16. Addie
ADDIE
Tessa gave me three days to wallow before she forced me out of the guest bedroom and into the sunlight. According to her, staring at sunlight through the window of a darkened room didn’t count as getting vitamin D, which I needed.
When I responded that vitamin D had gotten me into this mess, the relief on her face at my deadpanned joke pulled me out of the armchair I’d made into a temporary home.
She was worried about me, and I couldn’t say I didn’t understand why.
Three days ago, I called her, sobbing and packing all my belongings at the apartment. I’d been inconsolable and unwilling to let her talk me down and take a breath, so she’d done what any best friend would do.
She stayed on the phone with me as she grabbed her keys, got in her car, and came over. With no further questions asked, she hugged me, made me hydrate, and helped me pack the rest. Then she brought me to her parents’ house, where she’d be spending the rest of the summer.
They lived outside Mosaic Falls, but close enough that her parents still worked in the city. I’d never met them because whenever Tessa and I hung out in high school, she’d come to my house.
Her father worked in finance, and her mother was a journalist. “That means they’re rarely home, and when they are, they drink!”
When my eyes widened at her explanation, she clarified. “They’re not bad drunks, though. Mom’s a riot and Dad occasionally cracks a smile. You’ll like them. They’re good parents, just…not like yours.”
She shrugged before taking off down a hallway, and I followed after her, smiling for the first time since we’d left campus.
While my parents had been concerned over my sudden need to evacuate the apartment, Mom spoke to me privately for a minute before whispering to my dad and getting him to agree.
Whatever she’d picked up on over the years or heard in my voice on the call, she’d taken it seriously. They agreed to let me spend the summer there, as long as I promised to call or text them once a day, and she said she’d speak to my dad about next year before letting me know what they thought.
Relieved they hadn’t dismissed the idea outright, I agreed to their terms.
Then I spent three days waiting for their verdict while quietly sinking into a hole over the reality of either option playing out.
Now, as I sat on Tessa’s back patio, I had to face multiple truths: I hated the idea of not living with Adam and Blake.
I needed space to heal after the abuse from Finn.
I needed to break the pattern I’d been living in, where every act of care or affection from Blake revived my hope of being chosen by him fully.
And she’d been right about the sunlight.
As it warmed my face, a smile tipped up the corners of my mouth for the first time in days. Tessa noticed, nudging me gently and raising her eyebrows.
“What?” I blinked at her, feigning ignorance.
She pursed her lips. “Come on. You can say it.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Addie…”
I laughed. “Okay, fine. You were right.” I stuck my tongue out at her. “Are you happy?”
“You’re smiling, so…yes.”
I reached toward her chair and grabbed her hand. “I’m going to be okay, Tessa.”
“I know.” She sniffed, her mouth twisting into a frown. “I just hate that this happened. Hate that I’m the reason you met him!”
“Hey! None of that. Yes, you were how I got introduced to him, but you didn’t force me to date him. You certainly didn’t force me to ignore the red flags. And you and I both know you tried to reason with me over why I was escalating things with him so quickly.”
She forced a smile. “Yeah, but—” Tears filled her eyes, lodging emotion in my throat as she swiped aggressively at her face. “Addie, he hit you.”
My hand jerked up reflexively to touch my cheek.
“Shit. I’m sorry!” Flustered, she dragged her hands through her red curls. “God, I suck at this. Why didn’t Judy Blume prepare me to help you with this? I feel so cheated.”
I laughed loudly that time, caught off guard by her question but unable to argue with it. Judy Blume really hadn’t prepared us for this.
My laughter brought visible relief to Tessa, and when it didn’t stop, she started laughing too. We dissolved into hysterical giggles, gasping for breath, until she asked, “What are we laughing at?”
But my response of “I have no idea” only made the laughter worse.
With tears in our eyes, we clutched each other’s arms and released months’ worth of pent up emotion in one sitting. When my laughter morphed into sudden tears, Tessa continued to hold on to me, letting me cry it out in her arms until I had no tears left.
“I think I needed that,” I admitted once it was over. “That’s the hardest part in all of this, I think. Nothing prepared me for it. Any of it. And I don’t know what the right thing to do is.”
“Do you want to walk me through what’s going on up there?” She nodded to my head. “Maybe I can help you sort it out?”
Tucking my legs under me, I nodded. “With Finn, it’s simple. Once. That’s all he got. And I promised myself I would get out before he had the chance to do it again.”
“And you did.”
“Yeah.” I released a breath. “I called Adam. He came to get me. With Blake.”
Tessa gave me a sympathetic smile. “I know you asked him to come alone, sweetie, but…can you really blame him for coming, too? If he was there and he heard—”
“No. Of course not. And honestly, after thinking about it, it would’ve hurt more if he hadn’t shown up for me. I was grateful that he did. Grateful that he helped me that night when I had nightmares.”
“But…” She nudged when I fell silent.
“But I can’t keep breaking my own heart, waiting for the way he shows up to mean more, and I’ve never truly had space to get over my feelings for him.
What that has led to is a series of unfortunate choices…
like choosing to date Finn. None of that is Blake’s fault.
I believe he loves me. I know he cares deeply for me, but I have to let this go. ”
“And you’re sure? You’re sure there’s nothing there that—”
“Nothing that doesn’t result in more hurt, even if it’s just initially.
And I can’t—” I shook my head, tears pricking my eyes again at the thought of Finn.
“If I’m going to get over what happened with Finn, understand why I chose that, why it appealed to me, and why I ignored all the warning signs before it reached that point, I need to do that from a healthy, secure space. Not more ambiguity with Blake.”
She exhaled, frowning slightly before nodding. “That makes sense. It does. It’s—”
“Going to suck.”
She huffed a laugh. “Yeah, I didn’t want to be the one to say it, but…”
“But if I don’t want it to be forever, then I need to do this now.” I shrugged. “And I don’t want it to be forever. I promised Adam I’d be there for our twenty-first birthday trip.”
Tessa balked. “That’s two years away!”
“I’m not saying it will take that long. I’m just saying the sooner I get started, the more likely I can keep that promise. And I want to, not just for Adam or for Blake. But for me.”
Reaching over the arm of my chair, Tessa pulled me into a hug. I wiggled out of the uncomfortable position she’d locked me into and wrapped my arms around her, too.
“I’m proud of you, Addie.”
“Thanks…” I whispered, closing my eyes as I thought of Blake that day in the kitchen.
“So, what’s the plan?”
Lifting my head, I found Tessa studying me. The way she’d gently pulled me out of my spiraling thoughts was exactly why I needed to be here.
“We spend an amazing summer together. At the end of it, if my mom and dad agree, we’ll go to the apartment while the boys are on the big hiking trip they planned to take before sophomore year started, and I’ll get the rest of my things.”
“Then we’ll move in together and continue being amazing,” she added.
“Exactly.” I smiled at her. “And I’ll use that time to figure out who I am…”
I couldn’t bring myself to say the rest of that thought out loud.
Even as I laid out my brilliant plan, the idea of truly letting him go felt impossible. I hated the thought of it. I didn’t know who I was without the part of me that had always loved Blake Hawthorne, and I didn’t know if I could stop loving him.
But that part? It had been hurting me for a long time.
Not because he didn’t love me, too.
Not because he’d been cruel like Finn.
Simply because I saw a future for us that he didn’t see.
One where we were more than just friends, more than family, and more than two people thrown together in childhood because my brother sucked at making more than one friend and my parents took one look at the sweet blond boy with a terrible father and couldn’t leave him to fend for himself.
I’d been hurting because I wanted a future where he was mine, instead of theirs.
Now, I had to find a way to accept the one I could have.
A future where I felt secure in who I was…without him.
Where I was healed and safe.
And where he would always be ours.
I didn’t know how his story and mine would unfold in that future.
But I still had enough hope left to believe we’d be happy.