Drew’s arms tighten.
Not enough to trap.
Enough to hold.
“I know.”
“He picked her.”
The words shake.
So does everything in me.
“I know.”
“I wasn’t enough.”
That one gets a reaction.
His hand stills once at the back of my head.
Then resumes, slower.
“Don’t do that.”
I laugh and cry at the same time, the sound ruined beyond repair.
“It’s true.”
“No,” he says quietly. “What’s true is he was unfinished where she was concerned.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“He was my…” I can’t even say it properly at first. “He was my best friend.”
That hurts more than anything else.
Not the kisses.
Not the almost-relationship.
Not even the public humiliation.
That.
The fact that I lost the person I texted first.
The one who knew my schedule.
The one who sat through my rehab appointments and Sunday breakfast and Saturday-night Netflix on the floor when I couldn’t do stairs right and coffee dates and all those ordinary little companionable things that become part of your nervous system before you realize they’re not permanent.
“He was my coffee date,” I whisper brokenly into his shoulder. “My breakfast buddy. My—my steady person.”
Drew’s breathing changes.
Not jealousy.
Not irritation.
