Page 25 of We Can't Be Friends

But you know how a windshield can function with a small crack or two, but over time, the crack grows until it forces your hand to fix it?

Boys are my cracks, and my heart is the windshield.

“This is Chloe Henry,” I say, then clarify, “Emerson’s friend.”

“Hi, Henry.”

“Hi, Sullivan.”

“I’m glad you called. How are you?”

“You are?”

“Of course, Liam has been a bore this morning.”

“Sure it wasn’t the other way around?”

He laughs. “Tell me about your morning?”

“What about over lunch?”

“Let me check my schedule.” We both go silent. I can hear him clicking around on the computer. “Cleared. I can meet you at one. Work?”

“Yeah.”

“Grand, see you then, Henry.”

7

CALLUM

Chloe ends our call, telling me she’ll text me an address.

Slipping out of my office, I head to Liam’s. There’s no masking his turmoil or my bliss.

Leaning against his door frame, I watch as he runs his hands frustratingly through his brown hair.

“Oi.” I snag his attention. “I’m heading out for lunch today. Around one.”

“Solo?”

“No.” I marinate on how to tell him it’s Chloe, knowing full well he’ll ask, busybody.

“With whom?” Called it.

“A gal I met a while back.”

My statement isn’t a partial lie because we did meet a while back.

I finally placed why I had déjà vu of being in Emerson’s apartment. I was there last year while visiting Chicago for a weekend. She wasn’t there, which was one of the reasons I was confused. The second was because Chloe Henry had long black hair and only one arm full of ink. She was out, quite drunk. I was out, too. Stumbling out of the bathroom, she looked sad. We talked briefly when she said she wanted to go home. Scooping her up, I asked her for an address. Chloe must have given me Emerson’s. I tucked her into bed that night, sticking around for an hour or so to make sure she didn’t throw up before leaving.

She was a sleeping Cinderella, and I never got her name. I thought about her, though. The beautiful girl with sad eyes andflower tattoos, burning brightly behind a mine of darkness. I always wondered why she was sad.

Was it because of Seth? Were they together then?

“Fancying someone?” He arches a brow.

I shrug. “She’s fit. We’re—” We’re what? What are Chloe Henry and I? “Friends.”

---