Page 30 of The Burnt Heart

“How long until someone gets here?” I asked, turning my mind to the situation at hand. There wasn’t time to sift through old emotions, even if they strangled the air from my lungs.

I had to focus.

16

Briar

“Don’t fight, Bry. I’ve wanted this for so long,” Nicole breathed, straining toward me. My hands clamped around her slick shoulders, the wet tendrils of her hair brushing against me. I shuddered at the unwanted closeness. Desperate to put space between us, I pushed her backwards. She stumbled, eyes wide with surprise. The towel she had wrapped around her body didn’t offer enough coverage and my stomach turned violently at the sight.

“What are you doing?” I hyperventilated, my chest aching. Nicole’s bottom lip trembled, her fingers digging into the top of the cotton towel. She shook her head, advancing toward me.

“What does it look like I’m doing, Bry?” I flinched at the nickname. “We’ve been doing this dance for years. All those days we spent together at the foster home. You could have gone toyour friends, but you chose me. I could read between the lines. If it wasn’t for Adelaide, we would have been together long ago, me, you and…what are you waiting for?”

“No, no, no,” I chanted, tugging on my curls. I must be the stupidest person alive.

“We were just friends,” I insisted, and Nicole tilted her head with a determined frown. She propped herself on the bed and I turned to grip the door frame, my knees sagging. Oh god. There was a half-naked girl in my room. How could I get her out? I needed to stop this. It was a nightmare of my creation and idiocy.

“I know you better than anyone. I’ve never connected with someone like I have with you. Our conversations? We talk for hours, we like the same things, we love being in each other’s company. You chose me as your date for the award night. You could have hired some slut like your friends did, but you wanted me beside you,” she kept talking softly, her voice filled with wonder and excitement. “I’ve been waiting, and I knew today was fate. Our second chance. Don’t you feel it? Aren’t you feeling something right now? If you loved Adelaide as much as you thought, you’d be doing everything in your power to get back with her. But you aren’t. You’ve been walking around scribbling in that book for months. How can you say you love her when I’m the only one who knows what happened to you when you were younger?”

Nicole folded off the bed and moved toward me, but I ran into the bathroom, falling to my knees in front of the toilet. Her words bounced between my skull and my body reacted violently, vomit hurtling out of my mouth and coating the bowl.

What happened to me? What did she know?

“Oh my god, Bry,” Nicole gasped, rushing to put her hand on my shoulder. I flinched away, retching again.

“If you knew what happened to me, you would know why I hate that name. Don’t touch me.” I wrenched my body away from her trembling grasp, holding my hand up as she crouched in front of me.

“You needed time to process him choosing you. I was there through everything,” her voice was soft. “Tell me it didn’t mean anything, you turning to me while you were confused.”

Her words violently wrenched open the protective shield to my heart. Nausea blurred my vision, and I clung to the toilet bowl. My skin prickled with heat. What did Nicole know about what had happened to me? Her following comment cut through the desperate, clawing fear.

“Was it the drink? He said it would help, but you didn’t finish, so I had to improvise.”

A chill froze my limbs. Nicole’s eyes were wide and panicked. But what monster was lurking underneath her skin? She’d planned all of this. Spilled the drink on purpose. Nicole blinked, hurt clear on her face at my disgust.

“What are you talking about? What did you give me?” I whispered.

“It was just to help you Bry. You were so in your head. So obsessed with Adelaide. She doesn’t love you like we do. How can she when she fucks two other guys as well? She doesn’t deserve you. I was the person you used to turn to, and I waited for you to realize, but we recognize you needed a push.” A weird look glazed her eyes, and I shrunk against the toilet. She was delusional. Nicole had taken every platonic interaction and turned it into a story of forbidden love. It shone from her gaze, bright and twisted. She truly believed our history was the beginning of a beautiful future. That there was love in what had been done to me. My stomach threatened to upend itself again, cramping sharply at her closeness. What had she put in my drink?

“Nicole, I don’t love you. I’ve only ever thought of you as a friend,” I croaked. “Whatever you think you know from when we were younger, it doesn’t mean I chose you. Adelaide will always be the one for me. I know you think it’s over between us, but I would never be with you in that way.”

Nicole jutted out her jaw, her fingers dancing along the tiles to brush my leg. I swallowed the sharp sting of bile.

“I can love enough for the both of us while your heart heals. Adelaide was jealous because she knew what we had was special. She could sense our connection. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up and see me. But you wanted to say goodbye. You wanted to end what we have for good.”

“Don’t touch me.” My elbow violently smashed into the wall as I jerked away from her. “Don’t call meBry! If you knew what happened to me, you’d never call me that goddamn name. You’re not listening to me. You lied and manipulated me, and I’m an idiot for believing you. But there will never be anything between us—ever,” I shouted at her, gratified that my words seemed to penetrate the fog of delusion she’d wrapped herself in. A tear wobbled on her lower lash, glinting silver in the fluorescent light.

“What is going on in here?” I whipped my head up and saw Logan vibrating with rage. Nicole shrieked and pulled the towel to cover her bare legs. It had the unwanted effect of revealing her cleavage. The sight made me retch into the toilet bowl.

“Oh my god, Logan, I’m half dressed. Get out,” she yelped. “Bry-Briar and I are in the middle of something.” She tripped over the nickname, but I wasn’t focused on that. It was the stark disgust on Logan’s face. The betrayal and disbelief.

“It’s not what it looks like,” I blurted out, and he snorted. His suitcase was discarded behind him. How long had he been standing there?

“Are you serious Briar? What else could it be? She doesn’t have any pants on,” he roared and pointed at Nicole. “I want you out of this house. Get your shit and go.”

Nicole sniffled and looked at me with glassy eyes.

“We need to finish what we were talking about,” she tried, and I started laughing. A response of pure incredulity. Was this really happening to me? How did I even get here? I wanted to bludgeon my head on the tile walls and put an end to my stupidity.

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