Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
But were they safe?
What if they told Nathan?
If he found out Shane and I used to date and I didn’t tell him…
I shuddered, hands wrung together in my lap again as I stared at them.
“I…” I wet my lips before looking up at them. “If I tell you all, will you promise not to say a word to anyone? Not even your husbands or boyfriends or—”
“You can stop right there,” Livia said, holding up a finger. “What happens at girls’ night stays at girls’ night. We are a fortress, this crew. Trust me.”
“I mean, Maven was married to my brother when I asked her to keep my secret that I was shagging his best friend. And she did,” Grace pointed out. “Without question.”
“Circle of trust,” Mia promised.
And maybe it was stupid, maybe it was a little careless… but I believed them.
I wanted so badly to have someone to talk to about it all that I was willing to take the risk.
“Shane and I were a couple,” I said, and just admitting it out loud lifted a weight off my chest. “We… we were in love once.”
Again, I was greeted by silence, and when I looked up, the girls were all slack jawed.
Then, all at once, the table broke into chaos.
“Oh, my God!”
“Did she just call him Shane?!”
“Okay, we need all the details right now.”
“I knew he looked at you like a sad puppy dog who’d lost his human!”
“How long?! When?!”
And against all logic, I answered every question.
The girls listened. They swooned as I walked them through how we started dating. They cursed and hit the table when I explained how we’d broken up — though I did leave out the finer details on that one. And by the time I finished my story, I felt something I hadn’t in years, though I couldn’t quite place it.
“Thank you for sharing that with us,” Maven said when I’d finished. “It’s nice to know the background.”
“Do you think he still loves you?” Grace yelped when Livia flicked her arm. “What?!”
“She’s married, you dummy.”
“And?!”
I chuckled, focusing on where I was coloring. “No. Shane and I had… well, it was just young love.” The lie felt sour in my gut. “It’s in the past.”
“So you’re friends now?” Mia asked.
I sighed. “I wouldn’t say that, either.”
The girls quieted, but thankfully, Chloe must have realized how we were crossing into a territory I was uncomfortable with because she smiled and cleared her throat. “I want to hear more about Georgie.”
“Oh, yes! Tell us about your baby brother!” Grace said.
“I can’t believe you raised him,” Livia marveled, shaking her head. “I haven’t even survived one year of motherhood, but it’s the hardest job I’ve ever had. And I had a stint of doing root canals when I was in school.”
The girls chuckled, and I smiled, the conversation easy from there. It was effortless to talk about my little brother, about how he felt like my son more than anything. I loved telling them about how smart he was, how caring, how funny. I promised them they’d get to meet him when he came to visit for Christmas, and then blessedly, the conversation moved away from me.
But I didn’t miss the way the girls watched me at different moments that night, the way their gazes lingered, thoughtful, like they could sense the things I didn’t say and the parts of myself I kept carefully tucked away.
I knew they were curious about my past, maybe even my present, but they didn’t push. They gave me space. They let me choose what to share and what not to.
And suddenly, with a clarity that made my chest tighten, I understood why Nathan had never liked me having friends.
It wasn’t just that people might see him more clearly, that they might notice the cracks in the polished version of him that he worked so hard to present.
It was that friends meant witnesses.
It meant voices outside his own.
It meant I might have someone to talk to besides him.
Without them, he was the only place my thoughts could go. He was the only version of reality I’d hear. There was nothing to challenge him, nothing to compete for my attention.
Anything that pulled me away from him had always felt like a threat.
And that was the part I hadn’t fully seen before.
If I had friends who were too close, someone else might notice that he wasn’t the Prince Charming everyone thought he was.
And worse—
I might notice it, too.
Blood On My Hands
Shane
Present
A week into November, the season had my full attention.
Almost, anyway.
It was hard to let go of Ariana, and I realized I likely didn’t have the strength to actually do it entirely. But I did have the respect for her to leave her alone when she asked me to — and she had. Point blank.
She wanted me to stay away from Sweet Dreams unless she specifically asked for something. She warned me not to bring up the Sunday we’d spent together, even when all I’d tried to do was apologize. Basically, she’d stayed away from me, muttering excuses to leave the room whenever I entered it.