“Why do you never want to go out? Why do you never want to meet anyone new?” Her quick change in topic gives me a mental whiplash, but I welcome the change.
“You don’t go out and meet new people or go out on dates either,” I push back. It isn’t a heated conversation, but we don’t usually talk to each other like this. We don’t push on certain topics, preferring to encourage one another to reach our full potential.
She doesn’t change the topic like I expected her to. Instead, she says, “We can talk about me next Wednesday. Right now, we’re talking about you.” Her confidence makes me sit back in the booth, and avoid her gaze. I can’t follow her train of thought. Not that it’s anything new. Her brain works in mysterious ways—it’s why she’s so brilliant. The mention of Liam has me on high alert, though. I don’t like talking about him.
“I’m torn right now,” I tell her honestly. “I don’t know if I want to give you a high five for being so assertive and confident, or if I want to walk out of here crying.”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” she says, drinking the last of her wine in one big gulp. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I had to practice being stern in the mirror today. But I know something is bothering you and I know it’s about Liam. So just tell me, please?” she begs.
“Nothing is bothering me,” I tell her, looking at anything but her.
“Look,” she starts, voice wavering a little. I know whatever she’s going to say is going to make her uncomfortable, therefore making me uncomfortable. “I know we haven’t known each other for a long time—only a couple of months—but that doesn’t mean I haven’t seen the subtle changes since Liam moved in. You play with the edge of your hair—you never did that before. And you smile. Little smiles here and there when you’re caught up in your thoughts. I don’t even think you realize you do it.”
I had no idea she was so observant.
There would be no harm in telling her. He’s moving out in a few months anyway, so she’ll never meet him. “Fine,” I tell her. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
“Everything? I feel like everything would take all night,” I admit, trying to avoid the question, even though I know I might have to tell her anyway.
“We have all night, sweetie.”
“Fine. He’s my brother’s best friend. I’ve known him since I was a few months old, really. He was always at our house, or I would tag along with Ronan to his house. Somehow, along the way, I developed a crush on him. That crush just grew and grew. I was head over heels in love withhim by the time I was thirteen and he was twenty-three. I hid it well, though. Or at least, I thought I did. He never said anything, neither did my brother. He just thought of me as another little sister. That is, until I graduated high school . . .” I trail off, happy our plates arrived.
I cross my toes, hoping that Jade is too preoccupied with her spaghetti to remember what we were talking about and that we can move on to any other topic. I have no such luck. After a few bites, she looks at me, signals me to keep going, and says, “This spaghetti is good, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not good enough for me to completely forget you were telling me why you haven’t seen this man in seven years.”
“Fine,” I said. “The weekend I graduated, I was finally invited to a party. I was never invited to parties in high school, so I went. I had a little bit too much to drink and called Liam to come pick me up. He picked me up and brought me to his place. Once there, I kissed him and he lost it. He got so mad at me, asked me what my problem was, and . . . yeah. So I left and never talked to him again,” I rush out. “Now, here we are, seven years later. End of story,” I say, shoving an oversized ravioli into my mouth. I still feel the embarrassment from that moment course through my body just talking about it. Can the ground just swallow me whole?
I feel my cheeks, neck, and chest redden as Jade just sits there, looking at me. My hands start to shake with embarrassment as I keep stuffing my mouth with ravioli after ravioli, wanting this dinner to end sooner rather than later. I should have never told her. There’s a reason I keptthis story to myself, only ever telling Cassie, and even that was years ago, and we never brought it up again.
“Wait. What?” Jade asks, after what feels like hours but can only have been a few seconds—a full minute at the longest.
“I got drunk—”
She cuts me off by asking, “Didn’t you say he was ten years older than you?”
At my nod, she starts laughing. Hysterically. Instantly, I feel tears well up in my eyes, which she notices right away.
“No, no, no! I’m not laughing at you,” she says, sobering up right away. “Well, I was, kinda, but not really. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have laughed. But really, you’re telling me a twenty-eight-year-old man pushed an eighteen-year-old girl away from him when she tried to kiss him and you’re mad at him for that? I mean, in any other situation, we would be applauding the man for being a walking green flag. The irony can’t be lost on you,” she states.
She’s right. For the first time, I think about it the other way around. If I would have been Liam in that situation, I would have pushed me off, too. I would have let me sober up, and tried to talk to me in the morning. But I left. Without a single word.
“Do you want my honest, unfiltered opinion?” she asks, breaking me out of my thoughts. She doesn’t wait for my answer before saying, “I think you wanted to see him. That you’ve missed him over the last few years. I think there’s still a part of you, a part of your heart, that belongs to him. I think you wanted to protest him moving in, that you’re hiding behind doing him a favor for your brother, but that,deep down, you’re happy to have him move in with you. I can see it on your face, in the slight pep you have in your step now that he’s living with you. You have a fire in your eyes that you never had in the weeks before. I think you missed him, and it’s okay if that’s the case. He was a huge part of your life—I think he still is. If I was in your shoes, I would have missed him too.”
Dinner doesn’t last much longer after that, and I promise Jade I’m not mad at her. I’m really not, but that doesn’t mean I don’t keep repeating her words over and over in my head.
Was I in the wrong for disappearing all those years ago? Am I still in the wrong for keeping a teenage grudge against Liam? Did I want him to move in with me?
She’s right in her assumption that I didn’t put up much of a fight or argue with my brother when he asked me if Liam could move in with me . . . Did I miss him that much?
Chapter 8
I am so screwed. The thoughts I’m having about my best friend’s younger sister right now are not PG. I swear, if she rolls her eyes at me one more time I will have her bent over my knee in a heartbeat, injured leg be damned, and that ass will have my handprint marked all over it.
That thought quickly evaporates when a spasm shoots through my left leg. It should be better by now. I don’t care what my doctors or my physiotherapist say, it should be better. It’s been two months since the accident, yet I’m still stuck with these stupid crutches. Stuck needing to sit down to shower. I can’t even carry a plate to the kitchen, or a cup of water to my bedside table, nevermind bending Sloane, or any woman, over my knees. Fuck. No woman wants a man who can’t even walk properly. Not to mention, no one wants to look at the nasty scars the accident left. And I’m not just talking about the ones on my leg. The road rash I was toldshouldn’t leave too much of a mark, left a mark—a nice long, wide one down the entire left side of my body. At least the ones on my legs and side are hidden most of the time. The one on my arm, not so much. Which is why, even thoughSloane keeps the house at an ungodly temperature, I’ve been rotating the four long-sleeved shirts I have.
My frustration brings on another wave of pain down my left side. I didn’t have any physiotherapy today. My therapist thought I’d need a break, but I fought him on it. I don’t want a break, I want my leg back, but he warned that pushing too much could do more damage. Usually, this level of pain is kept for physio days. I swear, I’d rather get hit by a car again, then have to do physio.
