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“I mean, yes. Honestly, I do think it was real at the time for him,” Casey says. “But none of that matters now. It was over the minute I found out. And things are going pretty good with the new guy I’m seeing. And I’ve met his family, so there’s no secret wives he’s keeping hidden.”
“Thank fuck for that.”
Casey laughs quietly. “Yeah, thank fuck.”
I watch the balloon cloud until it’s moved out of sight. “Dax was lying to me too. He didn’t tell me what he was doing every night. He didn’t tell me he was on this revenge trip to catch Julian and get him arrested.”
Casey was a great listener, ever since we were kids. She would let me get it all out without interrupting. She knows everything there is to know about me. My best friend.God, I’ve missed her these past weeks.Being in England it was easier to ignore the gaping hole her absence left inside me. But it’s not that easy now I’m back here.
I don’t want to ignore it anymore. I want to fill it. I want that hole to be gone. Because I’m so full of holes that any more and there’ll be nothing left holding me together at all.
“I get why Dax didn’t tell me. He probably thought I was safer not knowing,” I continue.
“Yeah, you’d have followed him and insisted on helping.”
Casey and I look at each other, the corners of both of our lips lifting at the same time.
“Yeah. I would have,” I snort. “But before I left, he tried telling me that everything was fake. That none of it was real. That’s what hurts. That’s why when I think about him, I want to scream until the sky rips open. He’s trying to make out that everything I felt for him couldn’t be real, because it was all fake for him.”
“It’s like he’s invalidating your feelings by pretending he never had any.”
“Exactly.”She gets it. Best friends always do.“And I… I want to smack him in the jaw, and pound my fists against his heart, the way he’s done to mine. He knows how I feel about lying. But he’s still chosen to do it. I think it would hurt less if he really had never felt anything toward me. But then I think, surely if his feelings were real, then he wouldn’t be able to do this either. He wouldn’t be able to hurt me like this. Nothing makes sense anymore.”
Casey shuffles along the sofa so she’s closer to me, then reaches out and curls her fingers through mine. She stills as I stare at our entwined hands.
Then I squeeze hers gently.
“I keep thinking how my family told me I needed time. So they sent me there. And now I’ve come running back again. More fucked up than when I left.”
“You’ve never been fucked up, Ro. It’s just a fucked-up situation.”
I hold Casey’s eyes and smile gratefully. Her eyes shine, and she stands, pulling me to my feet. Then she flings her arms around me.
And there isn’t even the tiniest measure of time that I don’t consider hugging her back.
I hold her like I always have through all the years of our friendship. Because I meant what I burned on that paper at those bonfires with Dax.
Forgiveness. Blame.
It’s time I start living like I intended to when I burned those two words. Dax may not be a part of my life anymore. But I don’t have to lose everyone I care about. Not if I can live my life like I should have been doing for the past few years.
“Thank you for talking to me again. I’ve missed you,” Casey says.
“No more lies,” I say, hugging her harder.
“None, I swear.”
“Ever.”
“From sandbox to casket,” she whispers.
I squeeze my eyes shut as gratitude that she’s here flows through every cell in my body. I haven’t admitted everything to Mom, Brett, and Harley. I blamed my mood on jetlag. But they’re not stupid. They saw how Dax and I were together. But I still haven’t spoken about it with them. I haven’t told them just how much my heart weighs me down with every single movement I try to make. They don’t know just how much Dax meant to me.
They don’t know that I was willing to trade my life for his that night, had Julian given me the choice.
I would have done it in a heartbeat.
I screw my eyes up more until they sting and grip on to Casey. She didn’t give up on me. She kept trying. Because friendship is worth fighting for.
