AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yeah, thanks.” She flashes me a quick smile.
“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
She shrugs, hops off the sidewalk, then back on. “It didn’t come up.”
“And it came up with Nate and Kash?”
Her mouth twists, and she shoots me a guarded look. “They asked me. I told them.”
Fuck. So this is on me. But I did ask Nate, many times over, and he never replies to my questions. I know practically nothing about Sydney, or Nate, and let’s not even mention Kash.
“West…” She has stopped and is making puppy eyes at me.
“What?”
“Don’t be mad at me. I couldn’t stand it. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just… wasn’t sure I wanted anyone to know.”
“Why not?”
“I thought… if I didn’t tell anyone, it wouldn’t be real, you know? That she isn’t coming back. That I’m all alone.”
The heartbreak in her eyes does me in. Literally.
In two strides, I grab her in a hug and feel her tremble against me. “But you’re not alone, Syd. You have us. You have me.”
She holds on to me, presses her face to my chest, and I want to hold her there forever. “I know. You, and Nate, and Kash.”
Right. Reality check, West. Hold your horses.
I pull back reluctantly. “Does Nate even walk you home anymore?”
“Sometimes.” Her smile is sad. “He doesn’t talk to me much these days. He’s changed.”
“I know.”
“It hurts. Whatever’s going on with him. He said… he said it would all be all right, but it’s not, is it?”
I don’t know how to comfort her. Nate obviously means so much to her. But I don’t say that.
Instead I ask her the question that has been spinning around in my mind for months now, ever since Nate mentioned it. “Hey, Syd…”
“Yes?”
“Are you in love with Kash?”
She flinches, and her face turns red. “What? No.”
Okay, good. But her eyes shift away from me, and I get a queasy feeling in my stomach. I need to shut up, but I can’t. “What about Nate?”
“Don’t ask me that kind of thing, West…”
I see in her eyes that Nate was right. In part, at least. Because she wants them both, she’s in love with them both.
Only not with me.
Shutting my trap, I start walking. No reason to ask why, or to stand around, letting her see how hard the realization twists my heart inside my fucking chest.
Well, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Deep inside I’d known it all along. Why should she want me, anyway? I’m useless. Crazy. A mistake. A freak.
