Page 13 of If You Say So

Had I always been drawn to Frankie?

Because, if I had, I’d been a shitty friend.

“Malachi…”

I winced.

I hated that name.

Especially when it came from her lips.

“What?” she asked, concerned. “Are you hurting?”

I was always hurting.

But I didn’t want her to know that.

Instead, I chose to tell her the more truthful of the hurts, just to get her attention off the pain I was constantly in.

“I don’t like being called Malachi,” I found myself telling my best friend’s woman.

Frankie looked over at me, her face a mask of pain that she didn’t manage to hide in time, and

stared.

“You don’t like to be called Malachi?” She sounded confused.

Cute and sweet.

I wanted to pull her into my arms.

But, of course, I didn’t.

Because that would be wrong.

Right?

She was my best friend’s woman.

My best friend’s fiancée.

My best friend, who was no longer here.

I didn’t remember much of my time in captivity.

In fact, I barely remembered anything other than the smell—and even then it was only when a

certain smell hit—a rotting animal that’d been run over on the side of the road.

“No, not really,” I admitted. “Malachi just seems… wrong.”

She looked like she understood.

“You really don’t remember anything?” she asked, looking sick to her stomach.

I wanted to wipe that look from existence.

Seeing her in pain was really doing something funky to my heart.

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