I tried to turn my eyes from her, center myself by staring at the pot of coffee again, but she grabbed my cheek and made me keep eye contact. She wanted an answer.

Practicing every trick of hiding my feelings that I knew, I smiled like nothing was wrong. “Yes, I know, Kiera. I know exactly what you and Denny are.” You and Denny are friends because he forced you to be friends. He is the love you lost, the one who got away. You love me, but a part of you will always mourn him. And I just…have to be fine with that.

Kiera gave me a sideways look, like she was judging what I meant, but then she shrugged it off and smiled. Reaching up, she gave me a kiss. “Good, because while he’s important to me, you’re more important, and I don’t want my talking with him to hurt you.”

That warmed me, but because the past had pulled me into such a dark place, it also surprised me. And confused me. I was more important? I mattered more to her? Than Denny? God, I wanted that to be true, but the insecurity in the far corner of my soul rebelled against the idea. Denny was the one person I just couldn’t compete with; I would always fall short of him. We’re only together because he left. How could I be more important than the one who got away? By its very definition that made me runner-up.

Kiera pursed her lips, then kissed me again. “I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. You’re not second best. I could have fled to him, but I went to you. I couldn’t live without you. I chose you. I love you.”

It kind of surprised me that she knew just what path my dark thoughts had traveled down, but what she was saying struck deep into my cracked soul. She was basically telling me that I was the one who’d gotten away, I was the one who had stuck in her brain, whose absence had made her miserable. The one she couldn’t get over. The one who had haunted her. The one she’d begged to take her back. I’d never truly considered it like that before. The fact that she could have chased after Denny, but she didn’t. In the end, she’d let Denny go and she’d come to me. Yes, maybe Denny had forced her hand, maybe we both had, but when she’d looked inside herself—deeply looked inside herself—I was the one she’d found. She wanted me. Not him.

And God that felt good. Good, but…surreal. I wanted to believe it though, so badly it hurt. I needed to be number one in her eyes, needed it more than anything. She was my entire world…I wanted to be hers too.