“Jesus Christ, youstillthink I’m lying? Is this a sadism thing for you? Can’t get your rocks off unless you’re making someone else feel like shit? Cool, Bash. Fine. I lied. Want me to tattoo it on my fucking forehead? Go on national television and tell the whole world I lied about being a Dr. Pepper drinking ghost girl so I could get bred and fucking publically humiliated twice?”
His eyes widen as he hastily holds up his hands in surrender. “Whoa, what the fuck? That’s not — fuck. I didn’t mean for it to come out as though I didn’t believe you still. I was saying even if youwerelying I still shouldn’t have acted the way I did. But I know you weren’t lying now. I believe you.”
My traitorous hands are shaking so badly, I ball them into fists tight enough to leave bloody crescent moons all over my palms. I’m not letting him do this.
“Congratulations on being the last to know, then. Anything else I can help you with today?”
The shock on his face almost makes me feel bad for him, but that sympathy is quickly absorbed by my rage when I realize he actually thought that’s all it would take. “I... guess... no? Wait, yes. Alaina, I’m sorry.”
All I wanted was to thank him and he wouldn’t hear it. Now he expects me to just accept his apology?
You’re better than this, I remind myself.You’re better than he is.
Deflating, I purse my lips together in the closest thing to a smile I can muster. “Apology accepted. Now maybe you can accept the gratitude I was trying to give you all along and we can both move along with our lives. Separately.”
His face falls even further before he steps in so close I can smell his cologne. “Separately?”
“I’m trying to do some good here, Bash. My entire life has been drowned in blood and tears, and I would’ve thought you of all people would understand how hard this is for me. You read the books and clearly you heard about the tour, which meansyou know exactly what I’m doing here. It’s not so different from you writing your emotions and screaming them to thousands of people — the only difference is that I get to listen to them scream their emotions back at me, you just hear noise. I don’t have it in me to help them and deal with —” I vaguely gesture toward him as I take a step back — “This.”
Frowning, he stops his hand midway like he was about to touch me. “Would you have had the time for it if I never fucked it up?”
That’s an excellent question. If he wants honesty, that’s what I’ll give him. “Yes, I would have. I was all in with my little delusion that you were going to believe me, and then you didn’t. And you didn’t just think I was lying, you used me because you assumed I was using you. If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have even made this change. I’d have stuck to the signings themselves and let other people’s grief be their own, but you put me in a position where I had to really look at myself and what I was doing with my life. So yeah, I guess I’d have made the time if things had gone differently, but they didn’t, and now these people need me.”
“And what about you?” he asks, lowering himself when I try to drop my gaze to catch it again. “What doyouneed, Alaina?”
I need him to be the man I thought he was, but that’s not fair to him. No one grows up to be the same as they were when they were twelve, and humans rarely live up to the expectations we have for them.
Every part of me wants to curl against him, breathe in the scent of his cologne, and cry until I don’t have any tears left. I want him to kiss them all away, hold my hand, and make me forget every terrible thing that’s ever happened to me, but he can’t. Or won’t, one of the two. He can’t rebuild my walls for me, not this time.
“I need the world to stop trying to smother everything good inside it,” I say flatly. “I need children to grow up in decent homes, for people to be able to trust their spouses not to hurt them. I need to not live in a society that values billionaires over the most vulnerable amongst us. Can you do that, Bash? Can you change the world?”
He takes two steps back to slump against a wall with a sigh. “No. I wish Icould, but I don’t have that kind of power. If anyone is strong enough to change the world, it’s you. Not me.”
“Then I have everything I need. I appreciate you stopping by to clear the air, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank you for what you did for me back then. I genuinely believe you saved my life in more ways than one, but we were kids.” Taking a half step toward the door, I add, “You’re off the hook, Bash. I don’t need saving this time.”
It’s the first lie I’ve ever told him, but I see it written all over his face. He believes me. The time I needed him to call out a lie is the time he chooses to take me at my word. Typical.
“Okay. But can you do me a favor before you walk out of here? Can you save my number in your phone?”
If nothing else, it’ll tell me which calls to ignore. I hand it over. “Go ahead.”
He takes his time saving it, eyes flicking between me and the screen a few times before he gives it back. “Use it. We were friends once. That doesn’t have to only be our past, it can be our future too.”
Yeah, I’m sure it can. “Are you capable of just being my friend?”
His body language says absolutely the fuck not, but he sets his jaw and nods his head once.
Yeah, that’s super believable. Every instinct in my body tells me that agreeing to this is a mistake, but I can’t bring myself to say no. It’s stupid and incredibly idiotic, but even now, I just want to take him home and start over.
“Friends, then.”
“Do friends hug?”
Normal ones, yes. I just have a feeling that if I hug him, all the rot inside of me will cover our shoes and rise until it drowns us both. I don’t think I’m stable enough to hug him right now.
So, I do the only logical thing I can do and wrap my stupid, traitorous arms around him anyway.
He squeezes me against him like he’s desperate for the contact, and I hate how good it feels to be in his arms. “Do friends kiss?”
