“Did you mean it?” he cuts me off, not interested in discussing his ex-best friend with me. “What you said last night.”
“What?”
“That you want to get back together.”
My heart slams in my chest.
Slams and slams.
“Look, you’re right,” he says when all I do is breathe quicker than normal like a dork. “The last two yearshavebeen hard. You’ve seen most of it. And yeah, I love soccer. And I do realize that if I continue down this path, I might lose it forever. And so I’m willing to… do what you’re trying to do. To fix things. I’m willing to give up parties, girls and everything else that goes with it, and focus on what’s important. Soccer and you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. Because I did miss you. I didn’t lie about that last night.”
“Me too,” I reply. “I didn’t lie about that either.”
A long sigh. “So I’m willing to go back to things as they were. Between us. I’m willing to forgive you.”
He’s willing to forgive me.
Two years.
Two long years I’ve waited to hear those words. I didn’t even think that I’d ever hear them.
That and the fact that he’d take me back.
But before I can react to this statement he continues. “But I want you to stop talking to him.”
“What?”
“If we’re going to try things again, then I need you to cut all ties with him. You’re going to have to shut down this friendship or whatever the fuck you’ve got going on with him.”
“But —”
His sigh is sharp, impatient almost. “I told you, Echo, what you did fucked me up. And if there’s any hope of us working out, he needs to go.”
My breaths are frantic.
My heartbeats, my thoughts.
My words too, and I don’t even know if he can understand me but still I keep going. “But h-he’s your best friend. He’s —”
“He’s not,” he replies in a final sort of voice. “We’re not friends anymore and we won’t ever be.”
“Oh God, Lucas, you can’t,” I say urgently, coming up to my knees on the bed. “You can’t let what happened ruin things between you two. You can’t letmeruin things. You have to believe me when I tell you that it was a big giant mistake. He —”
“Yourmistake, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Mine. In fact, Lucas, listen —”
But he cuts me off again before I can confess the real reason why it wasmymistake that night. “Because of whichmylife has changed.Mylife has become difficult. My life needs fucking fixing.”
“God, yes. And —”
“So this is how you fix it.”
My words have all dried up now and all I can do is pant and gasp.