Page 35 of It's Complicated

“Yeah, that’s pretty much me too.”

He shot me a little smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Coulda fooled me. I thought you were over it.”

I shrugged helplessly. “I’m not over it, not even close, but I didn’t know what else to do. I thought you wanted to forget about it, so I was trying to pretend like it didn’t happen.”

“I can’t forget about it.” He dragged his tongue over his bottom lip.

My body tightened. How could such a simple move affect me so much?

“I don’t want to,” I said honestly.

“Me either.” He paused. “Are you bi?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure that out, but I’m not sure. Are you?”

“I don’t know.” He bit his lip. “Maybe?”

“You liked it? What we did?” My voice hitched on the last word.

He nodded. “Did you?”

I nodded.

Why was it so hard to talk about this? Jamie and I could spend hours, days even, discussing stupid shit, but we couldn’t have a two-minute conversation about what we were going through?

“I don’t know what to do,” he repeated, his words coming out in a rush. “I don’t want to fuck things up between us, but I can’tkeep pretending like that didn’t affect me.” He let out a shrill laugh. “And by affect me, I mean completely send my life into a tailspin and make me question everything I ever thought about myself.” He shook his head, his breaths coming in quick gasps.

He was panicking.

“Jamie.” Unable to just stand there while he was hurting, I crossed the room and gripped his arms. “Look at me.”

He lifted his eyes to mine.

“Good. Now breathe.”

He sucked in a breath.

Something in my gut shifted, almost flip-flopped. Even when he was on the brink of a panic attack, he still trusted me enough to do what I said without question.

“Again,” I coached. “One more.”

He blew out the breath, his body relaxing.

“Better?”

“Marginally.” He shot me a wobbly smile. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“That’s not going to happen,” I insisted.

“How do you know that?”

“Because it won’t. I won’t let it.”

“You say that like you can just make it true.”

“Can’t I?” I asked. “You’re my best friend. You willalwaysbe my best friend.”

He chewed the corner of his lips.

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