly consists of texts and video chats.
If something did happen while videoing a slipup, click. Problem solved. A text complaining about a bad signal, being so close to the water and I was in the clear. It worked for years.
My fingers skim along the rim of the cup. Tracing, it’s easier to avoid the heaviness of her own guilt if I pretend I’m busy.
I’ve let so many people down. Hurt them more than I understood I was capable of…
Friends are fine. We tell ourselves we need human connection to survive, but anything past friendship is a lie. A farce.
If you had asked me this while I was in high school, I would’ve laughed in your face and called you an idiot. Back then, I believed it, witnessed it firsthand, growing up through my parents’ marriage. I idolized everything they were. Yearned for what they had.
Not anymore. That bubble I’d created for myself burst the very moment they’d said the words divorce.
I shouldn’t have been so hard on Finn last night, pushing him to talk. I’ve had years to digest everything, whereas he hasn’t even had twenty-four hours.
Nothing will jump-start your heart faster than finding out that news…trust me.
I bring my knees up to my chest on the matching patio furniture Rory sits on across from me. It’s not something I’d normally do in a chair, but I need a hug. I want to be consoled but feel I have no right. I did this. I hurt everyone…
Finn was direct last night, and my mind has been unforgiving in letting me forget the words he’d spewed. Not only had I walked out on him, but everyone else I considered a friend as well.
I wanted to go to college, planned for it, my things were packed and ready, then poof! I found out my bags wouldn’t have been the only thing I’d be carrying, so I never showed.
I grip myself tighter, resting my chin on my knees. I thought coffee might help wake us both up since neither of us got much sleep. I don’t bother changing my mind. Caffeine can’t fix the mess I’ve created.
Shame consumes me, even if I know I wouldn’t change what I’d done. My reasoning behind why I did what I had hasn’t changed. My headspace was different then and, in a lot of ways, is the same today.
Gloomy as I am, sunshine radiates all around us. A perfect morning. On any other day, I might’ve enjoyed the company of its warmth, but not now.
The music blared through the walls of Rory’s room as I climbed back into bed beside her last night. I’d turned it back on before I left, as what? A favor? A repercussion of the guilt he shoved down my throat? I don’t know why I did it.
Cole wasn’t happy that I would be taking his spot next to his fiancé for the night. He may have grumbled the entire time on his way to a spare room but did as Rory asked. She’ll never know how much I needed that.
The music still blasts. The court is a good hundred feet away and my ears ring at the screaming.
“Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened between the pair of you if you hadn’t…” She shrugs a shoulder.
Getting pregnant is what she means without finishing her thought.
I don’t answer her right away because I don’t want to disappoint her with an untrue one. Through the years I’ve thought it over some but trying to find what-ifs and maybes seemed useless. My reality was none of those things, so I stopped wasting the energy.
“I have before,” I admit, giving her a small truth.
The answer doesn’t pacify her, I can tell she wants to push, but Rory also knows it’s not her place.
Same as it wasn’t mine to have fixated my gaze on Finn as much as I had before shit hit the fan at the party yesterday.
It was the first time I’d looked at him, like looked, looked, and once I had, my body continued to betray me, and I couldn’t stop.
Finn has always been broad, but those muscles of his have been refined to that of a professional athlete. His shoulders, which I’ve clung to many times, are as thick as I remember.
Full lips, a slim nose, and a pair of hazel eyes that had more jade than golden brown in the center. They were glowering in my direction, but I wasn’t any less mesmerized.
Held me captive is what they’d done—
“Do you hear that?”
Rory’s voice draws me back to the present. “Hear what?”
