Page 63 of My Brother's Best Friend

“Because she’s crazy,” he said. “My mom threw her out.”

Deciding thatIcouldn’t go batshit crazy on him right now, I sat back in my seat and stared through the windshield, taking deep breaths before I blew up at him. While I desperately wanted to see the best in Alec and think the best of this situation, my day had gone to shit hours ago. Nothing positive could come out of this.

“Please, don’t be angry. I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want you to get angry?—”

Unable to listen to another damn second of this, I slammed open the car door and stepped onto the icy road. I didn’t give a fuck about how chillingly bitter it was outside. I refused to sit here and be talked at. This was how it had been with Spencer.

I wanted some silence.

As I stormed down the street, Alec got out of the car and followed after me. “Maddie, wait, please.” He ran toward me, but I picked up my pace. “Please, let me continue. If you would just listen?—”

“Don’t take me for a fool, Alec.”

Maybe I was a fool, but I was a mess too right now. I needed time to myself, which was why I had been at home, cuddled up in my blankets, crying my eyes out. Now, I was walking back home in the freezing cold and wishing I had never opened up that door.

He snatched my wrist and pulled me back in the middle of the damn street. I stopped, but refused to look over my shoulder at him or turn around. Tears were already streaming down my face, and I felt like shit.

Maybe Oliver was right all those years ago.Don’t trust any boys, especially those on the hockey team.

“I don’t think you’re a fool,” he said softly from behind me.

He went to move around me, and I stood my ground and stared at him through the tears.

“Nothing has happened between Sandra and me since we broke up a year ago,” he said, no trace of hesitation or lie in his voice. “I swear to God on my parents’ lives, I haven’t done shit with her.”

“She’s always fucking hanging around you, and then she shows up at your house while we’re together, and you don’t even tell me?!” I cried out, bile rising in my throat at the memories of me screaming at Spencer for the same thing.

And while I knew that Alec wasn’t Spencer, that Alec was different, I couldn’t help it.

I was broken.

“I swear, Maddie,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Listen, I’m not supposed to tell you this, but when I dated her, she realized that she …” He blew out a breath. “That she doesn’t like guys as much as she likes girls, but she is nervous to come out.”

I rolled my teary eyes. “Alec, she’s all over you all the time.”

“She’s faking it,” he said. “And I’m the only person she’s told.”

“Still, Alec, if she was into girls only, why does she dance all over you at every party my brother has thrown? It’s not like she’s making out with girls or even flirting with them. She’s obsessed withyou.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know, Maddie. All she tells me is that it’s hard to express herself, especially with her parents and their conservative views. But you have to believe me. I would never fucking do the shit that Spencer did to you. I haven’t even talked to her since we started dating.”

“Then, why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, crossing my arms.

“Because I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

My stomach twisted and turned. I wiped my tears away from my cheeks with the back of my hand and stared emptily at him. I wanted to believe him so badly, but after what Spencer had done to me and the lies he had told me, it was so hard.

“You don’t believe me,” he said.

“Do you expect me to?”

“Yes. I haven’t done anything to make you distrust me, have I?”

“This is pretty sketchy, Alec.”

After staring at me for a couple of moments, Alec pulled out his phone and scrolled to his messages with Sandra. He went through the texts from a couple of weeks ago—the night of the party—and handed me the phone, letting me see what he and Sandra really talked about.

Sandra: I’m so scared.

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