Chapters (48)
- 1. One
- 2. Two
- 3. Three
- 4. Four
- 5. Five
- 6. Six
- 7. Seven
- 8. Eight
- 9. Nine
- 10. Ten
- 11. Eleven
- 12. Twelve
- 13. Thirteen
- 14. Fourteen
- 15. Fifteen
- 16. Sixteen
- 17. Seventeen
- 18. Eighteen
- 19. Nineteen
- 20. Twenty
- 21. Twenty-One
- 22. Twenty-Two
- 23. Twenty-Three
- 24. Twenty-Four
- 25. Twenty-Five
- 26. Twenty-Six
- 27. Twenty-Seven
- 28. Twenty-Eight
- 29. Twenty-Nine
- 30. Thirty
- 31. Thirty-One
- 32. Thirty-Two
- 33. Thirty-three
- 34. Thirty-Four
- 35. Thirty-Five
- 36. Thirty-Six
- 37. Thirty-Seven
- 38. Thirty-Eight
- 39. Thirty-Nine
- 40. Forty
- 41. Forty-One
- 42. Forty-Two
- 43. Forty-three
- 44. Epilogue
- Afterword
- Also by
- Acknowledgments
- About Author
“Please don’t hit me.” He eyed my white-knuckled fist. “I just wanted to talk to you for just a minute, and I swear I’ll leave you both alone after.”
You both. Meaning he had talked to Olive too. Curiosity piqued, I nodded my head to the busy cafe behind us. I needed witnesses around to stop me from smacking this idiot around. We sat down without ordering; the sooner we were done, the better.
“Get it out already,” I practically growled.
“Look, I don’t expect you to understand, but I want you to know this isn’t Olive’s fault—“
“Oh, I know it isn’t Olive’s fault.” I raised my voice enough for the lady beside us to look me up and down before turning back to her limp salad.
“I mean it isn’t her fault for not telling you. You didn’t know her before everything went down. She used to be so…lively. She smiled at everything and everyone. She never met a stranger. Everyone was her friend even if they only spoke twice. Olive was spirited, like she could never be stopped.”
I wanted to punch him for acting like he knew her better than me. So, what if he knew her back then? He didn’t know her now, not like I did.
“When we were together, she really was an amazing friend, and I did love her. Or I thought I did. But I fell in love with Sarah the moment I saw her, and it was something entirely different than I had with Olive.”
“Or you fell in lust with her,” I accused.
“Maybe that too. I’m not saying it makes it okay, but Sarah and I had a connection the second we met. And Olive was clueless to that connection. We went through dinner and hung out with everyone, and I went to bed and realized that what I felt with Sarah in mere hours, I had never felt with Olive.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that sometimes we don’t get to choose who we fall in love with or how it happens. I don’t expect you to understand, but you don’t have to know someone for a long time to know you love them.”
“So, that made it okay to cheat on her?” I hated to admit it, but he made sense. I hated that I knew exactly what he was saying because I felt all of that with Olive.
“Absolutely not. I will always regret what I did to Olive. I did love her, but as a friend more than anything. She never deserved that, and I have tried so many times to find a way to get her to forgive me—“
“She shouldn’t,” I mumbled. She deserved better than both of us.