“Look, Georgia, yours and Ethan’s relationship doesn’t make any fucking sense,” she tells me. “The two of you are really tight. You’re completely in love with him, but you forget about that to be by his side. He’s really considerate of you, and, if you’re not already at his house, he invites you around at every chance. You cook meals for each other, you look after a kid together, you wallow in blankets and pillows either with that kid or just the two of you together while watching movies and eating popcorn. For fuck’s sake, when Lily is off somewhere else, the two of you just hang together because you want to keep each other company. You’re already in a relationship, and the two of you are both fucking idiots.”
I choke on my drink and put it down quickly.
“What, no, that’s not…” I shake my head quickly. “Ethan is my best friend. I’ve known him since I was eight. I’m pretty sure he looks at me like a little sister. So it’s not strange for siblings to be that close, right?”
Hayley gives me a pitying look.
“Looks like Ethan isn’t the only one who’s scared,” she says.
I stare at her. Scared? Of a relationship with Ethan? Why the hell would I be scared of that?
And then, slowly, the reason dawns on me. Ethan isn’t the only one who has had his heart broken in the last ten years. In fact, my heart first broke long before then, when Ethan first met and started falling in love with Polly. It broke when he married Polly and had a child with her, and again when we agreed to forget about having sex with each other. It broke every time I remembered that he would only ever see me as a friend. And then it broke again yesterday, despite the iron defenses I thought I had put around it.
Ethan has broken my heart over and over again since I was a teenager. He didn’t mean to, of course. I never once told him how I felt. He didn’t know how much he was hurting me every time he told me he loved me like a friend. And I’m the one that just went along with the flow, pretending everything was fine.
But the fact is, he did hurt me. And the idea that our relationship could change, that Ethan could be in a position where he could hurt me worse… That’s terrifying.
“What…what do I do?” I stammer.
“What do you want to do?” Hayley asks, raising an eyebrow. “You’ve waited over ten fucking years for this guy. Why did you do that when you’d already resigned yourself to him never seeing you that way? Now, suddenly, there’s a chance and you want to run from it. Are you stupid?”
“But we could be wrong,” I say desperately. “Maybe Ethan was just worried.”
“Maybe he was,” Hayley agrees. “But…you’re going to be leaving soon. Are you really going to leave without telling him how you feel, even if it doesn’t go the way you want?”
“It’s better that way,” I try. “If I tell him and he rejects me, then I’ll be upset and he’ll feel guilty, and it will all just be a mess. Then it will be awkward when I go to visit.”
Hayley barks out a laugh. “Did you just hear that? When you go to visit, not if. Even if it all goes down the drain, you’ll still visit. What the fuck do you want, Georgia? Tell me, right now.”
I bite my lower lip.
“I want Ethan,” I say. “Because I love him.”
It occurs to me that it’s the first time I’ve ever said the words aloud like that. When I told Pamela, I just told her I had feelings for Ethan. Susie, who knows too, was the one that cornered me, telling me that she’d noticed how I looked at him.
The words hang in the air. They’re terrifying. My feelings for Ethan are so big. I just don’t know what to do with them. It was easier to simply stay at his side and ignore them. Why can’t I still do that?
“I don’t want things to change,” I whisper.
“Things are already changing, Georgia,” Hayley says sympathetically. “Ethan’s thinking, and something is going to come out of that. So you need to decide what you’re going to do about it.”
I swallow. I don’t want to think about it.
But I know she’s right.
Chapter Seventeen
Ethan
I’m sitting stiffly on the couch when Polly finally comes inside. My first impulse, when I overheard that conversation, was to burst outside and confront her. Instead, however, I slipped away. What do I even say to her?
“Sorry,” Polly says with a small smile. “My husband just wanted to confirm some things.”
“Right,” I say. I feel oddly out of place.
“Where’s Lily?” Polly asks, looking around.
“Having breakfast,” I say shortly.