Page 77

Drew’s arms tighten.

Not enough to trap.

Enough to hold.

“I know.”

“He picked her.”

The words shake.

So does everything in me.

“I know.”

“I wasn’t enough.”

That one gets a reaction.

His hand stills once at the back of my head.

Then resumes, slower.

“Don’t do that.”

I laugh and cry at the same time, the sound ruined beyond repair.

“It’s true.”

“No,” he says quietly. “What’s true is he was unfinished where she was concerned.”

I squeeze my eyes shut.

“He was my…” I can’t even say it properly at first. “He was my best friend.”

That hurts more than anything else.

Not the kisses.

Not the almost-relationship.

Not even the public humiliation.

That.

The fact that I lost the person I texted first.

The one who knew my schedule.

The one who sat through my rehab appointments and Sunday breakfast and Saturday-night Netflix on the floor when I couldn’t do stairs right and coffee dates and all those ordinary little companionable things that become part of your nervous system before you realize they’re not permanent.

“He was my coffee date,” I whisper brokenly into his shoulder. “My breakfast buddy. My—my steady person.”

Drew’s breathing changes.

Not jealousy.

Not irritation.