Chapter 27 #3
Darcy’s eyes flash to mine, and her face crumples. “Don’t insult our friendship—don’t insult me—by pretending that’s what I mean. You know it isn’t.”
I set my jaw, stacking bricks between us so her words can’t hurt me.
Darcy lets out a frustrated growl, shifting to her knees and grabbing my shoulders.
“You can’t play this game with me. Like it or not, I know you, Cubby.
I know your quirks and your edges and your too-soft heart.
I know how much you love the world, and I know how painful it is to you in return.
I know your joy and I know your dark times.
And I care about you. When you’re happy and when you’re depressed and any shade in between.
But this isn’t you. This hollowed-out person finding another inch of herself to carve off and hand to strangers on the internet.
I’m not going to let any more pieces of you disappear.
So fuck your phone and fuck our songs. I don’t care about anything but you. ”
Her words slice me open until I’m bare-boned and shaking. It’s too much. I disappear back into anger.
“You want to talk about playing games?” I say, leaning toward her, getting dangerously close to the truth.
“Then tell me what’s been happening between us for months.
You want to talk about disappearing? Where the fuck have you been, huh?
Where did my best friend go? Where has she been this entire summer?
Because I sure as hell could have used her help and support. ”
Her breath trembles, but she doesn’t look away. Doesn’t let me look away. Her grip tightens on my shoulders, and it spurs me on like a whip.
“Why don’t we talk about what happened that night?” My fractured voice echoes between us, crashing like an anvil.
Darcy’s lips part, words dangling on their edge, but she shakes her head, eyes wide and glinting with horror.
I wilt, my chest collapsing in on itself. I shrug out of her grip, adjusting my soaked clothes. This is fine. To be expected. I am fine. Like she said, I’ve been hollow these last few months, and however gutted I feel now, I know I can live with it.
It’s better to feel numb than alone.
“Do you know why I got so mad when Harry kissed you onstage in Cleveland? Why I avoided talking to you after?”
I glance at her as my brain recalibrates to this new topic. “Um … because I accused you of using me after you tried to stick up for me?”
She ducks her head, turning to press her mouth against her shoulder. I can see the deep breath she takes, the way it pushes at her ribs, fills her entirely.
“No,” she says at last, eyes flicking back to mine. “I got mad—furious—at Harry because he got to do the thing I want more than anything. I was jealous, Cubby.”
I blink at her, my heart leaping up to my throat and spinning around like a hopeful tornado.
“I got mad because I want to be the one kissing you,” she says, slapping her palm to her chest, something wild in the tension lining her face.
“Onstage. In pictures. In dingy dive-bar bathrooms. On our shitty excuse for a bed on that ridiculous tour bus. I was filled with so much jealousy I couldn’t even see straight. ”
I open my mouth, but words fail me. It doesn’t matter, she isn’t done.
“Then you went ahead and pointed out the bloody truth of the matter, how much I’ve encouraged this whole ruse, and that made me even madder.
At myself. At you. At Harry. And then the kisses kept happening, and watching it night after fucking night felt like having my heart torn out on that stage and ripped into a million pieces. ”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Emotions claw like feral animals through my chest.
Darcy’s face is pure agony, and she laughs. “What was I going to say? ‘Hey, Harry, stop snogging my historically platonic best friend because seeing you touch your lips to hers makes me want to rip your face off’?”
“Why didn’t you say anything to me?” I ask, voice rising. “Why haven’t you said a word to me about any of this? Not that night after the pub or in Cleveland or … or … You’ve given me nothing, Darcy.”
She stares at me, a pleading look in those midnight-blue eyes. A stray tear rolls down her cheek, and I turn away before she has a chance to see my own fall.
“Because I’m scared.” Darcy whispers the words—so soft, I could do her the favor of pretending I didn’t hear them. Let her go. Not make her confront the questions of a broken, lonely person sitting on a patch of sand next to the ocean that connects us to home.
“Of what?” I ask, never able to leave well enough alone.
“I’m scared of liking you, Cubby,” she says with force, hands back on my shoulders, making me look at her and her steady stream of tears.
“I’m scared of how much I like you. I’m terrified by this huge, indefinable thing I feel for you.
Because it’s so much more than friendship. It has been for years.”
I stare at her, my vision blurry as I continue to cry. “What?” It’s the only word I can manage.
She shakes her head, eyes tilting to the sky, like the correct answer is written up there.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, my hands falling to the dip of her waist, holding on like I’ll float away if I let go.
“Aren’t you listening?” Darcy says with another sad little laugh. “I’m scared, Cubby. I always have been.”
“But of what?” I’m desperate to understand, desperate to find a reason for all this time we’ve wasted not acknowledging the truth.
“You know how hard it’s been with my parents.
” Her voice cracks, and my heart squeezes in response.
“I … They’re so small-minded. So closed off.
Liking you—liking a girl—was so far removed from anything I thought could be my reality.
They’re so loud, so vocal with their hate it doesn’t even seem possible I could be …
could be … queer.” She trips over the word.
“How can I have parents with so much ugliness in them and try to claim that identity, let alone even think about it?” She’s sobbing now.
Every word choked and tight as her fingers dig into my arms like I’m the only thing holding her up.
“Everyone always says love is the strongest emotion, but that’s bullshit,” she continues, voice ripping at the seams. “Fear is stronger. So much stronger. No matter how at odds I’ve been with my parents, how much I’ve disagreed with the way they think and view the world, there’s still this huge tangled mass of fear in me.
Fear to even admit to myself what I was feeling.
I mean, hell, I’ve been petrified to tell you, and you’re the one I tell everything to. ”
I gape at her. “You don’t have to be scared of me. You know I’d never care if you’re queer. I mean, based on some rather important recent events and a fairly dramatic call to my mums, I’m in a similar sexual-identity-crisis boat.”
Darcy laughs, but shakes her head. “I know you’d never care, but that’s not what I mean. That’s not the fear with you. I’m scared to like you—to tell you—because I don’t want to risk ever losing you.”
Her head falls forward, a small, wet whimper breaking from her throat.
But I’m there, and I catch her slumping shoulders, hold her hard and fast to me, both of us crying together, the noise left to the roll of the tide.
When she finally calms down enough to breathe steadily, I pull back, one palm cupping her cheek, the other at her neck, tilting her chin up so she looks at me. Sees me.
I’m unadorned, every defense stripped away as I finally let the truth of my feelings for her overwhelm me, play across every cell in my body. I go to speak, but she beats me to it.
“I love you, Cubby. More than a friend. More than anyone has a right to love another person.” She braids her fingers through my wet hair, a shiver tracing through me.
“I love you in a way that’s terrifying and consuming and I don’t even care, I can’t hold it back any longer.
I love you and I want you and I’m not sure who I am without you and I don’t want to find out.
I’m done lying to myself and to you. I love you and I need you to know. ”
Silence stretches for a beat, her words soaking into my skin like the sun’s rays, burnishing me golden.
I know that our timeline will be marked by this moment.
There will be a before, and an after. This is it, that step off the tightrope wire where I let myself fall and hope she’s the net that can catch me.
I lean in, lips almost touching, and I feel the way she sucks in a breath, captures the air from my parted lips. “I love you too,” I whisper.
Then press my mouth to hers.