“I’m on my way,” she states, and she hangs up. I get up from my chair and head inside, curling on the couch until the knock on the door has me getting up. I walk to the door and pull it open, but the smile on her face disappears when she sees me. “What in the world?” she questions, coming in. I try to smile and make a joke, but all I can do is sob. She wraps her arms around me as she rubs my back softly up and down. “Shhh,” she soothes softly, “it’s okay,” She tries her best to soothe me and when I finally stop crying, my breath hitches. “It’s going to be okay.”
I step out of her embrace as I try to stop the tears from dripping down my cheeks. “Lexi,” I say her name and she wraps her arm around my shoulders as she turns and makes her way to the couch. “I don’t know.” I lean forward and grab a motherfucking tissue and blow my nose.
She sits next to me and rubs my back. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
“I fell in love with him, Lexi.” I do not, in fact, start at the beginning, I start in the middle, maybe at the end. “Except I don’t even know if it’s love,” I admit to her. “I don’t fucking know.” I throw my hands up. “I have no fucking idea because I never fucking had anyone who loved me,” I say angrily. “I mean, I love Kirby, obviously. He’s my brother, but this, with him.” I put my hand to my chest. “It hurts so much. I thought it would go away. Thought the pain of not talking to him and knowing he was gone was going to slowly fade. I thought I would wake up the next day and the pain would be less and every single day the ache would get smaller and smaller. But it didn’t. It isn’t. It’s getting harder and harder, and the pain is getting to be so much it hurts to even breathe.” I look at her and see her with tears running down her face.
“Kylie,” she says my name in a whisper, “you aren’t starting at the beginning.”
“Knox,” I say his name and her eyes go as big as saucers. “Yeah, him.” I sigh. “Him and his perfect fucking face. With his perfect fucking smile. With his—” I shake my head. “Everything about him I thought I didn’t like, I like.” I look at her. “I was so scared to love him and then have him take it away from me if I messed something up.”
“Kylie,” she soothes, shaking her head.
“I’m so scared, Lexi. I’m so fucking scared that I’ll love him with everything I have and then it will be pulled away from me, and I’ll be left empty.” I wring the tissue in my hand.
“Love doesn’t come with strings,” she tells me. “It doesn’t come with conditions. It doesn’t come with expectations. It comes with care and protectiveness. It comes with trust and affection. It’s pure and so, so good.”
“I don’t know if I can do it,” I admit to her. “I don’t know if I can love him.”
“You don’t think you can love him?” She smiles through tears. “Honey, you already do if you are making yourself sick over it.”
“What if he doesn’t love me?” I ask her. “What if I give him a piece of me and he doesn’t want it?”
“Then he’s an idiot and we get Kirby to beat his ass.”
“I broke up with him,” I tell her. “Told him I didn’t want him.”
“Is that why you left?” I nod. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know how,” I confess to her. “How do I say I fell in love with Knox when I don’t even know what love is?”
“You have the purest heart I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing.” She puts her head to mine. “I love you with all of mine,” she says, “and I’m saying this with the best of intentions.” She puts her arm around my shoulders, pulling me to her and putting her head on mine. “But you look like absolute garbage.”
I laugh through the tears. “I mean, at least I look how I feel. I think I love him.” I close my eyes and silently cry, “I think I love him.” I open my eyes again, putting my hand on my mouth. “I just don’t know if I can take that step.”
“You’ll take it when you are ready to take it,” she assures me softly.
“What if—” I don’t even want to say the words.
“If he loves you?” she finishes with a smile and tears. “He’ll wait for you.” I know she says that thinking of my brother, who waited for her patiently on the side. “Now let’s get you in the shower and get some food into you.”
“I’m not hungry,” I tell her and she stands up and takes me with her. She walks slowly into the bedroom with me and, with all the patience in the world, she undresses me and gets me in the shower. While I wash my hair, she goes to the kitchen and makes me something to eat with a tea.
I sit at the island on the stool, eating for the first time in almost ten days. “Knox,” she says his name and I snort out with the way she says it.
“Yeah.” I nod my head.
“I mean, I suspected the two of you went to that retreat, but I didn’t even think.”
“He’s…” I look up at her and the tears pool in my eyes. “He’s—” I can’t even say it, so I just sigh. “There aren’t adequate words to say how much.”
“I get it,” she says and for the whole day she stays with me. I see her texting and I know she should be at the game with Kirby.
“You have to get out of here,” I tell her from my side of the couch, where I’m lying down. “I’ll be fine.”
“What did you decide to do?” she asks me, getting up and grabbing her jacket.
“I am thinking it over. I know I need to see him. I just don’t need to see him when I look like I’m dying.” I point to myself, getting up, and she follows me.
