Page 34 of Shared By my Ex's Best Friends
He draws in a breath like it hurts to admit it. “I’ve been thinking. About the wedding. You shouldn’t be part of it.”
I blink, stunned. “Excuse me?” For half a second, the old part of me—bruised and craving closure—wants to ask why. Wants to listen.
“It’s messing with your head. You’re not acting like yourself.” His hand lifts, gesturing vaguely in my direction, like I’m some fragile thing about to snap. “And I don’t think this is good for you.”
“You don’t get to come here in the middle of the night and psychoanalyze me,” I snap.
“I’m not—” He stops, exhales hard. “I’m worried about you, Maya.”
“No,” I say, voice rising. “You’re trying to control me. Again. Just like always.”
His expression darkens. “That’s not fair.”
“Oh, isn’t it?” I step out into the hallway, robe fluttering with the movement. “You disappeared when everything got hard. You left me to clean up the mess.” I’d thought things were good between us. We had our issues, like any couple, but I thought we were both committed to fixing them and making it work. Then, one day, he showed up on my doorstep, very much like now, and told me he didn’t want to try anymore. That it was over. “Now that I’m finally moving forward—finally doing something for myself—you show up like you have a say.”
“I didn’t leave to hurt you,” he growls.” “I left because I was losing myself. Becausewewere drowning.”
“You leftme, Nick,” I hiss. “And now you want to swoop back in and decide what’s best for me? Newsflash: I don’t need you to save me. I never did.”
“You’re twisting everything,” he snaps. “You’re acting like I’m the villain.”
“I’m acting like someone who finally stopped waiting for you to come back.”
He flinches but quickly masks it with anger. “I thought maybe there was still a chance. That maybe, after everything, we could find our way back.”
I let out a bitter laugh. “You don’t get to come back from nothing and ask formaybe.”
His voice drops to almost a whisper. “Do you really feel nothing?”
“I feel a lot of things,” I admit, raw and breathless. “But none of them are about you anymore.”
Silence stretches between us, thick and brittle as ice.
Nick’s jaw clenches. “Fine.”
He turns, hands still buried in his pockets, and stalks off down the hallway, footsteps echoing like accusations.
I watch until he disappears down the stairs, then close the door slowly, leaning against it as the lock clicks into place.
My heart’s pounding again—not from the fight, but from everything I thought I’d buried. From the way my body still hums with the echo of other hands, other mouths. From the realization that Nick didn’t shatter me.
I’m not spiraling.
I’m falling—fast, hard, in all directions at once.
Chapter fourteen
JAKE
The garden’s bigger than I expected. Wild, but beautiful—ivy climbing the stone walls, flowers blooming in no particular order, like the whole place has a mind of its own. Maya walks ahead of me, the hem of her dress brushing her calves as she picks her way through the gravel path, one hand shielding her eyes from the low afternoon sun.
“We’ll probably want to string some lights here,” she says, pointing toward the overgrown archway. “Maybe a few lanterns, if the forecast stays clear.”
I nod, though I’m not really thinking about the lights. I’m thinking about how close I am to screwing up everything. To wanting something I’m probably not supposed to want—not like this.
“Maya,” I say, but I don’t follow it up with anything. Just her name. Just the weight of it in my mouth.
She turns, eyebrows raised. “What?”
