Page 32 of Choosing Her
Whatever—I didn’t care if he wasn’t mine. I just didn’t want him to behers, either.
“You can't do that, Naomi,” I said. She blinked in surprise, probably used to me just agreeing to whatever she said. It had always been the easiest way to keep the peace in our house. And maybe if she’d been talking about anyone else, I would have agreed with her. I would have told her to dump Jared and go back after him. But this was Crossy. I couldn’t let her have him again.
“Why not?”
“Because you can’t!” What more was there to say? “You broke up with him. You ruined him. You can't just go back and decide that you changed your mind.”
She sniffed. “Of course I can. I can do whatever I want.” She looked at him through the window again, and this time I followed her gaze, watching Crossy laugh with his friends as he wiped at his shirt where the coffee had stained it. Naomi tapped her acrylic nails against the table. “Though, then again, I’m not a fan of his friends.
That made my blood run cold. Because even if I wasn't that close with the hockey boys, I refused to listen to her talk badly about them. Especially about Bear, the boy that Poppy loved so much. How could she even say that she wasn’t a fan of them,when she’d never even spent time with them? They’d never come over to our place during the summer and she never mentioned meeting them when she was out with Crossy. Did she just decide she didn’t like them and that was that?
“I wonder if I could get him to stop talking to them…”
“Naomi,” I hissed. I glanced warily at the group again like I thought they might be able to hear me from across the cafe and through the class. “Of course you can’t! They’re his teammates.”
She turned her glare on me, and she looked so unimpressed that I almost backed down. Almost forgot what I was saying and just gave in, just like I always did. At home, I was the one who never rocked the boat, both with Naomi and with my parents. It was easier to just give in than to try to fight my way to be heard in that family. But not now. Not when it was Crossy who would end up getting hurt.
“Why do you care?”
I knew I couldn’t tell her the truth, but I also couldn’t say nothing. If I stayed silent, she would undoubtedly begin to come up with her own conclusions and I wasn’t sure how long it would take her to land on some semblance of the turret. Not that I thought she would guess that I’d met Crossy before her or that I’d kissed him, but she would probably assume that I was interested in him—and that was the last thing I needed.
But there was one excuse I had packed away for moments like this.
“My best friend is dating his best friend,” I said. “It will ruin my friend group if you try to tear Crossy apart from his friends. So please don’t, okay?”
She raised her eyebrows and scoffed. “Crossy? You call him Crossy? What kind of stupid nickname is that?”
My face paled, and I looked away quickly. “It’s what the boys call him. I picked it up from them.”
“I don’t know why you hang around them anyway,” she mumbled. I ignored the jab and tried to remind her of what was at stake.
“He’s Bear’s best friend,” I said. “I can’t let you hurt him.”
“Good thing I didn't ask your permission,” Naomi said coldly. It was a tone I’d heard many times in my life but rarely directed at me. This was the way she spoke to people that she thought was disrespecting her. “He loved me. He probably still loves me. It’s not like he’s moved on, right?”
“We just walked in on him on a date,” I said.
Naomi rolled his eyes. “And he didn’t even know her first name. What a grand romance.”
“Oh, and you would know what that was?” I snapped back, the words coming out before I could think them through.
Naomi's eyes narrowed. “What's that supposed to mean?”
I should have backed down, apologized, and said I didn’t know what I was thinking. We would both remember it happened, but we wouldn’t speak of it again. It was a well-rehearsed dance between Naomi and me. But not today. The way she was talking about him, as if he was nothing but a toy for her to play with, made a fire burn inside me for reasons I didn’t totally understand.
“It means you wouldn’t know romance if it hit you in the head,” I said. I looked at Crossy again, laughing at something Bear was saying. How could he ever have gone out with someone like Naomi?
I stood up so suddenly that my chair toppled over behind me. Naomi looked at me with wide eyes, like she couldn’t recognize me at all.
“I don't feel well,” I muttered. “I’m going home.”
It was a testament to how shocked she was that she didn't follow me.
I thought of her and of Crossy for the whole walk back to my dorm. Then I thought of Crossy on that stupid date—and that even though it had been satisfying to see him get coffee thrown on him, seeing him on the date at all hurt me in ways that it had no right to. Caleb Cross was supposed to mean nothing to me. That was what I had spent months working toward.
But before I knew it, I was locking myself in a bathroom stall and throwing up at the thought of Crossy kissing another girl.
CHAPTER 18
