Page 38 of Inevitable

“I promise. Love you, BB.”

“Love you too, M&M.”

He headed for the street and I made the climb up to my unit, not wanting to wait for the elevator. Once inside the darkened apartment, I threw my keys down on the kitchen counter and covered my face with my hands. I startled when the kitchen light turned on.

“Micah? Hey, are you okay? I thought you were out on that double date tonight?” Rhys asked in quiet concern. The instant I connected with his gaze, my face crumpled and I fell to my knees, bawling.

Rhys raced over to me, dropping to my side and engulfing me in his arms. He didn't ask any questions, didn't offer any platitudes or words of comfort that wouldn't help. He simply let me be, and held me as I cried until every tear had left my body and an icy numbness wrapped around my heart.

I didn't feel anything, and after that night, I didn't know if I ever wanted to again.

CHAPTER 15

Bastian

The month of October slowed to a crawl as I wrestled with the turmoil that had infiltrated my brain since the night of Micah's second confession. Even though I had heard him back in May when he told me about his feelings, I was so unprepared to hear the words again that they burrowed into my heart like splinters. Micah's outburst wasn't that unexpected after the venom Ainsley spewed, but I certainly hadn't expected him to unleash like that in a torrent of heart-wrenching emotion.

Seeing Micah break down like that had broken something inside me in turn, and it took all the strength in my body to force myself to lie to him, to tell him that I didn't feel the same. Fuck, I had never despised myself more than in that moment when I looked him in the eye and told him I wasn't in love with him. If I had torn my heart from my body, it would have hurt less.

I was still grappling with the decision to lie to him to keep myself safe from Dad's and Ainsley's manipulations. The second the words slipped out, it was as if I had tainted my own blood. A few weeks had gone by and it felt like I was slowly dying inside, the poison of my cruel words leeching into my organs and taking them down one by one, day by agonizing day.

Micah hadn't texted me the next day…or the day after that. It took almost three whole days before I heard from him, but all he had told me was that he was doing okay and that he needed a little time to himself. The message destroyed me and I very nearly caved and ran to see him, fully prepared to throw myself at his feet and release every word of love that I had in my soul for him.

In the last couple of weeks, I had seen him a grand total of three times. One time I ran into him between classes and semi-coerced him into getting coffee with me for ten minutes. The other two times he had agreed to have lunch on campus, and that didn't go badly, but I could tell there was still a lot of friction and Micah seemed…off. He was almost lifeless and shut down, and it freaked me out.

At the three week mark, I thought I would lose my damn mind if I didn't see Micah and spend some actual, legitimate time with him so we could work this out. He had told me himself that he still needed me, and he promised me that we were okay. Obviously, that was a load of shit and he wasn't as okay with my knowing his feelings as he had said.Fuck, I needed my Person back. If I could have him no other way, I had to keep him as my best friend or nothing else in my world made sense.

On Friday the week before Halloween, I was sitting out on the South Mall, the long stretch of grass to the south of the UT Tower, working on some coding for my mobile app. Once again, emotional damage seemed to be the key to unlocking my inner workaholic.If my heart keeps getting used as a fucking punching bag, I might just finish this app before the year is up. Silver lining and all that shit.

I was so honed in on my work that I jumped an inch in the air when two guys suddenly plopped down next to me on the grass. “What have we got here, Nate? Does this dude look familiar to you?” Dawson drawled next to me, his eyes squinted like he was trying to figure out if he actually recognized me or not. I just stared at him deadpan.

“Eh, he kind of looks like Bash, but that shit's impossible. Our buddy Bash has been incommunicado for a month, so I assume he's dead. Maybe we should put in a missing persons report. Have we checked the city morgue lately?” our friend Nathaniel chimed in. The blue eyed, bedhead blond became my friend through Dawson our freshman year, and we had clicked almost as easily as Dawson and I had. Usually, I found his sarcastic, smart ass remarks funny, but I hadn't found anything funny in weeks. Without Micah, I was a shell of the man everyone knew.

Micah was the air in my lungs, the blood in my veins, and without him nothing made sense. I was living nothing more than a half-life without him by my side. I wouldn't feel right untilwewere right again.

“I don't have time for this,” I muttered petulantly, gathering up my stuff and climbing to my feet. A strong hand grabbed my arm before I could make a hasty retreat.

“Hey,” Nate said roughly, “You don't get to putter around like a damn zombie anymore and ignore your friends. I know something's been going on with you lately, but it's time to get it off your chest and let us help you because this shit? It ain't healthy. Dawson and I have been worried about you, and we gave you space, but no more. Got it?”

My reflex was to get angry, indignant. I mean, how fucking dare they try to tell me what to do and say that I should spill my guts to them and get over everything that happened the last month? In the split second it took to process my anger, I quickly deflated when I recognized they were actually…right.

I couldn't keep going like this. I was never going to be able to be with Micah like I wanted, Dad and Ainsley had seen to that, so I needed to start learning to live my life without him constantly by my side. Our relationship had been irrevocably altered with Micah's declaration, but that didn't mean our friendship needed to suffer. I needed to push Micah more to focus on building back our friendship because it was still as necessary to both of us as breathing.

I slowly nodded my head, and when he sensed I wasn't going to bolt, Nate let go of my arm and crossed his over his chest. “So are you ready to talk about it and start to get over whatever shit's got you all in your head?” Nate asked gently. So far, the only person I had come clean to about my feelings for Micah had been Dawson, and that wasn't exactly by choice.Thank you very fucking much, Alcohol, you sly bastard.

However, my feelings, Micah's confession, and all the unhinged shit with my Dad and Ainsley had been weighing on me for weeks. I felt stretched thin, weak in mind and body. Maybe talking about everything out loud and leaning on two of my closest friends would help more than I imagined.

“Yeah…I think that's actually a good idea,” I admitted. Dawson gave me a small smile, and Nate just nodded his head at me, pleased with my decision. His attention caught on something over my shoulder though and his gaze darkened dangerously.

I turned to see what had his mood souring so fast, and I caught sight of an insanely hot guy (I mean, objectively obviously…)who was making intense eye contact with Nate. His lip had quirked up in a cocky smile, showing off his straight teeth that looked brilliantly white against his smooth, brown skin. He ran his hand through his head of cropped black hair and his chiseled bicep flexed under his tight, red t-shirt that had “I'm not perfect, but I'm Colombian and that's kind of the same thing” emblazoned on it. He then winked at Nate, and I heard my friend growl audibly behind me.

Well, shit…there's definitely a story there.

“Who is that?” I asked, turning back to Nate who was still locked in a stare-down with the guy. When he didn't appear to have heard me, Dawson knocked his shoulder and asked, “Hey, what's wrong, man?” Nate blinked once, looking like a deer in headlights for a second before he shook his head and focused back on me.

“Nothing. Guy's name is Mateo and we had an…unfortunate run-in with each other a couple weeks ago. He's just an annoying little shit, that's all,” Nate grumbled, but I got the vibe there was way more to it than that. Although, I wasn't exactly in the mood to press for details and I had my own shit going on, so I let it go. Nate started walking in the opposite direction of Mateo and the group of guys he was talking to.

“Come on, let's go somewhere more private to talk and get away from the walking STI over there. Dude single-handedly keeps the student health center in business, I swear to God.”

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