Liam
It took her a few days, but Cassidy did decide to come at me. Not directly, yet, but she sent one of her minions after me.
“Bro, I know you have shit going on right now, but you can’t be serious about this new girl.”
Dylan, my best friend—well, former best friend—was following me around the kitchen like a puppy dog.
“I am serious about her.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Come on, we both know this is just a phase. It’s been almost a year since Sarah…”
The look of death I gave him silenced him, and he decided to alter his approach.
“Fine, but you know what Cassidy is like. She’s going to be ruthless. Especially now that your Italian friend acted like a better person than her.”
I sighed.
“Isabellaisa better person than her.”
Dylan ignored me.
“Besides, it will be easier on everyone. You two were like the perfect couple.”
We had been friends since we were nine. Out of all the people from my old life, he was the one I missed. He was one of the biggest prices I had to pay to get a clean break. But he wasn’t so good at honoring my wishes, though, and still showed up at my house at random times. Like today.
“Well, now Isabella and I are the perfect couple. I really don’t know what you want from me, Dylan.”
“I want things to go back to how they used to be.”
Putting my chicken in the oven, I turned to him.
“You want me to be an egotistical, spoiled, rich dickhead who bullied people and didn’t really care about anything important?”
My friend cringed.
“You weren’t that bad. We had a lot of good times.”
Feeling a headache coming on, I tried to relax. Dylan wasn’t wrong. We did have some good times together.
“I know we did, but I can’t be that guy anymore. I won’t. You know that. Now, if you were really my friend, you’d want me to be happy. Or as happy as I could be.”
Dylan glared.
“You are going to stand there and lecture me about being a good friend?”
Ouch. That one hit below the belt. I knew I deserved it, though. I would happily repair my friendship with Dylan if he would just respect that I needed to make changes in my life. As soon as I broke up with Cassidy, though, he picked her side, and that was the end of us. I tried to offer an olive branch but honestly, it was only because I knew he wouldn’t take it.
“Why don’t you hang out with Isabella and me one night? You don’t know her. She’s a really good person. You’re the one that chose to be Team Cassidy over Team Liam.”
Dylan threw his hands in the air.
“Even if she is, it doesn’t matter. We aren’t good people, Liam, and she is not one of us. You can pretend all you want, but do you think this new girl is going to stick around when she finds out what really happened last year?”
This was actually my biggest fear; leave it to Dylan to drag it out. Eventually, I was going to have to tell Isabella everything. I know that I thought she would be a fresh start, and she was, but we had already grown so close. After I had heard about her and Marco, how he left her for her best friend, it occurred to me that I was filling a void in her life as much as she was mine.
There was no way I could have a lasting friendship with her if I never told her about my past, but there was also this crippling fear that if she knew what I had done, she would leave me and my heart would break all over again.
