23. Audra
Chapter 23
Audra
I ran.
I fucking ran again after I said no more running and I feel like shit for it. I pull my pillow over my head and groan into it as loud as my throat can handle. I don’t know why I can’t just enjoy a good thing.
I’m the happiest I’ve ever been with Roman and still I feel like I need to run when it feels too real and too permanent. It’s times like this I wish my friends knew about everything going on so I’d have someone to talk to. I try to think of what Ares and Ravyn would tell me if I could talk to them. I come up short though, it’s been too long since I got the chance to talk to either of them about boy problems. I don’t even know anymore what they’d say.
It’s always been Ares, Ravyn, and me. For the most part, we all kept to our group, never really bothering to make friends outside of it. Ares was definitely the most social out of the three of us. He had more friends than Ravyn and I combined.
Ravyn had girlfriends but she never really just had friends outside of us. The only friend I really had outside of the group was Levina and she moved away. We’ve always stayed in touch but she’s never visited. She always said if she came back she knew she wouldn’t be able to leave twice.
It dawns on me that I could call her up and explain it all to her. All the times she’s called me crying about her ex, she kinda owes me one. I gave her a brief rundown of the Tyler stuff via text the night it happened. So I decide to call her. The line barely gets to a second ring before she picks up.
“Audra? Is everything okay?” she asks, concern seeping through the phone. Oh right I haven’t called in over a year and the last real conversation we had over text was me filling her in on Tyler. Since then it’s just been check ins, asking if I’m doing okay.
“Uh, yeah. I just needed someone to talk to.”
“Oh. Okay well you can talk to me anytime, you know that,” she assures me.
“You have to swear not to tell anyone.”
“Well now I’m even more interested. I don’t talk to anyone from Doves Harbor but you, you know that.”
“I’m uh…” I pause. Fuck, am I really going to tell her? Yeah, fuck it. I am. “I’ve sort of been sleeping with Ares’ brother Roman.”
“ARE YOU FUCKING FUCKING ME RIGHT NOW?” she yells into the phone. I don’t even know what the hell that means.
“Do you mean kidding you?” I ask, confused.
“This isn’t a laughing matter. You’re fucking his brother?” she exclaims over broken laughter.
“Yes but no one knows and I need someone to talk to about it.”
“Okay, wow. Hit me with it.”
“Okay so the night I left Tyler I was walking home and I was considering turning around and going back but I realized how close I was to Ares’ house so I went there instead. When I got there, the only person who was home was Roman so he stayed with me and hung out with me until Ares got home. Well, I told him about Tyler but was keeping it a secret from everyone else so there were a lot of times that he was the only person I could go to.” I pause, taking a dramatic inhale. “So we got closer over the last few months and first he became one of my best friends but then he became more and we kissed then we kissed again and then we slept together and now I guess we’re kind of dating. We see each other almost every day. Last night he brought up getting a place together and it just seemed so fast and a little crazy to even bring up. So I kind of shut down and asked him to bring me home.”
“You want me to comfort you, tell you how to fix it, or walk through why you had that reaction to living together?” she asks and that’s always been the best part of talking to Levina about my problems. She always asks for what I’m looking for before offering help.
“Comfort and maybe fix it,” I admit.
“Well let me start by saying you’ve been through hell this year and you had a really normal reaction to the first big decision you’ve been faced with since then,” she says. Naturally, I never thought of it that way and spent the last 24 hours beating myself up, telling myself I’m a horrible person.
“Thank you.”
“As for fixing it, you have to just apologize. Go back with your tail between your legs and tell him you regret running from him. If you aren’t ready to talk about living together then tell him that, but make sure he knows it’s on the table at some point. Unless it’s not, then you need to tell him that. He’s been in love with you forever, don’t lead him on.” Her words stop me in my tracks. Love. He can’t love me. It’s too soon for love. Love is scary and committal and painful.
“He doesn’t love me,” I blurt out and she laughs. I’m spiraling and she’s laughing.
“Audra, are you kidding? He’s been in love with you since middle school. I’m not making this up. He told me and Beck.”
“You know Beck?”
“This isn’t about me. Don’t change the subject.”
“What do you mean he told you?” I ask. I guess it’s pretty straightforward and a stupid thing to ask but it feels like this can’t be true.
“The only thing I could possibly mean, Audra. He told me about this girl named Audra Hart whom he had been in love with for years. All the way back in high school.”
“Why wouldn’t you have told me?” I ask. We were friends. It makes no sense that she would have known that and not told me when she found out.
“It was right before I left. I couldn’t talk to anyone. You know that.”
“I’m not leading him on. He makes me really happy, I love being around him. I feel like I can be the most myself I’ve ever been around him. It scared me though, Levina,” I admit.
“Then you need to tell him that. You want to know how to fix it? Use your words. Take it from me, the only thing you’ll really regret are the things you didn’t say or do,” she says and if I was in a better headspace I’d probably take the time to ask her what she means by that. Instead, I wrap up the call and shoot Roman a message asking him to come to my house, and thank God he agrees.
A while later he walks in my bedroom door with another little bouquet of wildflowers. The guilt I was already feeling intensifies because not only did I run after I said I wouldn’t anymore but I have him apologizing for it.
“I’m sorry,” he says, holding them out to me.
“No,” I shake my head. “I’m sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for,” I assure him, taking the flowers and putting them on the desk in my room. He pulls me into a hug and I stuff my face into his chest.
“Please stop running from me.” He sighs against the top of my head. Levina’s words ring in my head, telling me he loves me.
“I wasn’t running. I just needed a second. It just seems really soon to bring it up. All the Tyler stuff is so fresh and we’re still hiding from all of our friends and family.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I forget sometimes that this is newer for you than it is for me,” he admits. I almost consider bringing up what Levina told me but I figure it’s best not to ask questions you don’t want answers to and I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet. A question I do want an answer to though is what’s going on with Beck and Levina.
“I talked to my friend Levina today and she said she knew Beck. Did you know that?” Okay so I already know that he knows but I couldn’t tell him that part without telling him what we were talking about. He freezes, face dropping, like I brought up a forbidden topic.
“Levina McKay?” he asks and his face is spun with shock. I pull my eyebrows together, squinting at him in confusion.
“Yes? The one who moved away.” His eyes go wide.
“Shit,” he blurts out, recoiling. “Yeah. I know they knew each other,” he admits. This is weird because first she didn’t want to talk about it and now Roman looks like he’s seen a ghost.
“Why do I feel like there’s a story everyone knows about but me?” I ask, raising a brow at him.
“There isn’t,” he says coolly, shutting me down.
“Did you and her…” I trail off because I don’t know exactly what I want to ask but I know this has raised suspicions. Everyone’s acting so damn weird.
“No! No no no. There’s shit with her and Beck that I’m sworn to secrecy on but nothing ever happened with me and her,” he corrects.
“Oh thank God.” I huff in relief. A smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth.
“Jealous over me, Auds?” he asks, popping a brow at me. I roll my eyes, walking over and sitting on my bed.
“Yeah. I don’t want to share you,” I admit.
“I’ve been yours since I met you, baby. You never have to share.” Blush pricks at my cheeks. He comes over to the bed and throws himself on his back next to me.
“Can we talk about when we should tell Ares?” he asks, turning over to face me. I lay down, facing him as well.
“Yeah we can talk about it.” His face lights up like a kid coming downstairs on Christmas morning.
“Really?”
“Yes, really. When do you have in mind?” I ask him, running my fingers through his loose curls.
“I don’t have a date in mind. As soon as possible I guess. I don’t think I can pretend to not feel this way much longer.”
“Okay, then we’ll tell him soon. Give me a chance to talk to my mom first. She’s on a trip now but when she gets home I’ll talk to her.”
“You’re going to tell your mom about me?”
“Yes, I’m going to tell my mom about us.”
“Can I stay here tonight, since she isn’t here?” he asks.
“I was hoping you would.”