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“For allowing you to believe that we could be friends again.”

And just like that, my stomach plummeted to the ground and I felt my heart shattering into a million little pieces.

I was horrified at myself. I was completely stricken with pain over the fact that I allowed myself to believe that Dawson and I could ever be like we once were. The last three days of shared laughter and easy conversation, like I was getting to know him again, had felt like standing under a nice spring shower on a record high day, but now, with him staring at me with guilt written all over his face, I felt more like a volcano had erupted behind me and I was being scorched with hot, simmering lava.

My voice broke. “It’s fine.”

But it wasn’t. I felt sick to my stomach. I’d gone six years without him by my side and in a matter of a few nights together, I was right back to feeling that same, damn, devasting heartbreak I’d felt back then, when my entire life had flipped upside down.

“Ivy…” he started, watching my face fall and tears form behind my eyes. For a second, I felt relieved because I could tell the way his face twisted that he still cared about me. That at least, for a split second, he didn’t want to see me hurt. He inched his way toward me, and then it was as if a brick wall had been thrown up in front of us.

Instead of taking a step in my direction, he took a step back. Further and further until he was at the door. He locked onto my face one more time before he spun around and stomped away. I stood in the same spot until I heard his truck pulling out from behind my Camry. That’s when I let the floodgates open.

I was openly weeping for a friendship that I didn’t even think was possible a few weeks ago.

And if I wanted to be truthful to myself, I was openly weeping for more than just a broken friendship.

Chapter Eighteen

Dawson

“Breanna, there is nothing going on with Ivy and I. We aren’t even friends.”

God, did that hurt coming out of my mouth. Like a repeated punch to the gut.

Breanna and I had been going back and forth about Ivy, nonstop. She was pretty adamant that something was going on between us and I wasn’t sure if I was really that obvious or if Breanna was just so obsessed with hating her that she’d hang on to any good reason to fight about it.

I told Ivy on Monday that we couldn’t be friends, and the look on her face almost sent me straight to the grave. But that night with Breanna stuck with me.

Before I left to go work on Ivy’s house, we’d been bickering, as she still wasn’t over me not telling her about Ivy in the first place. The last words she said to me had my steps faltering at the door.

She yelled, “Just remember who picked you up when you were down, Dawson. She hurt you, and I was the one who picked you up. I was the one who waited around for you to get over it. She didn’t come back here for you.”

I didn’t say anything because she was right. Ivy did hurt me, and even if it was inevitable at the time, I still couldn’t deny the pain.

I knew very well that she’d had to leave. I was aware that she had to go live with her uncle because her parents had passed away in the fire. Of course, at the time, I’d thought she just left without a single goodbye but even if she’d told me goodbye, it still would have hurt just as much.

The feelings for her that I’d developed through our friendship never really left. They ran deep, deeper than anything I’d ever felt. Breanna was a great numbing agent. She numbed the pain for so long that I finally just gave in to her. I ignored all the unresolved emotions still swarming around for Ivy in my head…out of sight, out of mind, but now that she was back, those feelings were popping up in every fucking direction. The second I pushed one down, another one popped up.

And Breanna wasn’t numbing them anymore and I knew the more time I spent around Ivy, the more they would emerge, and it would be too late.

I would be consumed by her and then I’d be fucked, because if she could hurt me that badly, six years ago, before we even started a real relationship… I couldn’t even imagine the pain that I would feel now if she were to leave.

I knew she was also feeling some type of attraction or lust. I would catch her stare every few seconds and each time it would se

nd a wild thrill through me. The way her body reacted when I was close, the way her laughter was so easy and free. I had a pretty big feeling that she still felt what we’d both never really openly admitted years ago, and that had me on the edge of my seat. But, I could be wrong.

And I hated admitting it but I almost didn’t want to give her the power to hurt me again. I was better off with Breanna, in my safe-zone. It wasn’t a bad safe-zone by any means; in fact, I hadn’t even had these thoughts pushing up against my skull before Ivy came back to town. Which was just another reason that I should probably stay away from her.

I should leave the past where it was.

But I wasn’t quite sure I could.

Breanna’s shrill voice broke me out of my pathetic, repetitive thoughts. “That’s not what I heard!”

My brow furrowed as my chest heaved. I took in Breanna’s posture; her exposed shoulders were pulled back slightly so that her breasts were pushed up towards my face. Usually, I would have stared and felt some arousal, but not right now.

She was acting absolutely crazy.


Tags: S.J. Sylvis Oak Hill Romance