Page 54 of Unlikely You

I couldn’t tell her. She couldn’t know.

“It’s fine. I just…had to fix it,” I said.

She peered at me as if looking for the lies and waited for me to admit that I’d been lying.

I wasn’t going to do that.

“Good. That’s…good. I’ll, um, let you get back to work.” She wilted, her smile drooping along with her shoulders and it made me want to grab her and hold her close and tell her that it wasn’t her fault. I didn’t want to be the one who made her look like that. Who made her feel anything less than happy and safe and adored.

Fuck! This fucking situation was so fucking impossible!

I opened my mouth to tell her the truth and slammed it shut again, making my teeth snap painfully against each other.

She couldn’t know.

I could never tell her.

The restof the day Honey avoided me, and so did Melliferal. Now that I knew they were the same person it was blindingly obvious. They had the same tone and go-to words and sense of humor. I’d been falling for Melliferal and Honey at the same time without knowing they were the same person. It was a complete punch to the gut. Every time I happened to see her in my peripheral, it was like being stabbed.

I ran through every scenario in my head of what I could do. My two options: tell her or don’t tell her both sucked. I hated them. I wanted a better option, but there wasn’t one. This was an all or nothing situation.

If I told her, she’d be thrilled. She’d be so happy. She’d want to bring our Bibliofile and Melliferal relationship into the real world and the idea of being that intimate with her in person made me want to throw up.

If only I could go back in time and keep my online relationship with Melliferal on a different level. If only I could have kept her at a distance and not slowly unfolded myself to her in each new message over the past year.

Honey knew too much. Far too much. I wanted to get all of that back, but since I couldn’t, the only option was to not tell her. To cut off Melliferal. To chill things with Honey as well. It didn’t seem right to try to be Honey’s friend while ghosting her online persona. Plus, continuing the friendship opened me up to her finding out and then being really angry with me. That couldn’t happen either.

I had to cut them both off. Immediately.

I could do this.

Chapter Nineteen

Honey

Bren wasangry with me and I had no idea why. I had no idea what I could have possibly done. I’d gone over the book club meeting and tried to analyze every word I’d said to her and came up empty. There was nothing, which meant I had no idea how to fix it. What I needed to say to her to get her to look at me again.

Smiling and hawking honey and other products was a struggle when I could still hear Bren being kind to her customers while she was so viciously avoiding even looking at me.

I could feel her eyes on me, and I could feel the moment she turned if she thought I might glance her way.

“Why is Bren mad?” Ellie asked, leaning close to whisper to me.

“I don’t know,” I whispered back, stretching my hand out from holding the tray of samples. “I have no idea.”

Ellie turned her head to the side, her eyebrows drawing together as she thought.

“Maybe she’s not madatyou. Maybe she’s mad about something else.” But what? And why was she taking it out on me?

Nothing made sense and my stomach had been in knots all day about it.

Having Bren ignore me like this was awful. All I wanted to do was to go home and lay in bed and not talk to anyone. Hopefully while rain pattered gently on the windows and sad music played.

A few times I had to let go of my smile to give my face a break. I’d been avoiding my phone all day. This was something I’d talk to Bibliofile about and get her advice, but for some reason I was holding back on this.

Everything had been so good. I’d been excited to see Bren at book club and we’d been chatting and then…

This.

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