Page 96 of Summertime Friends

Chloe: Talk to me.

I’m going to bed.

Chloe: Coffee tomorrow morning.

7:30 @ Lucky’s work?

Chloe: See you there.

My phone buzzes again. It’s probably Natalie or Cal checking in on me. Probably Cal. I’m surprised, annoyed, or maybe relieved when I see Liam’s name on the screen.

Liam: Headache gone?

Hasn’t left in weeks.

Probably won’t go away for a while.

Liam: Can I help?

Areyou kidding?

Liam: Can we talk about what happened?

No.

Liam: Please.

There isn’t an amount of time that could change how I feel about Liam Hayes. Fated mates. An invisible string. I don’t know what it is, but something is connecting us forever.

That first summer we spent together, he changed something in me. He showed me how to be the version of myself I wanted to be. He made me believe, for once, that I was enough.

Till I wasn’t, we weren’t.

In all my hurt and healing, how he felt didn’t once cross my mind. Selfishly, I’ve been thinking about myself.

After we left that day in London, I thought he was fine. You had to be, to pack someone’s bags. Then, a year later, he was with someone else, and I was still heartbrokenly his.

It hit me tonight that he was just as broken afterward, that I hurt him as much as he hurt me. It wasn’t only me who thought everything was falling apart and was consumed by the emptiness left in the wake of each other.

And now I have the chance to have it all back.

But at what cost?

My friendship? A friendship that is decades old.

Trade the missing piece of my heart with Natalie’s?

I don’t care what anyone says. They might not be dating, but I know Natalie likes Liam.

What kind of friend would I be if I put her through what I spent years getting over? I have to pick her. I have to come clean to her.

***

There is a knock on my apartment door at seven.

“This is for you,” Chloe says, handing me a black coffee and breezing by me into my apartment when I open the door. Tucker, her golden retriever, follows behind her.

“Thanks, Chlo. Why are you here? I thought we were meeting at Lucky’s?”

---