Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I sat on the edge of the sofa with a queasy stomach and wrung my hands while Annika paced the living room with quick, angry steps.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
“I had a shitty day and all I wanted to do was come home and talk to you, and then I overhear this? God.”
“What happened? Do you want to?—"
“None of this makes sense,” she said. “You never even knew his name. How did you know it was him? When did you figure it out?”
“I kind of…” I clasped my hands in my lap, trying to stop them from shaking. “I kind of knew from that first night?—"
“Oh my god.” She spun around and planted her fists on her hips. “You knew since August, and you never thought to tell me?” she shouted.
My throat tightened, and I forced the words out. “I didn’t know for sure.”
“You told your mom he wrote those songs about you. But he told me he wrote those songs years ago,” she said. “Did you meet him before I introduced you?”
“No.” I shook my head. “No. He saw me from a window in a diner and wrote about it. That’s it. That’s all there was to it.”
“He wrote a bunch of fucking songs for you after seeing you once ? Wow.” She laughed harshly. “You must have made quite an impression.”
“I—”
“God, I’m so stupid. I kept pushing you together because I thought you didn’t like him. Turns out, you liked him a whole lot.” Her eyes narrowed to slits and she stabbed her finger at me. “Did you sleep with him? Were you sleeping with him this whole time?”
“What? No.” I stood up from the sofa and moved closer, holding up my hands as if to say I come in peace. “I would never do that to you. Never.”
She laughed derisively. “Yeah, right. And I’m supposed to believe that.”
“Annika, you know me?—”
“I thought I knew you. No wonder he loved that shirt so much. You made it for him.”
Tears filled her eyes and I wanted to make it better so I reached for her, trying to pull her into a hug, but she stepped back and held up her hand, warding me off. “Stay away from me,” she said between clenched teeth.
I lowered my hands to my sides and released a shaky breath. “Just tell me what I can do to make this better."
“You were supposed to be my best friend.”
“I am your best friend. I never wanted to hurt you?—”
“And yet you did. You lied to me and you made a fool out of me. I’ll bet you and Gabriel had a good laugh over this, didn’t you? Were you laughing behind my back?”
“No. God." I knew she had every right to be angry but come on, she was really hitting below the belt. “I’m not that kind of person and neither is he.”
“Of course you’re not,” she said. “He’s just the kind of person who lusted after my best friend the whole time I was with him. And you’re just the kind of person who keeps secrets from her best friend!”
I opened my mouth to speak but shut it again. I couldn’t speak for Gabriel, but I was one hundred percent guilty of keeping the whole thing a secret. Not to mention secretly lusting after him.
I was going straight to hell.
“You should have told me, Cleo. You should have been honest with me.”
She stalked to her bedroom and slammed the door shut while I stood in the middle of the living room trying to figure out how to fix this.
A few minutes later, I knocked on her door softly and pressed my forehead against the wood. “If you need anything…if you want to talk…I’m here, okay?”
“I’d really appreciate it if you could just leave me the fuck alone.”
“Okay.” I took a step back. “Okay. I’ll just…I’ll be in my room.”
In my bedroom, I picked up a book then set it down and tried to work on my designs but couldn’t focus.
Finally, I collapsed on my bed and stared at the ceiling wondering how I could have handled things differently. Not like I hadn’t wrestled with it. Not like my guilty conscience hadn’t been nagging me. Just tell her.
But when was I supposed to tell her? Before my suspicions had been confirmed? After he broke up with her? On New Year’s Eve when she raised her glass and toasted to “fresh starts, no more dwelling on the past, and no more asshole musicians?”
In all the years we’d known each other, Annika and I had never had anything major to fight about.
Until Gabriel.
The following morning, I woke up still dressed in last night’s clothes. Annika had already left for the dance studio, so I took a shower and walked to work with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
When I shoved my hands in my pockets, I pulled out the wadded-up napkin, and read his note while I waited in line for my morning bagel and coffee.
Listen, I’ve been thinking about this…there’s no reason we can’t be friends, right? The thing is that I really want you in my life. I NEED you to be in my life in some way, shape or form and if it has to be as friends, then so be it (which is not to say I don’t want more—I FUCKING DO).
But I’d rather settle for a few crumbs than nothing at all. And if you know me at all, that’s a huge concession on my part.
I’m just a man, Jane. Throw me a fucking crumb before I perish and die of hunger.
“Yo, lady, you gonna order or what? I ain’t got all day here.” When I failed to place my order quickly enough, the guy behind the counter pointed to the customer behind me. “Yo, buddy. Yeah, you. Give me your order.”
New Yorkers, man, so impatient.
Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a crisis here?
If I really thought about it, this was all Gabriel’s fault.
If he’d just chased after me the first time he saw me, we could have avoided this whole mess.
I would have dumped turtleneck-wearing David and met Gabriel for coffee, and by now, we’d know for sure if we belonged together or if we weren’t a good match, after all.
Damn you, Gabriel.