Page 16 of Gracefully Yours

“Then why does it feel like you’re slipping away from me? Why does it feel like last night changed everything?”

Some voice in my head shouted, because it did.

“What if it did?” she whispered, echoing my thoughts. “What if we can’t go back to what it was like before?”

“Then we move forward,” I said, slipping a hand into her hair. “Together.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. I just… need some space, okay?”

Nodding, I wished I could give her the words to reassure her, but I didn’t know what was in her head. And I didn’t know how to get her to let me in.

So I just let her go.

Watched her walk away, link arms with Gabbi, dance with her best friends on the dance floor, and wished I could be out there with her.

Wished that I could fix it.

Charlotte

I’d been avoidinghim all night—all day, really. Was it fair of me?

No. It wasn’t, and I knew it. I’d been the one to decide that it wastime.That I was sick of the label, of feeling like I was stuck, waiting for therightperson. And Daniel… I was safe with him. I’d trusted him.

But that wasn’t fair for him either. Neither was how I was treating him.

Getting itover withseemed so easy whenwhen alcohol had seemed to light up every fuse in my body. I’d lost any rational thought the moment his lips connected with mine.

Still, I didn’t regret it. Not one bit. I’d always thought my first time would be awkward, nervous fumbling. But with Daniel… it hadn’t been. He’d been so focused onme,my pleasure, that it never felt like all of those awful loss of virginity stories.

But then we’d woken up, and the spell was… broken.

I’d slept with my best friend, given him my virginity—and what had I risked in the process?

Everything.

I was scared. Terrified, even. It felt like my skin was itching from the inside out, like everything waswrong. What was my usual course of action when I got scared? When I started thinking maybe things could be good?

I slammed the brakes. I walked away. I ghosted.

How could I do that to my best friend? The man who knew me almost as well as I knew myself?

Somehow, despite my ignoring him, no one had seemed to notice the weird tension between us. How even after I’d practically rejected him, I still kept catching him staring at me.

Distracting myself from his eyes, I helped Angelina to the bathroom—since she was alittletipsy. After we got her delivered back into the arms of her groom, Gabbi and I went to get her a glass of water.

You know, typical Maid of Honor and Bridesmaid duties. I certainly wasn’t still ignoring the man who I was sharing a room with.

Not at all.

But Gabbi was quiet, too—not quite herself.

And I couldn’t help but notice how her eyes kept seeking Hunter’s out, too. I kept prying, sensing she was holding something back, but finally I just went for it.

“Is this about Hunter?” I asked, watching him across the room as he talked to his sister.

“No.” She winced. “Sort of. Maybe.” Gabbi looked down at the glass of water for Angelina, and then back at me. “I just…”

“You’re seeing him?”

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