Page 78 of The Boy I Once Loved

“What the fuck have I done, Liam?” I ask my brother as I lean against his gravestone, cradling the bottle of Lucozade in my hands. “I had sex with my best friend. There’s no coming back from this. It changes everything one way or another.” I rest my head back against his headstone. “Maybe I can run away and go back to Uncle Matt’s, that way I never have to face him and deal with the aftermath of this.”

“Ella.”

I look up to see Kyle walking towards me. He looks at me puzzled. “What are you doing?”

I sigh and point behind me. “Just chatting shit with my brother. He’s not much help though.”

Kyle smiles. "He never was good at talking things out. Always hot-headed and bad-tempered." He surprises me when he sits down beside me. "Everything okay?"

I nod. "Yeah, I'll survive. I mean I made it this far, right?"

Kyle smiles. “You did. You’re made of strong stuff, Ella. Liam would be proud of you.”

I snigger, I’m not sure he would. I think he would have a few things to say about me sleeping with Dylan. Kyle stands to his feet and he offers out his hand, and I look up at him in question. “Come on, let’s go get some food.”

I allow him to pull me up and guide me by the hand out of the cemetery. He’s come here on foot, so he climbs behind me on my bike, and we head to a small café in the main street. I order plain toast as I’m not sure my stomach can take anything else, and I cup the warm cup of tea between my hands.

“Want to talk about it?” Kyle asks me as he spoons some sugar in his black coffee.

“No,” I reply with a shake of my head. “I did something there’s no coming back from, and I don’t know how to deal with the repercussions.”

He bobs his head. “Then just face it and deal with it.”

“That simple, huh?” I chuckle. My phone pings and I reach for it. It’s a text from Connor reminding me it’s Caleb’s eighteenth party tonight at the bar just up the road. “Shit!”

“What’s wrong?”

I place my phone down on the table and lean back in my seat. “It’s my friend’s eighteenth tonight. He’s having a party, and I forgot all about it.”

He leans over and takes my hand in his. “Well, I’m free if you need a plus one.”

I’m about to say no when my mind thinks again. If I show up at the party with Kyle, then Dylan won’t be able to talk to me about what happened last night. I can avoid the inevitable ‘I don’t see you in that way, last night was a mistake’ talk. “Sure, if you don’t mind,” I tell Kyle.

Three hours later, I’m outside the bar with Kyle beside me. I’ve made an effort despite feeling like death and I have put on a little black dress and heels and I’ve washed and straightened my blond hair. Kyle has scrubbed up good as well, and he’s wearing jeans and a shirt.

“Are we going inside or just admiring the exterior?” Kyle asks me with a curious chuckle, standing beside me.

I shake my head. “Sorry, my mind was elsewhere. Let’s head inside.” Shit, I am dreading this. Dreading looking into Dylan’s eyes and seeing what I find there.

Kyle holds the door open for me and we enter, he keeps a hand at the small of my back as we head to the back room where the party is being held. The room is filled with balloons and eighteenth banners, and it looks like everyone from college is here.

Aria waves at me from across the room and comes over to us. “You made it.” She looks from me to Kyle and her smile drops for a second before she smiles again. “Oh, you brought a date.”

“Aria, this is kyle.”

"Hi, Aria," Kyle says smiling, and he leans over and kisses her on the cheek.

“Come on, we’ve got room on our table over there,” I want to protest that we’re fine and we’ll sit somewhere else, preferably at the other end of the room behind a plant where no one can see me. As we walk towards the table, my heart stutters in my chest when I see Dylan sitting there staring into space as he picks at the label on his bottle of beer. “Look who I found,” Aria announces.

Connor and Dylan both look up at the same time. Dylan’s eyes search mine, and then he frowns when he sees Kyle beside me. The only two spare chairs are the two next to Dylan and with a tight smile he pulls out the chair. “Come sit, Ella. Join in the party.”

Wanting the floor to open and swallow me whole, I take the seat beside him and Kyle sits down next to me and places his arm over the back of my chair.

I can feel Dylan’s eyes burning a hole into the side of my head. He leans in and whispers into my ear. “We need to talk.”

I glance over at Kyle who’s busy watching everyone dancing on the dancefloor before I reply. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Like hell there isn’t Ella,” he growls in my ear. My eyes meet his and I can’t get a read on him.

---