Page 138 of Holding On

"We'll see about that." He smirks, then goes to kiss me but my phone rings.

I check to see who's calling. It's Tricia. Why the hell would she call me? She knows I can't stand her after what she did to Mike.

"I have to get this," I say to Ethan, then I answer the call. "What do you want?" I don't bother being polite. She doesn't deserve that.

"Becca, it's Tricia. How have you been?"

Is she serious? She's acting like we're friends. We've never been friends. Even when she dated Mike, I didn't like her. I was only nice to her for Mike's sake.

"Why are you calling me? I don't want to talk to you and neither does Mike."

"Becca, you don't understand. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't handle—"

"If you love someone, you learn to handle it." I bite out the words, furious with her and the fact that she's trying to justify what she did, as if it was somehow okay.

"It's more complicated than that. You don't know what he was like when he got back. It was like he was someone else."

"He was injured and dealing with what happened that night. And I do know what he was like because I went to live with him right after you left."

"You did?"

"Yeah. I live with him now. We share an apartment, not that it's any of your business."

"I didn't know." Her voice quiets to almost a whisper. "He hasn't talked to me since I left."

"Have you called him?"

"A few times. I've left messages but he won't call me back."

Mike didn't tell me that, probably because he knows it would make me mad. I'm surprised he told me about that text she sent.

"He doesn't want to talk to you. He's trying to move on."

"Does he have someone else?"

"You don't get to know that. You don't get to know anything about him. You left him, which means you don't get to know about his life anymore."

"I just want to talk to him. We were together all those years and then—"

"And then you walked out on him. And he's finally moving on so you need to leave him alone. He's been through enough. He doesn't need you coming back into his life."

"Becca, please. Just ask him to call me."

"I'm not doing that. And you need to stop calling him. And me. Leave us alone." I hang up on her.

"Who was that?" Ethan asks.

"Tricia. Mike's ex-fiancé. She took off right after he moved here. He'd been in the hospital for months and when he finally got out, he moved in with her and a few weeks later she took off."

"Shit, that's harsh."

"That's Tricia. She only cares about herself."

"So that's why you moved in with him? Because she left?"

"He needed someone to help take care of him and he needed money. He couldn't pay rent." I glance at the clock. It's almost midnight. "I need to get home and talk to Mike. Let's go load the drunk people in the van."

"They can just sleep it off. I took their keys and we took away the alcohol. In a few hours, they'll sober up. If not, they can crash on the lawn."

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