Page 143 of The One I Hate
I don’t comment because she’s right. “It’s more than that. He’s always been like this. He’s the rich boy who doesn’t like it when things don’t go his way, so he rigs the system.”
“What did he rig?” Mellie asks.
“Me getting this place,” I say. “When he found out I was interested, he turned everyone else away. Told Emmett to basically let me have it for whatever I could afford.”
Mellie sighs. Romantically.
“Don’t make that sound. It’s not sweet or romantic.”
“It kind of is,” she says.
“He told Emmett to offer me whatever I could afford so I’d sign the lease.”
“And why did he do that? Why did he want to make sure you were here.”
“He said it was because he wanted answers and he was afraid I was going to run.”
Her look goes from romantic to pointed. “Was he wrong?”
“Excuse me?”
“You would’ve run,” she says. “If you knew he owned it before you saw it, you would have never even looked. Hell, you couldbarely convince yourself to do it when he just lived here. So yes, you would have run if you knew the truth.”
“But—”
“No. Let me finish.” She might be the nice one, but right now she’s giving off scary librarian vibes. “He’s right. You ran when you first saw him. You ran after you slept together. He deserved answers, and you ran. So, maybe not be so hard on him for that?”
Some best friend Mellie is. I thought best friends were supposed to support the delusion.
“Quit taking his side!”
“I’m not,” she says, her voice is back to gentle, like what I imagine Disney princesses having. “I’m just trying to make you see it from a different perspective.”
“And what perspective would that be? That I can’t be mad that the man I love and the father of my child has been lying to me for months?”
“I didn’t say that,” Mellie says gently. “You can be mad. That’s a valid feeling, and no one is telling you that you can’t feel that way. I’m just saying, let’s look at his side of things.”
I pout and cross my arms. “Fine.”
“You have to admit, the running thing is valid. That’s kind of your default with him.”
“Yes.” I say sulkily. “We’ve established that.”
“Second, did he mean any harm?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said he bought the restaurant before he knew you were looking for a space, correct?”
“Yes.”
“So he didn’t sabotage you. He could have. If anything, he did the opposite. He essentially helped you accomplish your dream.”
“You say helped. I say manipulated.”
“Okay, let’s think about it like this,” she says. “Those new booths and tables. And the paint. Things you knew about. Did you consider that helping? Or manipulative?”
“That’s different. Those were gifts.”
