Page 23 of Every Broken Promise
“Why are you here?” I allowed myself to ask.
There must have been something in my tone because he stopped playing with my hair and instead got up.
“I always come over on Sundays,” he admitted softly.
His footsteps were soft as he walked out of my room. I took a few seconds to take it in before I decided to get out of bed. I sat up, feeling nostalgic, angry, and sad all at once. I was a hurricane of emotions.
God damn you, Tyler Kane.
Everyone knew that best-friend breakups were the absolute worst. That one person you could always count on being there for you was suddenly gone.
I took a deep breath, got my shit together, and walked out, ready to face my parents and he-who-shall-not-be-named.
Once outside, I found all three traitors in the backyard. I felt like an intruder in my own home. I watched through the kitchen window as my parents interacted with Ty as if they had been doing this forever. He laughed at something my dad said and took plates from my mother so he could help her set the table.
Whatever he said was too low for me to hear, but it made my mother laugh. She leaned into him and lightly swatted his arm.
An emotion burned through me.
Fuck—no.
I wasn’t jealous of my mother having an easygoing relationship with Tyler. It wasn’t that at all. It was the carefreeness of it all. I had lost that with Tyler because I had fallen for him, and then he made it worse because he sucked at being a friend.
The rift in our friendship started because of me, but it shattered because of him.
One dinner.
I could get through one dinner, then he could be on his merry way and I could return to pretending like he didn’t exist.
The plan sounded easy enough.
“Oh, there you are, sweetheart.” My mother smiled as if she had not betrayed me. “We have been waiting for you to wake up.”
Great.
Now my cheeks burned because they had apparently been watching me sleep.
Tyler had been watching me sleep.
Fuck him.
“I wasn’t aware we started to take in strays.”
“Astrid!” my dad scolded me.
The look in his eyes made me feel ashamed of my actions. I almost bit out an apology, but Tyler laughed it off. His laugh, however, was fake. As his ex-best friend, I could tell these things.
“It’s okay, Thatcher. No harm done. At least I’m loyal and won’t abandon you guys.” He waved it off.
My hands fisted at my sides before I did something stupid like try to punch his mouth.
“Are you saying I abandoned my parents?” I bit out.
In my peripheral vision, I saw my mom and dad walking back inside, not minding the catfight that was about to break out. In their defense, they had twelve years of experience with this. Except this time, it was very different.
“Four years… You up and left for four years, and you never returned to check on them. Not on spring breaks, summer vacations, Christmases, or any of their birthdays. Must be nice to up and leave the people who love you.”
My heart thumped as he causally threw the L-word out there.
