“I am certain.”
Bo paused. “Did anything happen with Berg? When you were in LA?”
Willa turned sharply towards Bo. “What made you ask that?”
“Well, it’s just you were off to LA to save Berg from certain doom at the hands of party girl Katie—”
“Kara,” Willa corrected with a frown.
“Right, Kara. Anyway, you went off to see Berg but came back and almost immediately got engaged to Scarrow and to be honest, you just don’t seem very content, Wills.”
Willa nodded while taking a large sip of the wine she’d just poured. “I am content, Bo. Really, I am. It’s just . . .” she took another sip. “It’s just, I thought a lot about what you said to me. When we argued.”
Bo flinched. “Look, about that—”
“No, don’t try and apologize again, you don’t need to.” Willa took a deep breath. “The truth is, I just didn’t want to hear it. Everything you said . . . you were right, Bo. I had stuff to work out with Berg and for a long time, I used his illness as a . . . I guess a kind of crutch. That was something he was always terrified of too. Berg, I mean.”
“He was scared?”
Willa nodded. “Yes. He was always scared I’d end up as his nurse or sobriety companion. He was downright terrified he’d start using me as a crutch to keep him off drink and drugs. He never wanted that. Neither do I. All that space Berg insisted on between us for all those years . . .” Willa sighed. “He was right to do it. And now, it’s too late for us, and I have to let him go.”
Have to let him go.The words echoed painfully inside of Bo’s mind and she swallowed a mouthful of wine down over the lump that had suddenly grown in her throat.
“So, he’ll be with Kara, and I’ll marry Scarrow, and we’ll both be okay,” Willa decided, and it frightened Bo to hear how blank her voice sounded. “And then, maybe one day, he and I will be friends again. Maybe one day I’ll realize that I didn’t lose him, he just was never meant to be mine. And maybe one day I’ll realize that’s okay.”
The knot of empathy Bo felt for Berg turned into a knot of pain for Willa, and she reached for her.
“I’m sorry, you know,” Willa carried on, drinking another mouthful of wine. “I’m sorry for cutting you out and ignoring you. I was hurting, and when I thought of you, and what you said, it hurt even more.”
“Oh, Wills.”
“It was true, Bo.” Willa looked up at her with wide eyes. “What you said. It was true. It just hurt to admit it and so instead I cut you out and just sat around being miserable and . . . andmissingyou.” Abruptly, Willa’s eyes filled with tears. “I’ve really missed you, and I’ve missed what’s happened in your life, and now that I’m back, just look at the state of you.”
“Hey,” Bo protested, wiping away a tear from her own cheek. “I don’t lookthatbad.”
“You don’t look great though, Bo.” Willa looked her up and down. “Do you want to tell me what happened? With Mr Two out of Ten?”
Bo shrugged, taking her wine and going back to her bed. She sat cross-legged upon it, picking up Max’s purple shirt once more and holding it.
“What is that?” Willa asked, following Bo and pointing to the garment clutched within her hands. “Did you accidentally boil your washing with a full red cabbage or something?”
Bo gave a soft smile. “It belongs to Max. He, umm, gave it to me.”
“That’s the ugliest gift I’ve ever seen. You mean to tell me that he owns all of Geoffrey’s house and that shirt was the best thing he could get you?”
“It wasn’t like that, it wasn’t a gift, not as such. He just gave it to me.”
“And you’re holding it like it’s your newborn baby.” Willa sighed. “You really did go and fall in love with this guy, didn’t you?”
Bo nodded. “Yeah, I did. Not that it matters. He’s not interested.”
“I thought you were sleeping together? The ultra-casual arrangement? The Band-Aid to get you back in the saddle after Oliver?”
Bo blushed red. “That’s right.”
“But he’s not interested in you?” Willa frowned.
“Nope. Not as a long-term prospect, anyway. He made it pretty clear that we’re just a temporary thing.” Bo took a deep breath. “He doesn’t love me, Wills. Not like I love him. He doesn’t love me, and the moment he found out I loved him, he . . . he took off back to Berlin.” Her voice broke a little as she spoke, and she took a deep breath, trying to calm both herself and the hurt within her.
