"I called the cops on a bird. The entire police department now knows my name. My hot neighbor thinks I'm a lunatic. Half the town will know about this by the end of the week. Come next week, I'm going to be the girl who called bird!"
"It's not that serious."
"They could have shot him." Her bottom lip quivers, and my heart sinks. So, that's what she's so upset about, not that everyone will laugh at her, but that she could have lost him.
God. We're two peas in a freaking pod, aren't we?
"Hey." I wrap my arm around my waist, resting my head against hers. "You did the right thing, Olive. It's funny in retrospect because it was just a bird, but if I'd heard someone screaming for help, I would have made the call, too. Any reasonable person would have. That's not something you just ignore, even if you do like the guy."
"I feel like a jerk," she mutters.
"You feel like a jerk because you like him," I say. "You've been spiraling and connecting all these dots to paint your own picture because it's easier than admitting the truth. That's kind of what you do, you know."
"Is not," she mutters.
"Yeah, it is. You panic-spiral and come up with reasons not to do the thing you want to do, even when the reasons aren't logical. That's precisely why you haven't gone on a single date in two years. You're scared to put yourself out there again."
"Fine, maybe I do that a little bit. But I'm not the only one with issues here," she says, giving me a pointed look.
"I don't have issues." It's not really a lie. What I have is deep-rooted trauma and a fear of abandonment.
"Oh, really? So we're just going to keep pretending that you didn't go out with my brother?"
I jerk in shock, sloshing coffee across my hand.
"Shit!" I cry, flinging it off before turning wide, panicked eyes on her. I feel like I can't breathe. The walls are back, closing in faster than ever. "I…I…"
"I know," Olive says quietly, no judgment in her tone.
Maybe that's what finally makes me snap—the fact that she knows and she isn't judging me. She's just sitting here right now, patiently waiting for me to admit what I think she may already know.
Except…she doesn't know. She doesn't have a clue that I'm so in love with him that I'm literally fucking frozen with fear.
"You don't," I whisper.
"I do."
"You really, really don't. I…we…" I huff, turning pink. I don't even know where to start or how to explain. She's always told me all her secrets, but I've always been too afraid of her pity to tell her the worst of mine. Those, I've carried in silence, hoping shenever had to know. But…I guess life doesn't work that way, does it?
"My date was a jerk, Olive," I start. "Jasper rescued me, and then things just…happened."
"What?" Her brows furrow like she didn't hear me.
"My date was a jerk."
"What are you talking about? Jasper was your date."
"What?" I gape at her, confused as hell.
"You were supposed to be meeting him."
"I was?"
"Yeah. I knew you would never make a move, so I made a fake profile and lied to you to get you to meet up with him, and I'm not even sorry about it," she says defiantly. "You like each other, and he's not overseas any longer. It was beyond time for this to happen."
Oh, my god.
He wasn't there by accident that night. He wassupposedto be there. This entire time, it was supposed to be him.
