26. Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Six
Mac
“Hey, doc.”
“Mac, it’s good to hear from you.”
The tiny phone speaker has nothing on the real thing, but there’s something about hearing her voice that makes me want to weep.
Because if she’s here, then things aren’t so different after all, even if it’s been six months since we spoke last.
“You know, you didn’t have to run all the way to Europe to get out of our last talk.”
I snicker and tip my shoulder up to swipe at the tears already escaping down my face. “I know.” I roll my watering eyes. “All I had to do was hit cancel on the website.”
She hums and eyes me through the screen. “So? How are we feeling?”
I sigh against the weight that wants to settle into my chest and pull my knees up and hug them. “Like garbage.”
She nods. “Explain that, then.”
My heart crawls up my throat. “Well, for starters …” I gnaw at my bottom lip. “I’m in love with my best friend.”
“Mm-hm,” she murmurs and arches a brow. “And?”
“And he didn’t choose me.” There’s a choked sob that works its way up my throat. “For the first fucking time ever, he didn’t come with me, and I don’t understand. I don’t know what to do without him.” I sniff back another noise that claws up my throat. It’s ugly and it hurts. “All these amazing places and moments …” I throw a hand out. “I should be happy, but all I can think about is him.”
There’s a softness that takes over the doctor’s features. “Have you … talked to him about these feelings? Does he know you want him there?”
I slump and dig the heel of my palm into my eye socket. “And say what? Please hug me because it’s the only time I feel free?”
It’s heavy and desperate and completely insensitive to the fact that he would not choose me if he didn’t have to.
He’s straight.
See also: he’s not fucking here now.
“Then what?” I mumble to the rumpled bed sheets. “Lose the friendship we do have because I can’t keep my little crush to myself?”
She drags in a deep breath and leans closer to the phone. “But what if.”
My bottom lip wobbles just like it did that night in the rain. I don’t know how I’ll ever go back to Aria’s shop. “That sounds too much like a fantasy, doc.”
“Couldn’t fantasy become reality?”
I shake my head because it’s just not possible. There’s nothing that Jordan could say that would change the shit storm of chance we’ve been placed in. Even if he did … even if he admitted he was curious … I don’t know that I could bear being his first guy.
No one ends up with their firsts.
Deep down, I know that my heart wouldn’t be able to take the beating of having him, only to lose him when he realizes it’s just a curiosity and not a reality.
“It doesn’t matter,” I mumble.
“It does, though. It matters a whole lot, and you won’t know unless you try.”
“I thought therapy was supposed to make me feel better,” I grumble and swipe at my face. “Not like I’m a dumpster fire on a crash course to self-destruction.”
Dr. Surah snorts and I flick my eyes to the screen that holds her face. “It’s meant to identify our self-destructive ways and work through them.”
“So, you’re saying I am a fuck up. Cool. Stamp of shrink approval right here.” I muster up enough of a smile that she knows I’m kidding, but only slightly.
All of this makes me feel like I really am a headcase with a broken heart. Defective. Destructive.
There are too many things at risk. Too many things that can break.
And I just feel so fucking fragile.
Like an already splintered pane waiting to shatter.
I’m in too deep. Aching for the one person that doesn’t want me.
Not like that.
I end up stacking the extra pillows on top of the comforter and fall into a fitful sleep in a cold bed a little later.
Alone .