“Then I fucked up with Asher, and he called it off.”
“Wait.” Paul lifted his hand. “Asher?” He widened his eyes. “You mean Ashley?” He laughed, not waiting for me to confirm his suspicion. “I knew that was a dude. Jesus.”
“What?” Mary said, all innocent and oblivious.
“Mary, my dear sister. Our older brother is into some kinky shit.”
“We can stop talking about this now,” I deadpanned.
“Ashley, the pretty girl he brought to the New Year’s Eve dinner, is a guy.Theguy,” Paul said to Mary.
I nodded when she only blinked in my direction.
“Oh my,” Mary whispered as Paul kept laughing.
In spite of the breakup and of the news I’d just dumped on my younger siblings, I laughed as well. It was a bit funny now that I was on this side of the closet door.
“What happened?” Mary asked. “You said you messed up?”
“His exact words were ‘fucked up.’”
Mary waved that away and watched me expectantly.
“Learn from your older brother’s mistakes,” I said. “I wasn’t honest with myself, and that made me lie to everyone else. Don’t be like me. You get one life; live it. Be true to yourself if no one else.”
“That’s it.” Mary reached for her purse and snatched her phone free. “Truman and I are done.”
“Wait!” I snapped. “First of all, I did not tell you that so you’d break it off with your fiancé. And secondly, don’t do it through a text.”
She flipped her phone around with the calendar app open. “I’m not. Just setting a reminder.”
As I stared, Paul said, “A reminder to break up with your man?”
Mary nodded.
Paul shook his head. “Fuck me, I think Iamthe good child.”
With the three people closest to me now in the know about me and about Asher, I told them of my plan to win him back.
“I’m going to need your help. Are you up for it?”
Paul nodded eagerly.
Mary did the same and added, “Ah, l’amour!”
Good. Hopefully, Asher would give me the chance to sweep him off his feet as he’d deserved since the moment we met.
Daysblendedtogether.Iwasn’t sure how long I’d spent under my blankets this time, but it was enough for sour body odor to set in. Not a pretty sight or smell.
My dreams were over, my relationship was over, and all drive to do anything besides sleep had driven off without me.
I missed Luke. Every haggard breath from my lungs reminded me of his whispers. Every heartbeat was his against my body instead of my own. So many times, I’d picked up my phone, typed him a text, only to erase it. The simple act of saying “hi” would be enough to make me walk back every hard-earned inch I’d taken for myself. I’d done the right thing. Maybe? No, I meant, yes, I had.
No one should force a person to come out. That wasn’t what I did, and I hoped Luke hadn’t taken it that way. But as much as I wanted him to live the life he wanted, I had to do the same too. He might grow to resent me one day, the reminder that he couldn’t be openly in love, or maybe I would. I didn’t want to hate him, so I had to stop while I still loved him.
Self-sabotaging? I couldn’t see any way around it.
“Savannah is here to see you,” Percy said. He’d been in my dorm room more than not lately.
