If nothing else, I could try to comfort myself by knowing they were safe. Safe from Luco Bellamo. Safe from me.
I sighed and leaned back down the aisle. “Actually, I’ll take that drink.”
41
LOLA
I wanted to invite everyone to Kate’s house for my big, awkward confrontation. She convinced me that it was better if we made sure it happened in a public place, so I invited Brian and Chastity–my former friend I caught Brian cheating with–to a coffee shop and waited at a table outside. I decided all the others could be handled through a text or one of those big, over-dramatic social media posts people liked to make. Maybe I could record myself crying in a dark room like some kind of Youtuber surfacing after a scandal.
Kate was beside me and Max was back at her place.
“You really think they’re going to show?” I asked. My knee was bouncing. The three coffees I’d downed in the last ten minutes probably weren’t helping my nerves. Kate had cut me off when I tried to order a fourth like I was some kind of drunk at the bar.
“They’ll show. Trust me, they all want to talk to you.”
I pinched my temples. “Don’t say that. It just makes me more nervous.”
“Hey.” Kate took my hand and waited until I met her eyes. “You. Got. This. Okay? You did the right fucking thing. Don’t let anyone–yourself included–convince you otherwise. Yes, you were a dumbass for ghosting me but I’m willing to forgive that one. Just remember you didn’t invite them here for them. They may think that, but this is for you. Until you’ve spoken your mind to their faces, it’s going to feel like this is still hanging over you.”
I nodded. “I don’t know what is even on my mind though.”
“You will.”
I blew out a breath, drumming my fingers on the table tunelessly. “Oh shit,” I whispered. “I see them.”
Brian was wearing a white polo, khaki pants, boat shoes, and sunglasses. His dirty blonde hair was pushed up and away from his forehead and he was the complete picture of carefree wealth–like every moment was a freeze-frame image from a Calvin Klein poster. Chastity was beside him in a flirty black dress that showed off her long legs and toned figure. She had on huge sunglasses and her black hair was throwing off sunlight in silky waves.
The sight of them both made my blood start boiling. I’d done a pretty damn good job of not letting my thoughts do more than skid over them until now. Actually seeing them was something else. Emotions I didn’t even know I had were bubbling up in violent bursts. I suddenly felt that Kate was right. I wasn’t going to have any problems speaking my mind.
Brian and Chastity took the chairs across from us. Brian pulled off his shades and smiled. “I’ve been worried about you, Lola.”
Chastity just watched me from beneath her shades. She looked like she felt guilty, and she damn well should. If you were going to sleep with your best friend’s fiancé, you should at least not have the nerve to do it when your name was freaking Chastity.
“I asked you both here so I could explain why I left,” I said. I felt like I was trying to force words up through a tight throat and I did my best to calm down. I didn’t want to say all this with a quivering voice like I was about to cry.
Brian opened his mouth to say something but I stopped him with a quickly raised hand.
“No,” I said. “I am going to say what I need to say and you’re both going to listen.”
Brian’s eyebrows went up. I’d never talked to him like that in all the time we knew eachother, but it felt good. He sat back in his chair, apparently too stunned to argue.
“I was not the crazy one for caring that you cheated on me. It was not just boys being boys. It wasn’t no big deal. My dad was wrong for pushing me to stay with you even after I found out and frankly? Fuck both of you.” The words fell out of me one after another. My heart was thudding all the way up into my throat and I felt like I was somewhere between crying and screaming. “Sorry if you thought I asked you here so I could apologize to you. The only thing I’m sorry about is that I left without properly explaining how disgusted I was with both of you.”
Brian’s eyebrows had stayed up for the duration of my little speech. Chastity looked like she wanted to slip into a hole and disappear. Kate gave my knee a little encouraging squeeze under the table.
“Okay,” Brian said, chuckling and smiling. I recognized that look. It was the one he had when he thought I was overreacting. It was the look he gave me when I was too scared to kill a spider or when I ranted to him about something I’d said with my friends that I worried they’d taken the wrong way. “Let’s just slow down a little here. Me and Chastity made a mistake, alright? None of us are trying to say we didn’t. But people make fucking mistakes, Lola. Can we all just agree to be adults about this and accept that? What, did you want me to be perfect? Was that it? Because good luck finding someone perfect–or someone who can do for your career what I can do. You–”