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“How much have you had to drink?”

Another hiccup. “You’re a unicorn.”

I smirked. Yup. Wasted out of his mind.

He went on. “When you find a unicorn, you marry her. I think about you all the time. Do you ever think about me?”

Always. “Whenever I’m horny.”

He got quiet. It didn’t feel like a comfortable silence. It felt like a disappointed one. At least it was for me. I hated the lies I had to tell.

“Kristen…I think I’m gonna throw up.”

I closed the lid of my laptop. The room went pitch-black again, and I sat there against my headboard in the dark. He wouldn’t remember this call. He was too fucked up.

“Josh?”

It took a long minute until I got a slurred, “Yeah?”

I took a deep breath. “I think about you all the time. I miss you when you’re not with me.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I do.”

It felt so good to say it out loud. And to say it to him. Even if he was too wasted to retain it, it felt liberating to say just once how I felt.

I spoke low. “When you’re not with me, it feels like I’m hollow. I wonder what you’re doing. Who you’re with. I read your texts a hundred times.” My heart pounded. “I wanted to tell you I missed you back, but I can’t say that stuff to you. But I did miss you. The last two weeks felt like torture.”

He groaned and I heard the dragging of something metallic. Probably a wastebasket.

I sighed. “Josh, don’t black out there. Go back to your room.”

“No. I want to talk to you.” He sounded like he was spitting. He didn’t hear a word I’d said.

We sat in silence for a moment. I wondered if he’d passed out. “Josh?”

“Get Sloan and drive down here tomorrow. Let’s get married. Come on.”

I smiled gently. “I can’t marry you.”

Spitting. “Why? I would be a good husband to you. I would take care of you. I’d be a good dad.”

I moved the phone away from my mouth as a sudden wrenching urge to sob bolted into my throat. I pressed my lips together and forced it back down. “I know you would,” I whispered. “That’s why I can’t.”

More silence.

Then he spoke into my darkness. “I love you.”

My tears spilled down my cheeks and the lump in my throat threatened to suffocate me. “I love you too.”

The line went dead.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Josh

I love you too.