Page 39 of Falling For My Best Friend's Brother

But I cut him off. “No, it’s true. I know you meant for it to hurt, but you were right, nonetheless. You know, my whole life, I’ve been a portrait for others to judge. Nina is proud. Nina is beautiful. Nina is a fool. Nina’s that lucky girl who haseverything laid out for her, thanks to her parents’ money. And maybe I am all of those things. After all, life gave me really great cards. But what if, even with all that, I still wished I’d been dealt a different hand?

“My parents want me to pursue a career in finance, but I love art. I’ve loved the smell of paint since the moment I first smelled it. I live for the moments when I can give depth to an empty canvas because sometimes it’s the only thing that feels real to me.”

I sighed dejectedly, shaking my head sadly. “Did you know I fell in love during junior year of college?” I peered at Knox to see him watching me intently.

He shook his head. “I didn’t.”

“Well, I did.” I breathed a humorless laugh. “For the first time in my life, I thought I was in love. He was more interested in what I could do for him. I still don’t know how I let him get away with so much of the shit he did to me.”

Knox’s voice was hoarse when he asked, “What did he do?”

I shook my head in shame. “You’ll think me even dumber.”

“I won’t.” He sounded so certain, so genuine, that for a second I believed him.

“He made me pay off his student loan.”

I heard Knox’s sharp intake of breath and the humiliation of three years ago came flooding back in. If I wasn’t such a sucker, I would probably laugh at it now, but it was not funny back then.

“How—?”

“Don’t ask,” I groan. “Thinking about it is horrible enough. I can’t bear to say it out loud.”

“I’m sorry,” Knox finally muttered.

“Me too. Michael was a senior, just months away from graduation and up to his neck in debt. I remember being so flattered when he showed me attention. In truth, our relationship wasn’t all that. I knew deep down that I loved him more than he loved me,ifhe even loved me at all.

“At the beginning, he love-bombed me. Told me everything I wanted to hear, bought me stuff when he could afford to. I kept my family’s affluence a secret because I didn’t want a repeat of high school where I was the popular rich girl with no real friends. So I was convinced that there was no way he could know.

“After he broke up with me, over text might I add, he finally told me the truth; he’d recognized me from a blog site where he’d seen a photo of me and my parents, and all I was to him was a gift that kept on giving.” A quick laugh escaped me, but it held no humor. “His last statement was, ‘You make it hard to tell if it’s generosity or just showing off.’”

“Fucking hell, Nina.” Knox cursed, running a hand down his face.

“He played me for eight months until he got what he wanted.” I felt a tickle behind my eyes as my voice dropped. “He was my first love.”

If I was honest, though convincing me to pay off his student loans was the worst of his sins, that wasn’t everything Michael did. There were times when he played on my kindness and got me to send him money. Sometimes, he’d borrow money from me with a sob story of how a parent was sick or hospitalized and he needed to buy some medicine, or textbooks or something important for school with the promise that he’d pay back every dime.

He never did, and I never asked… because I was in love.

After we broke up, I realized that Michael only did all that shit to me because I let him. Because I’d been so desperate for someone to love me, for me, and not for what I had. It was a painful realization to come to.

“Lindsay advised me to cry as much as I could,” I said. “‘It will help,’ she said. ‘Crying always helps.’I think it did, but I’m not sure. I do know that it was one of the many times when I had to lean on her for support and because of that, I never learned to stand on my own two feet.

“So, yes. Without her here, I feel lost. I have no idea what I’m doing. We were supposed to start a business together…” I trailedoff, catching a tear that was about to fall with my thumb. “I’m sorry. I’m a mess.”

“A beautiful mess.”

My gaze flicked to Knox to find him watching me intently with a look I couldn’t decipher. I’d expected pity, or maybe even a derisive glance, but it was neither.

Against my better judgment, I couldn’t help asking, “You don’t think I’m stupid and gullible?”

A line appeared between his brows. “Why would I think that?”

“Because I make dumb decisions.”

He huffed. “Maybe, but in this case, you fell in love. It might not have been genuine on that fucker’s part, but you opened up your heart. It doesn’t make you dumb. It makes you human.” His voice lowered then, and he tore his gaze away from me to stare at something outside the window with a faraway look in his eyes that made me think he was thinking of something else. I wondered if it was Claire. “Love is never wasted. For its value does not rest upon reciprocity.”

I couldn’t believe he just let me off the hook like that. The Knox I knew would never miss an opportunity to verbally attack me.

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