One
KATRINA
PRESENT DAY
“You just met him a month ago,” Savanah said. Her eyes narrowed, like she was trying to decide whether or not I’d lost my mind. “And in anger management classes, of all places. How can you be sure he’s not a wolf in sheep’s clothing, waiting to beat the shit out of you, just like Gordon did?"
I knew she was trying to protect me, but hearing Gordon’s name still hit hard. I wanted to tell her Dane was different. I wanted to believe he was. I just wasn't sure I did yet.
I couldn’t say for sure what had brought him into those classes with me—there had to be a reason, some story I wasn’t seeing—but I just didn’t buy the picture she was painting of him.
Hell, I was sitting in anger management too, and I’d never thought of myself as a violent person.
Sure, I had a temper that flared hotter than it should sometimes, but I was Italian.
In my family, yelling across the kitchen counted as casual conversation, and no one said “I love you” without at least three hand gestures.
Fire was practically stitched into my DNA.
That didn’t make me dangerous. “I’m in the same class,” I said, locking my eyes onto hers without blinking.
“Does that make me a danger to the people around me?” I held her gaze, steady and unflinching, and I could see the certainty in her expression begin to crack as she was forced to reconsider everything she had said.
“No, you’re not. But I know you have a good heart.
Him, on the other hand, I have no idea about.
” Savanah lifted her finger to her mouth and chewed on the corner of her nail, her eyes narrowing like she was trying to figure him out and coming up empty, and I can hear the worry sitting heavy in every word she says.
“Look, I worry about you, and I don’t want another bad thing happening to you.
You’ve been through enough already.” Her voice got tighter, thicker, like the thought alone upset her and broke her heart all at once.
“I won’t survive wearing orange and living in a twelve-by-twelve cell.
Which is exactly where I’ll be if he hurts you because I’ll go crazy on his ass. ”
I loved my BFF, and there was no doubt in my mind she would go after Dane if he ever hurt me.
That was just how she was when it came to people she loved—fierce, loyal, and a little crazy if you pushed her too far.
She hated Gordon with every fiber in her body, and it took everything I had in me to keep her from killing him when he showed up to collect his things after we both went to jail.
The second he walked in, I could feel her switch flip.
Her whole body went stiff, her face hardened, and I knew one wrong word from him would’ve been enough to send her over the edge.
“I know,” I told her and it was the truth. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Savanah. You’re like my sister. I don’t know how I’d have made it through the last few months if it wasn’t for you.”
It wasn’t the first time we’d had a conversation like that and hearing her say it pulled me right back to our college years.
Back to all the times she looked at me like she could see I was barely holding it together after a breakup, even when I swore I was fine.
I could still hear her words from back then, clear as day, like no time had passed at all.
We were sitting in our dorm room, the table between us buried under crushed Cheetos, half-empty beer bottles, and all the chaos that came with being young and dumb.
"Need I remind you about Scott, freshman year?
" Savanah said, reaching for her beer before dropping back against the sofa and tucking one leg under her. She took another long swallow, then looked at me like she was already irate with the answer she knew I was going to give. “He was so into you—or at least you swore he was—right up until he used you to make Kathy Patton jealous and dropped you the second she showed interest in him.” She didn’t even give me room to defend myself before she kept going.
“And then there was Ross, just a few months ago. You met him at a bar. You take home a disease from a bar, not a husband.”
“Lots of people find their other half at a bar,” I said, but I heard the defensiveness in my own voice. Savanah didn’t answer right away. She just looked at me with a single brow raised, and somehow that was worse than if she’d laughed.
“No one finds their soul mate after last call,” she said finally, quieter now, which somehow made it cut deeper. “They leave drunk as hell and wake up with a hangover, not the love of their life.”
He was twenty-five, and I was twenty and swore he was the one. Right up until he invited me over to his place, and the minute he realized he wasn’t getting past second base, I never heard from him again.
I rolled my eyes, but the second she said it, I was right back there—walking across campus to the dorm with my stomach in knots and my pride dragging behind me.
I could still remember the way his words hit me when he laughed and said I was just a puppy trying to play with the big dogs.
It was cruel, and somehow worse because he said it like it was nothing, like I was nothing.
When he stopped calling after that, it wrecked me more than I ever wanted to admit.
I had been caught up in the fact that an older guy—no, a man wanted me, and when it all fell apart, it cut deep.
It felt like every ounce of confidence I had got ripped out from under me.
“Hey, where’d you go?” Savanah asked, her voice softer this time, like she could tell I had slipped somewhere other than the room we were sitting in.
“Just remembering that one night back in our dorm when you lectured me about Scott and Ross,” I said. “Feels like I’m right back there all over again.”
She let out a breath and looked at me, her expression softening. “Look, you know I’m watching out for you. I don’t mean anything by it. I just…” She paused, like she was trying to find the right words without making it worse. “I just want you to be happy.”
“I know but that was college,” I said, trying to brush it off even though the words didn’t land as easy as I wanted them to.
The truth was, she wasn’t wrong, and maybe that’s what got under my skin the most. Back then, every mistake felt bigger, every heartbreak was harder, and every guy had a way of making me believe he was different until he proved me wrong.
“Once we graduated, things changed Savanah, and you know it.” I looked at her, needing her to believe me, needing to believe it myself more than I wanted to admit.
“You know, not all my relationships were a hot mess. There was Jeremy. He was into me. We spent a lot of time together, and I didn’t fall hard for him.
” I said it like I needed her to believe me, but really, I needed to believe it myself.
I was trying to convince myself I still wasn’t that little girl chasing some made-up happily ever after every time a guy gave me attention.
“Oh please.” Savanah huffed, looking at me like I was trying to rewrite history right in front of her. “Seriously, you guys hung out in a group with your friends. Yeah, he picked you up and dropped you off, but you two were never really alone.”
“There was that one time he came to my apartment,” I argued, even though the second the words left my mouth, I knew how weak they sounded.
Savanah rolled her eyes so hard it was almost painful to watch.
“He came to your apartment while I was there, and he didn’t care.
If he had an agenda, he would have acted different, but he didn’t.
And never once asked you out on an actual date where it was just the two of you.
” She gave me a look, the kind that said she loved me but wasn’t about to let me lie to myself.
“Then you stalked him for a month, found out the exact location of where he worked, and left a note on his truck for his birthday. Not to mention the bright green poster board you made and stuck out in the dirt parking lot with balloons tied to the antenna of his truck so every single person driving by knew it.”
“It was a cute gesture,” I said, quieter this time because even I could hear how pathetic it sounded now.
“It sure was. So cute that the very next day he called to tell you he liked you as a friend and didn’t feel anything more than that.
” Savanah’s eyes softened then, the edge in her voice giving way to something gentler.
"Let’s face it, Kate—you fall fast and hard.
You were always looking for your Prince Charming, somebody to hand you a happily ever after.
” She paused, and when she spoke again, it was quieter, like she was trying not to hurt me even though the truth already had.
“I’m not saying he isn’t out there. I’m just saying let it happen organically.
Don’t force it. And please, for the love of God, be a little more selective. You won’t survive another Gordon.”