“I’m sorry,” I blurt out.
He flinches slightly. “What?”
God, what am I saying?
Even though he didn’t take the opportunity that deep down I thought he would have, to keep me away from Lucas, doesn’t mean that he isn’t culpable.
He’s absolutely culpable.
For a million things that came before. For years’ worth of things.
But in this moment, when remorse is so thick in his gaze and I’m still reeling from his revelation — God,howis it even possible that they’re not friends anymore? How’s the world still going on — I can’t help but say it.
I can’t help but confess. “I-I’ve been jealous of you.”
“Jealous.”
I swallow and nod. “Because I thought… I thought you got a chance to fix it all. I thought you weren’t punished. I thought you came out unscathed. After what happened. I thought that you still got to be his best friend and… and I’m the crazy ex-girlfriend who was blocked from everywhere. He wouldn’t even give me a chance to apologize. That entire night, I kept calling and calling and texting and he didn’t respond. And then he did, the next morning and I was…”
“Happy,” he finishes for me.
“Yeah,” I whisper, swallowing again. “Only he picked up to tell me to never ever call him again. That we were done and I got that, you know. I understood why after… everything. But he wouldn’t let me talk. He wouldn’t let me explain and I…”
And so I called him, Lucas’s best friend.
To ask for help.
But we both know how that turned out.
With his room vandalized and me in a reform school.
I shake my head, “So yeah, I’ve been jealous. Of you. Of your friendship. Of the fact that I was the only one who lost everything.”
But it feels so petty now that I say it out loud.
So vengeful.
Yes, there’s no love lost between him and me.
But for some reason, I don’t feel good.
I don’t feel vindicated.
At the fact that I got my wish. He’s suffering and guilty and miserable like me. That for the first time in my life, I see his eyes, his sharp beautiful features swimming in guilt.
All I feel is… sad. Or rather even more sad.
That so many things were destroyed that night.
Trust. Loyalty. Love. Friendship.
All lost because of one kiss.
One kiss was all it took.
To launch a war. To break hearts. To shift the ground beneath us.
“Well, I hope you like the taste of champagne,” he says, breaking into my thoughts. “Because it looks like you’re the one who’ll be celebrating tonight.”