Cancel the mayday. Call off the search. There are no survivors.
I shook off the shitty feelings and beelined for Aly and Fin on the other side of the deck. They were both whispering harshly back and forth, their voices growing as I got closer to them.
“—don’t deserve that shit. And you keep going back to him for some godforsaken reason!”
“For fucks sake, I’m not just gonna throw away almost five years. We’re working on it and he’s promised me…”
“Oh my god,that piece of shit has already broken a hundred promises to you, Fin. I don’t know why you brought him with you when all he’s done is?—”
“Just stop! I don’t want to talk about this anymore!”
“But he’s?—”
“Hey guys, everything okay?” I interjected quickly, noticing tears forming in Fin’s angry teal eyes. Aly shot Fin a plaintive look as he stormed off, sidling up next to a tall guy who easily could have passed for a linebacker. He was chatting up a girl by the drinks cooler while Fin meekly tried to get his attention, and that alone had my guard up. I was pretty sure Fin ran on nothing but pure sass and confidence. I had never known him to be as submissive and subdued as he looked now.
“He never listens to anyone about that douchebag,” Aly muttered softly.
“Is that the boyfriend Fin got back together with a couple months ago?”
“In the cheating, narcissistic flesh. Dan is the drug Fin can’t ever seem to kick. I don’t get why he keeps going back to him.”
“Maybe he really loves him?”
“He only thinks he does. But it stopped being about that a long time ago. Fin just can’t ever seem to say no to him.” Aly’s face pinched with concern and my thoughts darkened.
“He’s never hurt Fin, has he?”
“Not physically that I know of…but you know there’s more than one way to break a person.”
I looked on worriedly as Dan finally allowed himself to be dragged away, snapping something at Fin as he did. The wince on Fin’s face told me enough about what was probably said. “You’ll let me know if I need to step in, yeah?”
“You’ll have to beat Griffin to it. You see his face?”
I searched for Griff in the crowd and sure enough, his face was a mottled red and the grip on his beer bottle was noticeably tight. He was glowering at Fin and Dan who were now huddled in the corner with Fin smiling tightly and trying to not draw anyone’s focus over to them even as he was being berated by that drunk asshole.
“I’ll keep an eye on them today, but there’s nothing we can really do until Fin is ready to listen,” Aly said defeatedly. “Anyway, how is it going between you and Theo?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “It’s like one step forward, two steps back with us. But we finally talked and agreed to leave the past in the past and move on as friends.”
Aly pinned her bottom lip between her teeth, assessing me carefully. “And is that really what you want? To only be his friend?”
“That’s all we can be.”
“Why?”
“There’s something so…different about him. It’s like he’s my old Theo one second and then this switch flips. I can’t shake the feeling that he’s hiding something from me. And until he tells me, I can’t trust him enough to be anything else.”
“I’m sorry, babe. I really am,” she said, squeezing my arm sympathetically. “Do you still love him?”
My throat clenched around the words, forcing them down. I couldn’t admit it. Not now, not here. Something told me she already knew the answer anyway. Aly hugged my arm and rested her head on my shoulder.
“Life is seriously twisted sometimes. Especially since the ones we love most have the power to hurt us the worst.”
I grunted in agreement. I knew that better than most. It was a painful lesson I was reminded of when I glanced over at Theo, his perfect smile aimed at a guy I didn’t recognize. He was gorgeous, with shoulder length dreads and teeth blindingly white against his dark skin. They looked really good together too. A beautiful contrast that twisted my insides torturously.
The guy laughed at something Theo said, knocking his shoulder in a way that seemed flirty but maybe only appeared that way through my jealous eyes. I tried to look away, but it was like rubbernecking on the highway when passing a car crash.
Our gazes collided and it punched the air from my lungs. Theo’s smile seemed stale as though he’d been holding it in place too long, his lips slowly sinking from the weight of it. His eyes glazed over the tiniest bit and I saw it.
