One of my hands drops the drawstring to tuck a piece of loose hair back behind my ear, and I manage to look at him again.
His eyelids close for a second longer than a standard blink, his nostrils flare as he inhales deeply, and I wonder, really wonder, what he’s thinking. I get this weird flash of seeing inside his head—I’m not crazy, I swear. It’s just this impression of histhoughts, there and gone in a blink, but somehow I justknowthis isn’t the first time he’s come in second place. Which is a fucking shame. He’s the best guy I’ve ever dated, by fuckingfar. He deserves someone devoted, drama-free, and who puts him first. I say a silent curse to Aaron for making sure that person isn’t me.
“I’m really sorry,” I whisper.
He shakes his head with determination. “Don’t be. I knew there was…history with you two. I just hoped it was over.”
A single drop of emotion bridges the rim of my left eye and falls, making its way down my cheek, and he wipes it away quickly, still caring, still thoughtful, still more than I deserve.
“It’s always been him,” I admit out loud.It always will beis what I don’t say, but he hears that, too.
Spencer nods staunchly in acceptance, and I don’t know how I get through the next few minutes. There’s a few more words exchanged, a hug where I’m wrapped in his arms one more time than I deserve and I can’t help but soak it in, while still comparing those same arms to Aaron’s. I wish him the best—and genuinely mean it—and he doesn’t even tell me to fuck off, which, kudos to him. If I was falling in love with someone and they told me they were in love with someone else but they wished me the best, I’m not so sure I’d be that mature. I really do hope he finds his person soon. But honestly, with how bitter I’m feeling about the guy I’m all but positive is mine, maybe it’s better he doesn’t.
Eventually, I’m back in my car, driving home, stewing over all that’s happened. And seriously,fuck Aaronfor putting me in this position. For making me think there was no hope for us, letting me find someone truly goddamn amazing, and then smashing it to shit right when it got great. For the first time, I had someone and something of my own that was dependable,stable. Things were fucking perfect with me and Spencer, or close to it. Aaron hadno rightto pull the shit he did.
It took me weeks and weeks after quitting to snap out of that funk he put me in with his cruel words, the careless way he treated me toward the end. And months of dating someone truly incredible to feel secure enough to come into my own along the way. And apparently that was exactly what he’d been waiting for all this time.
Bitterness coats my tongue, an acrid flavor that I’ve never associated with my best friend before, but it’s going to take alotto get this taste out of my mouth.
Was I not good enough for him on my own? Or was it when he saw that someone else appreciated what I have to offer that it hit home for him? Or maybe it was the changes I’ve gone through on a personal level that resonated for him? As mad at him as I am, I still have hope that he’s not so shallow that it’s my new hair and wardrobe, but the thought still stings, like squeezing a lemon for a cocktail and realizing you have sixteen tiny paper cuts on your pointer finger you didn’t know where there until the juice dribbles down and finds them. The insecurity of this will eat me the fuck alive if I let it, and I make the decisionnotto let it.
The simple truth is that I have loved Aaron since my heart was capable of loving anyone other than my parents and myself.
Iknowhe’s loved me just as long, but it’s never been in the same way, not until recently. And whatever flipped that switch, whatever brought that change in him, that’s onhim.
I have questions, and Iwillneed answers, but he’d better give me the space I fucking asked for for the time being. He will severely regret it if he pushes me too fast on this. I don’t want to see his face for a long damn time. I need to calm down, I need to process everything he said to me the other night, what it means for me, our friendship, our future, and whether, at this point, I’mstill willing to risk what we had for what we could be. If he even knows what the fuck he wants from me.
What we had is gone either way, truth be told. I know there’s no going back to it now. So my real question is if I can get past these past few months of shitty behavior, if I can envision a future where I don’t hold that against him for all eternity.
Honestly? Not sure that I can.
Also not sure that I can go on without him, either. That I would ever get over him, not fully. I’d probably always be comparing the arms I was in to his. I’d probably always be picturing his eyes when I stared into someone else’s. Wondering if the ecstasy of another man moving inside of me felt just like he would. And that just pisses me off even more.
All that I know right now is that I needtime. I want nothing to do with him for a while. I just want to do my thing, live my life, enjoy my new job, and let myself process all that’s gone down.
Except when I make the final turn and pull onto my street, an all-too-familiar sand-colored G-Wagen is in front of my house. And I know I’m not getting my wish anytime soon.
TWENTY-SIX
GEMMA
“Two minutes.” His voice cuts me off before I can even begin laying into him.
Which is pretty smart, because opening my front door to find him waiting in my house, a huge bouquet of peonies in a vase, on the table…let’s just say if I started going off? I might not stop until his next birthday.
More than his words, I register his tone. Warm. Confident. Certain. Something isdifferent, palpably, even from across the living space.
“Just give me two minutes, Gem. Then I’ll leave, and I won’t come back inside until you ask me to.” My eyes narrow at him, breath huffing in indignation at the intrusion, the violation of theonething I asked him for. Space. “I promise.” He’s so quiet on those last two words, it almost sounds like his voice is breaking.
He drops into one of my little dining room chairs—dwarfs it, actually, makes it look like matchsticks rather than one of the larger chairs IKEA has to offer. I expect him to drop his head in his hands, to rub his face up and down, to sigh. Instead, he maintains eye contact with me, makes a silent request for me to sit down, too, with that little pause there.
For some reason, I listen, walking over to the far side of the couch, propping my behind on the rounded arm, facing him where he sits a couple yards away. The distance doesn’t stop me from feeling his presence in my gut, the sensation sharp, tugging, impossible to ignore. I hate him for it.
“You’ve said a lot of things lately, Gem.” A kind of sad chuckle. “I’ve been hearing it from pretty much everyone important to me lately, actually. But you’re fucking right. I have a lot to work on.”
My eyebrows shoot up, and I make the concerted effort to bite my tongue—literally—so I can hear him out. Can’t help my curiosity here, I kinda need to know where he’s going with this little speech. Call me sadistic.
“You were right about…all of it, really.” His eyes drop down to my shitty, unidentifiably neutral-colored carpet for a second before they meet mine again. “I’ve been unconscionable. The shit I’ve pulled on you…” And he does sigh this time. It sounds like regret. Yearning. “You haven’t deserved any of it.”
