The question echoed in my head as the door closed behind me. Everything felt strangely muted, like the world had been wrapped in cotton. My chest felt tight, my limbs heavy, yet my thoughts raced in frantic circles, replaying every second of the conversation.
I had to have misunderstood something. I must have.
Because there was no way I had read her that wrong. Not Nyah. Not after everything we’d shared. The quiet moments. The looks. The way it had felt whenever we were together.
The elevator doors slid shut with a soft metallic sound.
I leaned back against the wall and stared up at the ceiling, a hollow laugh escaping my throat before I could stop it.
Congratulations, idiot!I thought bitterly.You just lost the love of your life.
26
NYAH
Acouple of mornings later, I popped the medication into my mouth and chugged the water. Having to hit the pause button with Caleb had pushed my feelings for him to the back of my mind—or rather, I tried to push them there. I needed to get over the weird, hollow feeling sitting in the pit of my stomach, and I needed to get over it fast. I’d slept poorly that night, tossing and turning, but I woke up knowing I’d done the right thing, even if it hurt.
Nothing had even started with Caleb, and yet I felt sick to my stomach, like I was standing on the edge of something I didn’t know how to stop. He’d had an unusual effect on me from the beginning. Not even Harper had ever had that kind of effect on me.
Replaying his overheard conversation with Lucas, I kept hearing the equivocation in his voice, the uncertainty that hung there. He wasn’t the woman-using cad I’d once imagined him to be, and that complicated everything.
I knew his feelings for me only ran in one direction—friendship. Perhaps he was incapable of deeper love, and perhaps he hadn’t acted on his attraction out of respect for Lucas and for me. I could respectthat, even if it stung, and I needed to make sure Lucas would do so as well.
“I need to talk to you about something important,” I said to him while we were having breakfast, forcing my tone to stay light.
“What is it, Mama?”
“It’s about Caleb.”
“Is everything all right?”
I nodded. “I know you’re getting close to him, sweetheart, but I want you to understand that Caleb and I are just very good friends.” The words tasted foreign, like I was convincing myself as much as I was convincing him.
“You don’t like him, Mama?”
“I do like him, baby,” I said softly, “but again, as a friend. We are good friends like Aunty Elle and Aunty Donna.”
“Those are girls, Mama. Don’t you want a boyfriend… like how it was with Harper?”
“You remember, huh?” I asked, surprised by the way my throat caught.
Lucas nodded.
“Baby, all I need is you and no one else. As long as I have you, everyone else takes second place.” I meant it with every part of me, even as another part quietly mourned what could never be.
“You love me that much?”
“More than you know, sweetheart.”
“I do like Caleb, though, Mama. Can he still hang out with us?”
The attraction between Caleb and me was real—devastatingly real—and pretending otherwise didn’t make it disappear. Still, the foundation of our friendship had been laid and sealed, and I knew it was better that way. With Jeremy looming in the background, safety and precaution had to come first, for my son and for me.
“Yes, he can, baby. So no more matchmaking, okay?”
“Okay, Mama.”
And just like that, life moved on for Lucas and me—his effortlessly, mine with an ache I carried alone now that I knew the truth.
