Page 42 of Chasing Forever

Panic clutched at my throat, and for a brief moment, I was worried that she might have changed her mind and didn’t want me dating her brother. Orseeinghim, or whatever the word for it was. “Are you crying?”

She began to wave her hands in front of her face frantically. “No! Maybe. Okay, yes, but they’re good tears. I thought maybe you and Tristan were enjoying time together and maybe hooking up. But what you described, it’s...”

“It’s what?” I asked when she trailed off.

“It sounds an awful lot like love,” Ivy answered, and the fork I’d been holding clattered onto my plate.

“What?” I squeaked. “No. No way! He doesn’t—it isn’t—it’s notthat. We just really like each other.”

Rae cocked her head to the side as she watched me. “Are you denying it because you don’t think it’s true, or because you don’t want it to be true?”

“I—” My mouth suddenly felt dry as the desert. “It’s too soon,” I said softly, my voice going small as that stupid voice in the back of my head piped up. She always had the worst timing, and I was really starting to hate her. “What if... what if this goes bad too?” My deepest, most shameful feelings bubbled up from the surface, threatening to choke me if I didn’t get them out. “What if it’s me that’s the problem?”

Blythe’s hands came across the table and grabbed hold of mine. “Stop that. You can’t think like that. There is nothing wrong with you.”

That voice was relentless. “That can’t be true. The two most important men in my life turned out to be the worst kinds of human beings.”

“That is not on you,” Rae said fiercely, her beautiful face pulling into a scowl.

“I’m not saying I made them into what they are, but what does it say about me that I stuck by my brother for so long? Year after year, making excuses for him when, deep down, I knew what he really was. What does it say about me that I believed Warren when he said he was sorry and swore he would never hurt me again?”

Blythe’s fingers tightened around mine. “You see those as flaws, but what I see is a woman with an amazing capacity to love and forgive.”

“To my own detriment. Some people would consider that naïve and gullible.”

“You were, what? Twenty-one when you met Warren?” Ivy asked. “You were barely an adult. You’d just lost your mother, who you loved dearly, and were alone in the world for the first time. Give yourself a little grace, honey.”

Rae picked up where Ivy left off. “Ozzy was the only family you had left. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that you’d want to hold on to that relationship. You spent your whole life loving him, and he wasn’t always what he is now, right?”

I nodded, a knot forming in my throat. “Right.”

“Then you need to forgive yourself for being human,” Blythe asserted. “Forgive yourself for not doing the best thing right out of the gate, because there isn’t a person on this planet who gets everything correct the first time around. We learn and we grow. That’s what you’re doing right now. You learned from those experiences, and you used them to make you stronger. You know what you want now, what you deserve, and you’re learning to demand exactly that.”

Her words penetrated, sinking deep beneath my skin and burying themselves into my soul. They took root and shot out, spreading through me and filling every small, dark corner that Warren’s and Ozzy’s cruelty had left behind. Those words filled me up and snuffed out that voice inside my head that kept trying to pull me back down and fill me with doubt at every turn.

This was what friends did. They held you up when you needed a little help staying on your feet. They were there to strangle out that self-doubt and insecurity. They were the ones who built you back up when you’d been torn down to nothing.

That was why Warren didn’t want me to have anyone around but him. Because if I’d had friends like these when we’d been together, they would have kept me strong and been right there to repair the damage he inflicted, mentally and physically.

What I realized in that very moment was I hadn’t lost that inner strength. It hadn’t disappeared or been ripped away from me like I thought. Warren didn’t succeed in stealing it. It had been there all along. I’d needed a little time to find it again. And now that I had, I wasn’t going to let anyone try to take it from me.

I lifted my gaze to Blythe’s and said the words I’d been thinking for months. “I know you might not believe it, but you saved me that day.”

Her chin jerked back in surprise, and I knew she knew exactly what day I was referring to. The day she finally helped me find the courage to get out.

“I didn’t?—”

I shook my head to silence her. “You might not think you did anything, but you’d be wrong. I know I would have found a way to save myself one day, but you made me feel brave enough that day to take the first step, because I knew you’d be right there with me. I guess what I’m trying to say is, thank you. Thank you for being my friend then, and thank you for being my friend now.”

Blythe sniffled, her eyes growing glassy before she cleared her throat and shook her head. “So help me God, Merritt, if you make me cry right now, I’m going to be seriously pissed.”

Everyone at the table burst into laughter. Including me.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Merritt

Iwas nervous. My belly felt like it was full of so many butterflies, it was a wonder I hadn’t floated away.

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