Something like a laugh and gasp comes out of me. “Is that right?”
“Of course. Hurting you was the last thing on my mind?—”
“No shit. Your mind was stuck on Connor’s dick.”
“That’s not fair?—”
“Do you think I give a flying fuck about fair right now, Leigh?”
She wisely clams up.
“I know I said I don’t make decisions based on anger, but I can’t stand the sight of you right now?—”
“I thought you said you were over Connor.” She hugs herself.
“This isn’t about him!” I bark. “This is about you and me and the friendship I thought we had! Friends don’t do this to each other!”
She moves suddenly, reaching for my hands with both of hers. A tear tracks down her face. “I know. I know friends don’t do this…Sage…” Her deep breaths steady themselves, as she stares me in the eye. “I’ve never wanted to be just friends.”
“Well, congratulations. I hope you and Connor live a long and miserable life together.”
“I never wanted to be just friends with you, Sage. You… and Connor.”
The words are words I know, but they don’t make sense. “What was that?”
She closes her eyes and sighs, as if this has been on her mind forever. “When you moved here, I knew that you were the one for me. But then I met Connor, and he was already yours, and I thought, what if there were two for me? What if—what if we could be a throuple?”
“I’m not?—”
“There was that night we got hammered on schnapps, and you don’t drink that often, so I thought that since you were making an exception that I was… exceptional to you. And then you told me about that threeway you had in college with that guy and the cheerleader girl?—”
“That was one time!”
Leigh slowly nods. “And what if you could have that every night, Sage? With people you care about?”
I jerk my hands from hers when I realize she’s still holding them. “You are out of your mind.”
“I’m not crazy. Just greedy.” She shrugs, as if that makes any of this better.
“You’re no better than every guy who pretends to be your friend to get in your pants—no wait. You’re worse, actually.”
“Don’t say that?—”
“You are. You thought you could wedge your way into my relationship with Connor and use that to get me too. You lied to me for over a year. Cheated on me worse than Connor ever did?—”
“But he was cheating with me, so how is that worse?”
I don’t understand how she doesn’t see it. “Because he was just a boyfriend, Leigh. You were supposed to be my person.”
“I can be your person again.” She steps closer and reaches for me. “If you’ll just let?—”
I take a giant step back. “You’re not my person. You never were. You tried to leverage our friendship into getting what you wanted from me. It was all lies, right from the start.”
“The best relationships start with friendship?—”
“And friendship isn’t built on lies!” I’m shouting. I don’t mean to, but I am. “I will never trust you again!” I bolt for the door. There’s nothing more to say to her.
My chest feels like it wants to cave in. My head’s spinning. I shouldn’t drive, and I know it, but I need to feel in control of something, so I do. But I force myself to go slowly, pay too much attention to the traffic lights.
