42. Jenna
Chapter forty-two
Jenna
Cassandra and her sisters have spent the last two nights at my place.
It’s apparently something they do regularly, only this is my first time in attendance.
It took a while for them to talk me down from my confrontation with Mara, but I was more destroyed over ending things with Cole.
My head was all over the place, my heart numb, and I didn’t care to give either of them the benefit of the doubt.
She slept in his bed in practically nothing, and greeted me wearing his unbuttoned shirt.
It gave me déjà vu of the night he and I met. Only, she looked a lot better in his clothes than I ever will.
I hate that my mind still travels down that path even after all this time, but I can’t help it.
“ Please put on something funny, I beg of you,” Olive complains, throwing her head back onto the cushion behind it. “I cannot keep watching this mind-numbing reality show.”
“How about She’s the Man?” Cassandra asks, and I shake my head while snatching the remote control from her hand.
“No.” I flick through our options, my expression blank while I refuse to tell them why I don’t want to watch my favorite movie for the thousandth time. “This will do.” I press play on Billy Madison, ignoring the ache leeching onto my skin, bleeding me dry.
Three pairs of eyes have watched my every move since they arrived at my place, yet none of them is ballsy enough to spit it out.
“Will one of you just say it, please?” I sigh, pausing the TV, watching as the three of them eye each other off, their gazes collectively landing on me.
They might’ve welcomed me into this family as part of the Herring girls’ group, but I will never be able to communicate with them without speaking like they’ve just done.
“Have you spoken to him?” Cassandra asks, biting the bullet, and I shake my head twice in response.
“If you asked if I’d heard from him, my answer would be different.” I reach for my phone beside me, unlock it, and throw it into her lap for her to look through. “Because he’s called and texted me a bunch of times, but eventually gave up.”
“Harley said he crashed at our place last night,” Cassandra tells me, and my heart collides with my rib cage, knowing he didn’t spend a second night in a row with her.
“Why didn’t you reply?” She raises a brow, giving me a stern look, before throwing her phone to Lizzie, who reads the messages, then passes it to Olive to do the same.
“Because I don’t need to hear his reasons why . I don’t need to hear how sorry he is, I don’t need to hear him tell me I’ve got it all wrong, and that it wasn’t what it looked like, and I sure as hell don’t need to hear his voice. Because I know if I do, I’ll make up excuses as to why I should be able to fall for the most unattainable man in America. Why does he get to break my heart one last time?” My lip trembles as I snatch my phone out of Olive’s hands, lock it, and place it down on the couch beside me. “If what happened last night gets out to the press, could you imagine what it would do to my business? The one I worked so hard to build?” I rise from my seat, frustrated that I’ve let it get this far.
“Can you put out a statement?” Lizzie whispers, and my eyes find her hazel ones.
“And say what? Cole Green pretended to be my boyfriend on the night we met, and continued pretending every single day on set until I actually, really fell for him, only for him to fuck someone else?” I shake my head. “That just makes me sound desperate.” I slump my body back down onto the couch.
“It might not even make it to the press.” Olive offers, but it’s Mara we’re talking about. Ms. ‘All press is good press.’
“Don’t hurt the messenger, J, but…Harley is pretty adamant nothing happened,” Cassandra tells me, a little more confident than Lizzie, but not her usual self.
“And what gives him that impression?” I scoff, rolling my eyes so far back that it feels like they’re gliding against my brain.
“Like I said, Cole stayed at our place last night. I guess Harley got him to open up over a drink.” She shrugs. “But don’t hurt the messenger. And by that, I mean, please don’t hurt my husband. He’s just trying to help.” She rubs her hand on my back, and I lean my head onto her shoulder with a chuckle.
“What are you going to do?”
“How long do you have left of shooting?”
Lizzie and Olive ask their questions in unison, both pairs of eyes burning into the side of my face.
I don’t know how to answer Lizzie’s question. While it looked incriminating, I genuinely don’t know if I believe what I saw. I know Cole, but do I know him well enough to tell if he’s telling me the truth?
You do , the angel on my shoulder tells me, while the devil begs me to run for my life.
“You don’t think he did it, do you?” My best friend asks, and I shake my head gently while a single tear falls down my cheek.
“No,” I admit in a whisper. “But I don’t think I have it in me to stick around, only to find out that I’m wrong.” A tear drips onto my hands clasped together in my lap, and I don’t wipe the remnants off my cheek.
“You want to go home, don’t you?” she asks, and I pause before nodding once. “I’m not ready to say goodbye to our two song length distance,” she tells me, tears of her own cutting through.
“I know,” I reply. “But everything here is a reminder of the first man I ever fell in love with.” And probably the last .
She nods in agreement.
Cassandra might not be ready to say goodbye to me, but she’s my best friend in this universe and the next.
She and I will never say goodbye for good.
But Cole…I’m not ready to have him, only to lose him.
Because losing Cole Green now, will be easier than losing him after being able to call him mine.
That’s a loss I don’t think I could ever recover from.