“Sibyl,” I try to reassure her, but my voice sounds as panicked as I feel.
I don’t know how to manage the way I’m feeling. Don’t know how to separate the past from the present. I’ve fucked people in the last four years, but I’ve never done this. Never made love to someone whom I could also fall in love with. Someone who could be more. Who could replace Lara.
It feels like cheating. It feels…
Sibyl slips off of me, rolling away from me, shoulders shaking. I know she’s crying. But I can’t make myself go to her. Instead, I end up on the other side of the room, yanking my jeans on, desperate to get out of this situation—to forget that any of this happened. That I let myself feel this again. I already had my person. I already got my happily ever after. You aren’t supposed to have those twice. I’m not supposed to have these feelings for someone other than Lara.
“I’m so sorry,” Sibyl whispers, slipping into her clothes as tears track down her cheeks.
This is wrong, all of it is wrong. I should hold her. I should tell her it’s okay. I can make this be okay.
I should do a lot of things, but I don’t. Because what I do is the absolute worst option.
I look the second-best thing that’s ever happened to me in the eyes and tell her to leave.
Chapter 9
Sibyl
I cried a lot that night.The one where Eli looked at me like I just broke his heart, like we’d done something so unforgivable, he hated himself.
He said he wanted me. Said he wanted to make me his, and then he looked at me like I broke something.
I scrubbed myself raw in the shower that night. I’d never felt dirtier in my entire life. Eli isn’t married, he’s a widower, but he still feels like he is. I could see the betrayal clearly on his face.
It’s been three weeks, and I haven’t seen him since. The gallery from Ramona sits unopened in my email. Her questions about an update go unanswered. The girls and Kellan are pissed at me for refusing to share even the tiniest of details with them about that day.
They assumed it was so bad I couldn’t talk about it. Kellan has demanded a name for retribution. They don’t know it was the best and simultaneously worst day of my life.
We’ve been avoiding each other, or rather, I spend hours of my day staring at the shop door, willing him tocome in, only to be constantly disappointed when he doesn’t.
I don’t know how he could have been clearer—between the look on his face and the way he told me to go. I thought he wanted me, but I guess he didn’t want me enough.
Hazel
OK what is going on with you and Ellie?
Ellie
E L I
SHIT!
Me
wdym?
Hazel
Don’t play stupid with me
What the hell is going on?
Tucker said he hasn’t seen you in weeks.
Me
He hasn’t needed me.
