Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Decker
The minute Penelope leaves, my body overflows with adrenaline to run after her. Chase her and tell her I’m sorry, that I want her so badly it aches, but she has to understand what I’d be sacrificing. That I chose her once before, and it ruined any relationship I had with my brother.
Besides, she’s the one who left me alone in a hotel room three years ago when I thought maybe our time had finally come.
Then I think about who’s above me—Foster.
It’s one thing for Penelope to be in our friend group, it’d be another to remind him of my betrayal every time he had to see us together.
There’s no way that a constant reminder of my unforgivable act that ruined our relationship we’re just now rebuilding would be conducive to us healing things.
Can’t she understand it’s the hardest choice I’ve ever had to make?
I did more damage by bringing her here, and not just because of the kiss.
Because now I can visualize her here, in my space.
Her water bottle still sits on the counter.
A piece of paper with her handwriting that must have fallen off the coffee table lies on the area rug.
The space feels like an empty void while the scent of her still lingers.
I throw myself on the couch, tucking the pillow to my chest. My gaze snags on the candle she picked up. I only own it because the scent reminds me of her.
It’s safer this way.
I agree with my conscience. I invented the word safer. I built an entire architecture around safer, and it’s worked until now. She’s gone again, and I’m sitting in the same place I always end up—alone with all the things I should have said and didn’t.
How many times have I been here before?
This feeling is so similar to the one I had back then.
Foster and Penelope lasted five months, which was mind-blowing to me.
Long enough that I learned to manage it. Long enough that I got good at being in the same room with the two of them and never giving one hint of my true feelings for her. Long enough that I started to believe I wanted them both to be happy, and if they were happy together, then I was fine with it.
I was not fine with it.
Aurora broke up with me two months into their relationship after the four of us went out to eat, and I was my usual pissy self.
She called me out on my shit. She saw through my fake smile and pointed out every time I looked at their entwined hands or Foster’s hand on Penelope’s shoulder.
But as far as I knew, neither Foster nor Penelope had figured me out, which is funny since they knew me better than anyone.
There were times I was with Foster when I would wonder how strong his feelings for Penelope were, but at the same time, I never got the impression that he cheated or crossed a line with any other girl.
Once baseball season started though, as usual, we saw less and less of one another. We both had absurdly busy schedules.
When it ended, Foster called me. He didn’t say much. Just that it was done, that Penelope deserved better than what he could give her, and that he was going to focus on the draft.
I said the right things, things I probably didn’t even mean.
I wasn’t sorry. Instead, in the back of my head, I wondered what Foster would do if I asked her out.
Sure, I’d have to wait the appropriate amount of time.
Then I reprimanded myself, reminding my heart that Penelope was now off the list if I wanted to continue a relationship with my brother.
After I hung up with Foster, I sat in my apartment for an hour, staring at schoolwork I wasn’t doing, convincing myself to leave her alone.
I didn’t call her.
I made it four days. Not like I was marking off a calendar or anything. Okay, I was.
On the fifth day, I called her to see how she was doing.
She told me calmly that Foster had broken up with her.
Gave me her version of it, which didn’t put Foster in a good light.
Apparently, they were down to seeing one another once a week for a meal that Foster usually rushed through.
I could tell she was holding back on some details, trying to respect that he was my brother.
But I was also her friend, or kind of friend, although we never shared intimate details about our lives with each other anymore.
I should have hung up.
I didn’t hang up.
And I let our friendship morph into something closer to what we had shared in high school. I allowed myself the small pleasure of being her person.
Three weeks into a grueling baseball season, I spent every available second on the phone with Penelope. Lying to teammates about who I was calling or texting and why I couldn’t go grab something eat.
We arranged for her to come to my apartment one night. I convinced myself that we were just friends. That I could be both of their friends. Eventually, after the season was over, I’d tell Foster that we were friends, and he’d have moved on by then.
The minute I opened the door to let her in I knew I’d been lying to myself.
She looked so good, just like she did tonight, except her blonde hair was longer.
“Hey,” she said, and I opened the door wider. She had her school bag with her, so I figured we’d be studying. “This is weird, right?”
“Yeah. A little.”
“I don’t want to put you in an uncomfortable situation with your brother. Maybe I shouldn’t have come.”
That was the moment I could have avoided the inevitable betrayal. But the truth was, I didn’t want her to leave.
“No, we can be friends. We were before him.”
She came in and sat on the edge of the couch, her legs pressed together, her hands in her lap. “Does he know?”
I brought her a beer and sat down next to her. “No. With baseball season and the draft coming… I don’t want to—”
“No, I get it.” She was quick to shut down the topic.
We sipped our beers, and it was so awkward at first that I thought it was never going to work. As much as I still wanted her, anything more than friends wouldn’t be possible. We’d never be able to push the Foster-sized boulder from between us.
The awkwardness stopped at some point after dinner and a few beers. But the few beers turned into a few more, and we started to play truth or dare.
“Truth or dare?” she asked me.
“Truth.”
“Did you love Aurora?”
We’d moved on from how many people have you slept with and who is your celebrity crush. The questions were getting more intimate, and the anxiety and stress were dissipating the more we drank.
“I think I thought I could. And I think I loved her, but I wasn’t in love with her if that makes sense.”
She nodded as though she understood, but all I could think of was what Aurora had said the day we broke up. “You love her. I can’t compete with her. But you might as well bury that crush because she’s your brother’s, not yours.”
Penelope cleared her throat and crossed her legs on the corner of my couch.
“Truth or dare?” I asked.
“Truth.”
“Did you love Foster?”
I knew it was stupid and dangerous to bring his name into the room, but I had to know where her feelings for him stood. It was selfish.
She sipped her beer, and I figured she wouldn’t even answer. I was ready to take it back and say I’d ask another question before she opened her mouth.
“I’m not sure he wants anyone to fall in love with him.”
Her answer only spurred other questions, but she continued.
“He’s great. But there was this wall I felt like I would never get through. Does that make sense?”
I nodded because I knew that wall well. Even with me, he’d only lowered it about three-fourths of the way, and I was always afraid that he’d erect it again as fast as he could with one misstep by me.
Hell, just me hanging with Penelope might make him do it.
She leaned against the chair, spreading her legs out in front of her. “He’s a hard read.”
“I know.”
She put her beer down and rubbed her hands together as though she was ready to nail me with a big question. “Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
“One of us needs to take a dare soon, but okay, let me think.” She tapped her finger to her lips. Her nails were painted a deep purple. I never saw her without painted nails. “Did you ever think about…” She shook her head, her cheeks turning the cutest shade of pink. “Never mind.”
I nudged her foot with mine. “What?”
She took another sip of her beer, and I watched her chest rise and fall. “Did you ever think that we… I mean, back in high school?”
She had to have known. That pull between us never went away.
“No. Not once. You?”
Her mouth fell open, and I laughed. She picked up a bottle cap and threw it at me.
“Yes, Pen, I thought about us a lot. And not only in high school.” There, I’d said it.
“Oh.” The color on her cheeks deepened, and she picked up her beer.
“That day at your house when I saw you for the first time in college… the minute I saw you, I wished I didn’t have a girlfriend.”
Her gaze fell to her lap. “It’s probably for the best. I mean, we might have destroyed this.” She waved her finger between us.
“For sure.”
Our words were all the right ones, but it was clear it wasn’t how either of us actually felt.
She stood and put her beer on the table. “I have to use the bathroom.”
I watched her walk down the hall. And what had started as a fun game had morphed into something else.
Something shifted in that moment. I pushed Foster out of my mind. He had already called me last week from a party and asked me to come join him. I heard the girls in the background. Surely, he’d moved on.
So when Pen came out of the bathroom, I was waiting across the hall for her.