“You know I’d do anything for you,” I said instead, swallowing again, and a third time to stop the bile from rising in my throat.
“Except be on my side,” Theo didn’t quiteshout, but he came as close to it as he could without actually doing it. He turned hisgaze away from me, over my shoulder and out the window that looked onto the central courtyard. “The one time I need you to be.”
Something cracked inside me with a pain so sharp I would have thought I was dying if I didn’t have bigger things to worry about.
I stood, too restless to sit still any longer, the walls of the room starting to close in on me. I couldn’t do this. Not with Theo. Not surrounded by people who didn’t think I was good enough to breathe the same air as them, not when he was theoneperson here that I even really knew, let alone the one person who liked me.
Usually liked me.
There was something about this goddamned house that fucked things up between us. It’d been the same last time we’d been here, when he’d…
When I’d…
I swallowed one more time, taking a deep breath, trying to calm myself enough not to say anything I’d regret more than I already regretted everything I’d said.
I almost laughed before I spoke at the thought of Ellie being able to see me now. She would have beensoproud of what I was about to say.
Just thinking about forming the words made me feel sick, and I almost didn’t manage it.
Then Theo glanced at me again from out of the corner of his eyes, jaw flexing. Mad at me, I thought, for not immediately rushing to make him feel better.
Like I always did. Like I always,alwaysdid, because I was always on his side. Because he was my best friend in the whole world, and I’d loved him for a decade, and I couldn’t imagine him not being in my life. At any cost.
But he’d hurt me now. Really,reallyhurt me, for the first time.
“You don’t own me,” I pronounced, each word falling like a lead weight in the pit of my stomach. My hands trembled by my sides and my lungs felt tight.
Theo’s face fell again.
He might’ve been about to apologize. Probably, he was.
I never found out, on account of marching to the door, pulling it open, stepping through, and letting it swing closed behind me.
Then, as hot tears welled up in my eyes, I ran.
I tensedas a shadow fell over me, half afraid that when I looked up, it’d be Theo—and half afraid it’d be anyone else.
“Hi,” a familiar voice said.
Audrey.
Which was, ironically, probably the best of a host of bad options.
“Hi,” I said, voice thick. I’d stopped crying, thankfully, but I felt as though one little nudge in the wrong direction would set me off again.
“You okay?”
I bit my lip.
Audrey sat down next to me on the edge of the raised garden bed I’d found behind the house, planted out with monsteras and bromeliads and other plants normally found indoors because it was in shade most of the day. I could hear the waves lapping against the shore of the lake the property backed onto and smell the salt and seaweed of the nearby beach on the breeze.
I’d thought no one would find me here. Clearly, I’d been wrong.
“Fine.”
I didn’t sound fine even to me, and I couldn’t quite meet Audrey’s eyes. She seemed nice enough, but my stomach was still knotted up over Theo maybe feeling like I’d been… disloyal to him.
The more I turned the fight over in my head, the less sure I was who was wrong. Neither of us, maybe. Or both.