I’m fuming. I’m so angry I’m almost delirious from it. “This is fucking stupid. You’re a piece of shit.”
“Callie,” Rosie warns me. “What’s the big deal?”
“Yeah, Callie, I mean like I said, you say I love you to Jessie and Rosie all the time and they’re sisters. I just said I love my moronic immature best friend,” Jordan states, and I see Luc flipping his middle finger at the laptop from the corner of my eye. “So if you love us like brothers, just say, ‘I love you.’ I promise I will stop hating you.”
“I love you, Jordan, you stupid jerk-off.”
“Great. Right back at ya, bitch,” he replies with a sarcastic roll of his eyes. “Now say you love Devin.”
“Oh my fucking God, you’re a fucking idiot!” I scream.
No one says a word for a long moment. I take a deep breath and roll my eyes and try to swallow down all the emotions roaring inside me like freight trains headed right for each other.
“I love him.”
“Who?”
“You fucking little…” My chest tightens. “I love Devin.”
My breath catches in my throat. My eyes instantly fill with tears. I feel like I might choke—like those emotions I swallowed down are actual solid objects. My heart starts to hammer. I might pass out. A sob breaks from my lips suddenly like an errant hiccup and I cover my mouth with a shaky hand. “I love Devin.”
Jordan’s smile turns from confident and annoying to satisfied and sympathetic.
“And there you go,” he says, like he just solved a particularly hard sudoku or explained why the sky is blue or something.
I start to cry. I can’t stop. And it’s not a pretty cry. It’s a full-on messy, meltdown cry. Rose rushes to my side and wraps her arms around me. Through my blurry vision I see Jessie pop into view next to Jordan on the laptop.
“I love Devin. I love him,” I repeat in a stunned panic. “I love him so much.”
“We know,” Jordan says casually, not at all disturbed by my tears, which I want to find perplexing, but I am too much of a mess. “But he doesn’t know.”
“Why the fuck would you do this to me?” I sob as Rose pets my hair.
“Because I knew if you just said it out loud, you’d be forced to admit it to yourself,” he says happily as he pulls Jessie down on his lap. “When we were kids and Jessie left me, I lost it. I ran from my feelings. I was too young to deal with it, but you’re an adult, Callie. You’ve been an adult since you were a kid, thanks to your shitty parental problems. And adults face their fears and go for what they want in life. So fucking stop sobbing and go tell my brother you love him.”
I take a deep, almost-calming breath and nod shakily.
“Go fast,” Luc warns seriously. “He’s supposed to spend tonight with Ashleigh.”
My heart plummets.
“Not because he wants to but becauseshewants to—and because he thinks you’re not going to love him,” Luc adds hastily. “Callie, you need to get your ass over there.”
I stare at nothing in particular and blink my eyes. He’s with Ashleigh. I have actually driven him back to her. I thought I wanted that and I got it. I may have ruined my own life. Broken my own heart.
“He loves you too, Callie,” Jordan assures me as Jessie beams lovingly at him and plays with his moppy blond locks. “And he deserves you as much as you deserve him.”
“I am so going to have sex with you right now,” Jessie announces giddily.
“Gotta go!” Jordan blurts out, grinning, and then Skype goes black as he logs out.
Rosie pulls me off the bed and to my feet. “Come on! Let’s get you dressed and cleaned up ASAP.”
I let her pull me to the bathroom.
“Are you sure?” I ask her when we’re alone in the bathroom and she’s pulling out my makeup case.
“Yes! Callie, he loves you. You love him!” she tells me urgently, her eyes wide. “I know why our childhood would make you believe unconditional love isn’t something that happens to you. But it happened, Callie. You’ve got the chance to be loved by someone who loves you back and will love you back forever. Go for it! You deserve to be happy, Cal. I swear to God you do!”
