Page 62 of The Rules Of Attraction
I’d spoken to her on the phone several times over the last week to assure her that I was fine. While she was glad I’d taken the job and was safe with Alex she was still concerned and felt bad that so much had happened to me with her being away.
“Summer, I wasn’t sure which I would do when I saw you. Shake you or hug you. You are lucky you got the hug.” She ran her hands over her black pixie cut hair that made her dainty features look more fairy like.
“I’m so sorry.” I offered reflecting over the past week and back to the week before when I’d first arrived.
“Good, be sorry.”
“It’s been a crazy time.”
“Summer, I don’t get it. Why didn’t you want to stay with me when you first got here?” She shook her head at me.
“Pride,” I answered. I’d always marveled at how real I could be with Eilesh but today was the first that I’d realized that I’d held back on the things that actually bothered me the most.
“Fuck pride, Summer. You know what it’s my fault I should have insisted. At least you would have been safe. My door is still open.” She always babbled when she was anxious and worried. “But if you’re comfortable with Alex, stay. I know how the whole spending the night with him got to you. I just don’t want you to feel like you had no other options.”
“Eilesh, calm down. It’s all good. I’m… comfortable.”
Comfortable.I didn’t know if that was the word I should use but I supposed that whatever it was I felt by staying with him was working.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I think I’ll be okay.” I bobbed my head.
“Summer, I honestly wish you would confide in me more. I get it. I do. Becca was your best friend, and I’m not trying to replace her and act childish by slipping into her shoes. But you aremybest friend. So that makes me worry about you and be afraid when you keep things from me. Like, God, I know I was all mesmerized when you told me about Alex because of the way that you explained it but then it all sunk in and freaked me out. Summer, what you did was dangerous.”
I looked down at my hands I’d rested on the table and the rigid patterns made from the oakwood surrounding my fingers. I knew that she was right.
“I know.” I muttered and brought my gaze back up to meet hers.
“Going to a night club on your own and going off with a man you didn’t know. And you went to his house.”
“Eilesh, you were excited when I first told you.” I pointed out.
“Because of Alex. But what if it wasn’t him? What I’m trying to say is please don’t just go off on these flights of fancy that could end up putting you in a more compromised position. I’m sorry to launch into you but you need to know that I’m here for you.”
I nodded. “You’re my best friend and all I have.”
She looked touched to hear that. “Then please confide in me. I would never dream of hurting you the way Becca did.”
“I know.” As tense as I felt from all that was going on seeing her made me relax. “At the club I thought about my life with Tom, how naïve I was about him and Becca, and how much time I wasted. I just wanted to escape for one night and forget everything that happened to me. Being the good girl got me nowhere. I just wanted to forget the big loser I turned out to be.”
“You aren’t a loser.” She looked pained to hear that.
“Eilesh, you went to George Town with me and you know how hard I worked. It was years of it, and now I’m a PA. And, all that time I was such a good girlfriend to Tom, only to lose him. I didn’t even do anything wrong.” I was close to the tears I didn’t want to cry.
“None of that makes you a loser.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No. Summer, shit happens sometimes and realistically, let’s focus on how your life was back then when you worked for Ashfords and you had Tom. Were you happy?”
I blinked then focused on her, thinking about the question.
Was I happy?
I was in the career that I loved and with a man I thought I loved, my father was still alive so I should have been happy right?
“My father was still alive.” I said more to myself than to her, holding his memory close to my heart. Those last few months with him were horrible. He just deteriorated right in front of me and there was nothing I could do to help him.
