Page 31 of Hard to Forgive

I’d spent Friday and Saturday deep in an anxiety spiral. When I’d woken up Sunday, I’d felt like I’d been hit by a semi. I’d ended up calling into work the first three days of the week, even though my fever broke Tuesday evening. I’d spent most of the time sleeping, but I was still exhausted and every glimpse in the mirror showed that I’d been under the weather.

Unfortunately, people noticed.

Silas had noticed, and he’d acted like he’d cared. It was all a show. I knew him better than he thought. I knew better than to fall for it, because I still remembered, all too vividly, the way our story had played out in the past. The best thing I could do was keep my distance from him.

We couldn’t have any repeats of Friday night.

It didn’t matter how many times the night had replayed in my mind.

“Jonas?” Seb’s voice sounded again, pulling me out of the memories of that night.

“Sorry,” I apologized immediately. “Yes, I’m sure I want to go out tonight.”

“Even though Eli wants to hit Goliath?”

“Yes,” I repeated. “I’m feeling better. Even if I look like shit.”

Seb laughed. “Do I need to come over beforehand? Make you look better?”

I contemplated it for a moment. Seb was a miracle worker, and even if he couldn’t unpack the bags under my eyes, he could at least conceal them. The few times I’d tried, I had ended up looking like a circus clown. The problem wasn’t in Seb coming over and helping. The problem was in the fact that I hated the way makeup felt on my skin.

But the alternative was showing up to Goliath looking like I hadn’t slept in a month. That was not an attractive look on anyone. I sighed. “Yeah, come fix me up.”

“I’m bringing dinner,” Seb informed me immediately. “I would almost put money on you barely eating all week.”

“You’d lose that bet,” I assured him. “Mom brought chicken noodle soup over Sunday, and I basically survived on that all week.”

Seb let out a jealous grunt, a sound that spurred my own laughter. We caught up for a few more minutes while I drove home. We disconnected as I parked. His last words were a promise to bring something by that was more substantial than chicken noodle soup for me to eat.

I was grateful for it, but it was unnecessary.

I was more grateful for it an hour later, when Seb showed up with two pizzas from Pie in the Sky and Matt. “Seb said I’m not allowed to be late tonight,” Matt explained as he walked into my apartment.

I grinned and motioned them deeper inside. I couldn’t look at the hallway wall. It reminded me too much of being pinned against it the week before. Brushing my teeth had also been abit of a nightmare, because it just reminded me of looking in the mirror and seeing the way Silas looked when he fucked me.

They were not thoughts I needed to entertain. Not at all.

We ate dinner and got ready for the night out together. Seb worked his magic on the bags under my eyes, and Matt read group chat messages that came in while we got ready. It was mainly Eli and Holden texting complaints that they were excluded from pizza. I grinned at Seb’s dictated response, a pointed reminder that they’d both been invited, but Eli hadn’t been off work and Holden refused to leave him behind to come eat pizza with the rest of us.

I hadn’t seen any of the messages planning the pizza night. A twinge of paranoia blossomed in my gut. Did they have a group chat I wasn’t involved in? We’d never had separate group chats, unless we were specifically planning a birthday party or something. We’d never kept things from each other.

Seb’s hand covered mine. “You okay?” His voice was quiet enough that Matt didn’t even look up across the room.

“Yeah,” I answered. Because I was. Sure, I was now half-convinced they had a private group chat where they talked shit about me, but I was fine. The odds of them having a group chat talking about me was slim to none. I knew that logically.

“You sure?” he questioned.

“Are we ready to go?” I was not going to spend this entire night out with Seb worried about me. “Then, maybe, we can worry about finding you some hot hookup tonight so you stop over-analyzing every facial expression I make.”

Seb stuck his tongue out at me. “Okay, fine.” He stood up and spoke louder, pulling Matt away from his phone. “Stop texting Lucas. If we don’t leave soon, we’ll be late.”

Matt pocketed his phone. “I just wanted to make sure he got to Dallas all right.”

“What’s he doing in Dallas?”

“Meeting with the company that offered him the job to go over the final details. He’s also looking at apartments.”

My heart ached for my friend, but he didn’t look nearly as upset as he had about it a few weeks before. “How are you holding up?” I had to check, after all.

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