Page 56 of Unfriend Me
Jazzie.
I thought that was her name. She was a few years younger than all of us and she’d left town to go to college in recent years. If I recalled correctly, she and Titus even went on a date a few times way back when. What was she doing here now? And what was she doing with her hand on Titus’s arm like that?
A hot burn as deep as the cute little red bow on the back of my thong raced up my spine. I didn’t stop to think rationally because what was the point of that? My boyfriend had a woman all over him and I should just remain calm? And do what exactly? Wait it out in my car? Hell to the no. I was going in both barrels blazing. Amelia-style.
I had one boyfriend cheat on me recently and I wasn’t going to let that shit happen again. Never again.
As I stepped out of my car and crunched over the sidewalk in my high-heeled boots, my thoughts spiraled. Titus had been quiet lately. Was he building a hotel for Daire behind my back? Was he seeing someone else? Anything was possible, though my heart pitter-pattered in a pathetic rhythm at the possibility of any of those ideas. My eyes started to burn and even that made me angrier. I loved Titus. How could he do this to me?
“Kindly take your hands off my boyfriend,” I stated in a bone-chilling tone the second my heels hit the patch of dirt Titus had been working on for two weeks now.
Jazzie and Titus both turned their heads in my direction, Jazzie’s smile fading quickly. A woman knows the score when caught with another woman’s man. Titus, God bless his good-boy heart, just smiled bigger at me, genuinely happy to see me. Which should have been my first sign that everything was above board around here. But I couldn’t see that in my rage.
Jazzie didn’t move and it pissed me off. Titus had two sawhorses set up with a plank of pressed board on top as a makeshift table on his jobsite. I whipped out my hand and whacked the board from underneath, toppling the table and sawhorses in an impressive show of anger. I was literally flipping tables I was so mad.
“I-I should go. Nice to see you again, Titus. Take care, Amelia,” Jazzie stammered, backing up and turning quickly to jog to her little car.
“See you around, Jazzie,” Titus called after her, then turned to me, his smile morphing into a frown. “Hey, what are you doing here?”
I put my hands on my hips, shaking my head that he didn’t catch on to what I was accusing him of. He didn’t even mention my cool-ass table flip. “Yeah, you weren’t expecting me, were you? Looks like I got here just in time. What’s the deal with Jazzie?”
Titus looked back at Jazzie’s disappearing taillights and then back at me, his eyebrows scrunching together. “The deal? Nothing. She’s back from college and wanted to see how I was and if I knew of any new businesses opening up in town she could apply for. She’s got some science degree I couldn’t pronounce. Not real sure what kind of job a person could get with it.”
I squinted at him. That was odd. He seemed genuine. The guy didn’t even know Jazzie was flirting with him and it drove me crazy.
“Um, the girl was flirting with you. She had her hands all over you.”
Titus’s frown cleared. “You’re joking.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “No, I’m not. She was flirting with you and you didn’t even stop it. How would you like to stumble across an ex-boyfriend’s hands onme?”
Titus’s jaw dropped open. “You mean like Daire last week when I stepped in between you two and you got mad at me for doing so?”
I waved my hand through the air. “That’s completely different. He wasn’t flirting with me.”
“Jazzie wasn’t flirting with me!” Titus’s muscled arms flew out from his sides.
I lifted a shoulder like I couldn’t care less. “Whatever. Agree to disagree?”
Yeah, that response was a little on the bitchy side, I admit. Titus must have thought so too. He practically exploded, his arms waving all through the air, his face turning a shade of red I was unfamiliar with. Nice-guy Titus was nowhere to be found.
“Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve been in love with you since we were twelve, Amelia. You’re right. I’ve dated a lot over the years. I’ve dated every single woman in the county just to pass the time until you finally saw me. Sawusfor what we could be. I’ve watched you date men who were so unworthy of you it would be laughable if it wasn’t so sad. And yet I’ve stayed best friends with you through it all because I love you no matter what. Always have, always will. So accuse me of whatever you want, but don’t you dare accuse me of cheating on you. Because the very idea of that is ludicrous.”
I snapped my jaw shut at some point during that tirade. I’d never seen Titus so worked up. About anything. And part of me wanted to curl up against his chest and soothe him back into the sweet guy I knew he was at heart. Assure him that everything would be okay. But a much bigger part of me wanted to defend myself. Wanted to yell and scream and rage right back at him. Wanted to prove I wasn’t that girl anymore. The one who let a man run right over her.
That part won.
“Are you kidding me? You’re talking to a girl who’s been cheated on by her boyfriend, more than once, I remind you. So being a little paranoid about it happening again is how I protect myself. I’ve been let down by people who were supposed to love me, Titus. You don’t just drop that the next time you date someone. You carry that with you. After Daire, I promised myself to never be abused like that again. I won’t be one of many or kept in the dark about things. So, if you want to flirt with an ex-girlfriend or have some secret project you can’t tell me about, then maybe this isn’t going to work between us.”
The second I threw down the gauntlet, I wanted to take it back. Swallow the words back down or smash them into little pieces with Titus’s hammer so they couldn’t come between us. Another wedge of foolhardy, immature passion that served no purpose but to enflame the other person.
Titus went deadly silent, the sun setting behind him and making his blond hair glow. His massive chest rose and fell like he’d run a marathon to have this argument with me. He shook his head, his gray-blue eyes looking as sad as the day his dog died freshman year.
“You still don’t get it. I’ve just been putting in time, postponing my life, until you saw me and the love I’ve always had for you. But you can’t because you’re too busy making sure everybody seesyou. Or whatever badass façade you want them to believe in. When are you going to know that you’re enough, just as you are? With moments of bravery followed by weakness, flaws and talent, pettiness and maturity all rolled into one. When will you stop fighting so hard to be seen and just live your damn life, Lia?”
A searing pain shot up from my clenched stomach and into my chest. I wouldn’t have been surprised at all to see an arrow’s quiver sticking out of my chest after that verbal lashing. Titus had hit the bull’s-eye. The very truth I ran my mouth off to hide. And like the dumbass I was on occasion, I couldn’t back down, so I doubled down.
“Oh, that’s rich coming from you! When willyoufigure out that you’re enough too? You’re always running around saving people like you owe the whole town of Auburn Hill for having a fuckup as a brother. When are you gonna get that throughyourhead?”
