Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
EZRA
“Isn’t that right, Vi? Ever since senior year when you confessed your feelings to me about Ez.”
The two sentences keep replaying in my head.
Did Vi have feelings for me back then?
Were we the ones meant to be together?
Does she have feelings for me now?
I know we had a drunken night that led to sex, but isn’t that something that happens a lot between best friends? Especially when alcohol is involved. It’s bound to happen.
Right?
Or am I going crazy?
She told me she didn’t regret it. But do most friends regret it?
I’ve liked Vi ever since I first laid eyes on her. She’s always been beautiful to me. In high school, I fell in love with her. But, if I remember correctly, Rya told me Vi liked Zay.
Then shit got all twisted with Rya and me, and I felt like I lost my chance with Vi. Then she got all twisted up with Zayn. There has always been love for her, though. She’s always been my what if.
Why didn’t she tell me she had feelings for me?
My mind has been going a hundred miles a minute ever since Rya said that, and I’m at a loss for words.
When I came back into the house after shoving Rya out the door, I didn’t know what to say.
Deep down, I’ve always known it’s been her.
I’ve always wanted to tell her, but I wasn’t sure how she felt about me.
Everything is so fucked up now, and I don’t know if I should come clean with how I’ve always felt.
She’s dealing with so much; I don’t know what the right thing to do is.
Besides all that, I sound like an idiot expressing my feelings for someone I didn’t marry and spent so many years being friends with. I really am living in a soap opera.
But if she liked me, why did she end up with Zayn?
“Ezra.”
I blink a few times to shake off my thoughts, then look at Vi, whose brows are furrowed as she stares at me. “Yeah.”
“You seem out of it.”
I shrug a shoulder, still in a daze of the memories. “I’m good.” I stand and reach my hand out to hers.
“Where are we going?” she asks, placing her hand in mine.
“To eat. Have you eaten dinner yet?” I help her stand, and we walk down the stairs together, holding hands.
“No. Did you come over to feed me?”
“I came to check on you, but dinner sounds good now,” I say and lead her into the kitchen. She lets go of my hand and walks further in.
“I guess it’s a good thing Rya came over,” I say. She looks at me with her eyebrows raised. “Because she left the garage door open, and I could get in,” I add with a smirk, wondering if she will ever admit that she ignored me this past week.
Her lips curl under her teeth, holding back her guilt. “Sorry,” she says.
“It’s okay.”
“I was too overwhelmed with everything and didn’t know what to say or what you would say.
” She shrugs her shoulders. “So…I ignored you.” She grabs a broom from the closet and walks back over to the kitchen.
“But I actually had a good day today. So I think having you around is helping me more than I thought it would.”
My heart thumps against my chest in unexpected excitement. I didn’t know whether or not my presence was helping. Now that I know it does, it makes me feel a lot better about stopping by.
My grin turns wide as I step closer to her to see what she’s sweeping up. My gaze drops from her to the broken glass scattered all over the floor. “Was this Rya?”
“No. It was me. I had the music up loud and didn’t hear her come in. When I turned around, she scared me, and I dropped a mason jar.”
I turn around and grab the trash can and bring it over to her so she can drop the broken glass in it. Once she’s done, I take the trash bag out of the bin and walk it outside to the trash can. When I walk back into the house, she turns to me.
“You didn’t have to take it out; I could have.”
“It was no problem.”
An hour later, we are sitting on her living room floor, our shoulders brushing against each other again.
Our Chinese takeout spread all over the floor brings back memories of our night together.
It’s like a duplicate image of that night.
I’m not sure why we chose the floor again; it just sort of happened.
Every time her shoulder bumps into mine, a wave of warmth rushes through me. It’s not lust. It’s something deeper, like my body remembers the feel of her that night. I just want to be close to her. Feel her again—all of her. The longing I had for her for so long is resurfacing.
The moment I found out she was marrying Zay, I knew all bets were off between us.
So I buried my feelings so deep down that even I believed we could only be friends…
until that night. Then everything reopened and resurfaced, making my world spin faster than I could ever have imagined.
I couldn’t think fully about what was happening or what I was doing.
My heart tugged me one way, and my mind just let me go with it.
“So…” Vi says, glancing over at me. “Have you talked to Rya about all of this?”
I clear my throat, surprised she’s asking. I know we should talk about all of this since it involves us.
“Yeah,” I answer, glancing her way. Her brown eyes catch my attention. Her eyes always drew me to her. In the sun, they go lighter, more like a honey brown. They’re beautiful. I’ve never seen an eye color change like that. “She admitted everything.”
Vi turns her gaze away from me. I reach up and place my hand on her shoulder. “Hey.” She turns to me with a small grin on her face, but I can see the hurt behind her eyes. The hurt she’s been trying to hide. “Do you want to talk about this now?” I ask.
She nods her head. “I feel like we need to move on.”
“I do too,” I say, leaning my back against the couch, pulling her to my chest. The smell of her vanilla scent lingers as I breathe.
“When did it start?”
I freeze at her question. “Have you not talked to Zay about it?”
She shakes her head. “No. I was so pissed all I did was shove the papers into his chest. Then blocked his number.”
“He hasn’t tried to come over here to see you?”
“Nope.”
Fucking Zayn. If it were me, I would try to fight for my marriage. I’d be doing everything I could to fix what I broke. He was in the wrong, but how could he leave it like that? As if nothing happened.
“So you haven’t seen him or talked to him since the day you found out?” I ask in disbelief.
“Nope. When I came back home, I saw some of his clothes were missing, so I knew he had packed a bag and left.”
I shift my body trying to understand what the hell is wrong with him. This isn’t the Zayn I—we—grew up with.
“Remember the night in Vegas when you got too drunk, and I took you back to the hotel because those two didn’t want to come back?”
She lifts her head from my chest, wide-eyed. “They fucked that night?”
I nod.
Her head shakes uncontrollably. “I can’t believe it. We had sex in the club that night.”
My lip curls in disgust. Not at Vi herself, but at the act itself. The whole thing is so wrong.
She turns her head, and I get a glimpse of her glossed-over eyes. “Don’t cry, Vi. We don’t have to talk about this.”
“No. I need to. I need to know everything so I can move on. I was lied to for so long that I can’t have the truth withheld from me anymore. I just can’t. I need to know everything.”
I wipe the tear trailing down her face, my fingers brushing against the warmth of her rosy cheeks.
“What else did she say?”
“She said it only continued because Zay would threaten her that he was going to tell us if she wouldn’t have sex with him again, which I don’t find true at all.”
A snort comes out of her as she covers her mouth. “Oh my god, she’s fucking ridiculous. I read their text messages. That’s not true. She’s just as to blame as he is. Do you want to read them?” she asks, sitting up taller.
“No, I’m good.”
“You seem to be fine with all this. Like you’re not mad or sad.”
I let out a sigh. “Things haven’t been good with us for a while now.”
“Really?” Her head snaps back in surprise.
“Yeah.” I nod slowly.
“I’m surprised she never talked to me about anything?”
I let out a scoff, almost a laugh. “Honestly, I don’t even think she realized how unhappy I was, and if she did, she didn’t care.”
The warmth of her touch leaves me as she shifts her body facing me more. “What happened between you two?”
“We weren’t right as a couple. We grew apart.” I pause for a moment. “She never wanted to grow up. All she cared about was shopping and drinking. I wanted to settle down, and I think she resented me for it.”
“What!” she exclaims in shock.
“I don’t think she saw it, even though I told her.
She only thought about herself, and she dismissed all of my concerns.
She wouldn’t even sit down and have a conversation about us without storming out.
She always thought talking about our issues was an attack on her.
” I run my hand through my hair, tugging at the ends to relieve some of the tension running through my body from remembering everything.
“What! I’m shocked. When did all this start?”
“It’s been years. All it was doing was pushing me away. Someone can only put up with that kind of dismissal for so long until they finally have no choice but to check out emotionally. The worst loneliness you can feel is when you’re not alone at all.”
Tears stream down my face not because I’m sad but because I’m finally able to share my feelings of what’s been happening.
For so long I held on to something I knew wasn’t going anywhere just so I wouldn’t lose my friends.
Because I knew if I left Rya, she was going to make a big deal out of it and I was afraid she was going to turn my friends against me.
A lot of good that did me. I lost them anyway. Except Vi.