Page 2 of Setting Limits

“No!” they both yell in unison.

This time, I turn to Shay, and I don’t try to hide the pain etched on my face, in my words, or in my heart. “Shay, you’ve been lying to me for almost a year? How could you do that?”

“Leave her alone, Chels. I did this. I went after her.” Of course he did, of course he went after her. That was never a question in my mind. Lochlyn wanted a new conquest, and who better than my virgin best friend?

With sheer exasperation and anger, I throw my hands in the air and spin to face him. “Oh, poor, sweet Lochlyn. What, you couldn’t get enough sluts at college? You had to turn my best friend into just another one of your conquests?”

Lochlyn tenses, hands balling into fists, as he points a finger at me. “Watch it,” he says through gritted teeth.

“Really though, Loch, have you told her about all the girls at school?” Surely he hasn’t told her about the steady stream of girls in and out of his room. Shay couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to sleep with him if he had.

“I have not been with anybody since well before Thanksgiving. I have been faithful to Shay.”

“Oh bullshit, Lochlyn. You couldn’t keep it in your pants if a million dollars was on the line.” I take a moment and shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t even care about that. I told both of you, time and time again, that I would never be okay if you two got together. I never thought I’d have to worry about it because you barely noticed each other. But I started seeing little things here and there this summer. I thought I was crazy. Guess not.”

The party, the time he spent at the store and how she was sometimes gone too. It all felt off, but stupidly I ignored it.

“Say what you want about me, Chelsea, but I have not, nor would I ever, cheat on Shay.”

“To cheat on her, you’d have to be in a relationship, not just screwing around.” The words angrily fly from my mouth.

When neither one of them says anything, their eyes lock on each other, and it all becomes crystal clear. This is all so much more, so much worse, than I initially thought it was.

“Ohmygod. You’re in a relationship? Like officially boyfriend and girlfriend?”

Something finally clicks into place, and I turn to Shay. “The messages. John. It was Lochlyn the whole time, wasn’t it?” Shay must see the utter betrayal I feel because she can’t meet my eye anymore. “That’s why you never let me meet him. Because you werelyingto me.”

“Chelsea, I’m—” Shay starts quietly, but she doesn’t get to apologize for this. This is beyond anything I ever could have dreamed. The two people I love most in this world have been sneaking around behind my back for more than half the year. I’m supposed to trust them, that they’ll stick around for me like nobody else has. And then they go and dothis?For months on end, they purposefully lied to me.

“You need to choose.” The words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop them.

“What? I—What?” Shay sounds almost as stunned as I feel. Good.

“You need to choose. Me or him.”

“Chelsea, cut the crap. You can’t make her choose between us.” Ultimately, he’s right. I can’t. I’m not foolish enough to think I actually have that kind of power.

I turn to him and tell him just one more truth. “I can’t be friends with somebody fucking my brother.”

He glowers at me in response. I’d be scared if he wasn’t my brother and I didn’t know he’d fold like a lawn chair. “I won’t let you do this.”

Want to challenge me, brother? Fine. Challenge accepted. I turn to Shay to give her the news. “Here’s the deal, Shay. I can’t force you two to break up. But I also don’t have to keep talking to you. It’s him or me.”

It would be the complete destruction of my soul to never talk to her again. Shay is my absolute best friend, even though I know I don’t always show it in return. To lose her? It would be devastating. But at least I’d be doing it on my terms. I’d be doing the ending. I wouldn’t be the one getting dropped like last season’s shirt style.

Sure, she could choose him, which would sting like nothing ever has before, but it would be by my hand, by my forcefulness, not her own free will.

I leave the room and storm down the steps, Lochlyn’s voice bellowing after me. It’s not until I slam the front door that I realize what I said up there, and the consequences.

“What have I done?”

Chapter 2

Thewordstumbledoutof my mouth faster than I could stop them, and while I regretted them, and still do, right now the whole situation is laden with anger. Including my own. The problem I’ve gotten myself into, besides the obvious ultimatum, is that I don’t know how to get out of it.

“Theyliedto me, Bren. For months and months. My best friend, my brother.”

“I don’t know, Chels. They get along well. You said all of you have hung out together forever. Is it so crazy for them to want to be together? To be happy together?”

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