Ten Trends to Seduce Your Bestfriend
: Chapter 35

Amelia found me on the floor of the suite, crying. She took one look at me and walked into the bathroom, returning a short time later with a steaming hot towel.

“It’s okay. We’ll figure it out,” she said, sounding almost cheerful as she pressed the towel to my sobbing face. “I’ll email them back and demand they give you the interview. All will be well.”

I felt her arm come around my back, encouraging me to lay my head on her shoulder. “Now, tell me why you didn’t let me know that they never called you for the interview.”

“Do we have to talk about this right now?” I asked through hiccupping sobs. I didn’t care about that stupid job. I didn’t care about anything. Nothing mattered. Not even climate change. And humanity was all destined to die from climate change. That’s how upset I was.

“Yes! You were perfect for that job.” She squeezed me. “We would be lucky to have you. Why didn’t you tell me?”

I wiped my face with the hot towel. “You said to wait for a call. They never called. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. You wouldn’t be crying if it were fine. This last week, the whole flight over, you said nothing. Why didn’t you—”

“I’m not crying about the stupid job!” I buried my face in the wet towel, a new bout of uncontrollable, excruciating sadness spinning through me like a cyclone. “It hurts,” I wailed. “How can it hurt like this when it’s not a physical wound. It makes no sense!”

Amelia was silent—silent and still—while I cried and cried. I could almost hear her pondering, thinking, debating.

And her debating was so loud, I felt compelled to blurt, “Byron told me he loves me and I am not worthy of him, that I’m an emotionally stunted scaredy cat who doesn’t trust anyone or expect anything out of life except disappointment, and now he’s gone, and I don’t even care about climate change!”

I turned my head and cried against her neck, the towel forgotten as I clung to my friend and wept. He was gone and my heart felt like . . .

It felt like. . .

God, but it felt similar to the months after my mother had died and left me all alone in this world. I felt like the world was a yawning, cavernous, endless source of pain and misery, and I’d never wanted to feel like this again. How could I let this happen? How could I allow myself to want him so much, to fall for him when—

“No!” I said to myself, not caring if I was freaking out Amelia. “No! If I’d trusted him, if I’d been honest and asked for what I wanted, if I’d been brave, then I wouldn’t feel like this.”

“Ooo-kay.” Amelia shifted next to me on the carpet, angling her body toward mine and wrapping me in a hug. “Why don’t you start at the beginning? And this time, why don’t you tell me everything.”

Accepting the comfort she offered, I wrapped my arms around her neck and—through gasping sobs—I told her everything. My feelings and memories, worries and fears, concerns about wanting to bother her, anxieties about damaging her friendship with Byron, all spewed forth. I left out no detail, no conversation. I even offered to show her the video of us making out on my couch, still saved on my phone. I told her the whole damn story and, as I told it and as I listened to it, I realized what an absolute weasel I’d been.

The more I came to truly know and genuinely like him, the more afraid I’d been of embarrassment, of being rejected, of not having my growing feelings returned. I’d doomed everything. My greatest fear had been being a fool in his eyes, but hurting him was so much worse.

When I got to the argument we’d had in Byron’s room before he left for New York, this time leaving nothing out, Amelia stood and began to pace. And when I told her about the blow job I’d given him this afternoon and how I didn’t want him to go down on me because I worried I would taste bad, but how I didn’t want to tell him that was the reason since it might hurt his feelings, she’d laughed hysterically. Then she apologized, raided the suite’s fridge, and offered me a mini bottle of whiskey or gin. I chose whiskey. She brought me three of them.

I drank the first quickly, but then sipped the second, recounting our latest fight and everything he’d said and how right he’d been and how awful I felt and how I wasn’t sure if I was good enough for him. I wasn’t sure I knew how to ask for what I wanted.

“Sure you do,” Amelia said, lifting her gin and tonic toward me. She’d turned hers into a mixed drink but not mine. “Repeat after me: Byron, your spunk tastes like junk. Now you say it.”

I laughed, clutching the mini bottle to my chest, my head pounding, my nose stuffy, my lips dry and cracked. Crying was the worst, a bodily function that only served to compound misery. Are you miserable? Then you probably feel like crying. Don’t worry, now you’re not only going to be miserable, you’re going to feel and look miserable too. Welcome to snot and tears!

“But don’t you see? It’s not just the sperm issue! My instincts are all wrong. I don’t know how to ask for what I want without paralyzing fear. And doesn’t he deserve better than someone who is always afraid to be honest? Doesn’t he deserve someone as fearless as him? Someone as brave and wonderful?”

“Well . . . yeah. But that isn’t really the point, is it?” Amelia returned to where I sat on the floor, my back pressed against the front of the couch, and she sat next to me. “He doesn’t love that person. He loves you. And, ultimately, don’t you think Byron wants love more than he wants bravery? Although, they’re kind of the same thing when you think about it.”

“Bravery is love?” I sent her a side-eye even though it hurt my brain.

She shrugged, a wry smile on her lips. “Only the brave love.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” I placed my mini bottle of whiskey on the coffee table. “And please don’t say ‘Fake it till you make it.’ What if he doesn’t want me anymore? What if he never wants to see me again after this?”

Amelia made a face that told me she thought I was bonkers. “Okay, first of all, Byron’s brain doesn’t work like that. He’s like one of those birds that’s only capable of mating with one other bird. You know, the tall ones, with the feathers?”

“All birds have feathers. It’s a defining characteristic.”

“You know what I mean, Cheeky Charlie. Which bird mates for life? The tall birds with the long beaks and they live in Florida, but they’re not flamingos. And then, if their partner dies, they wander around wailing and brooding until they die too.”

I gave her a blank stare, having no idea which bird she was referring to.

She waved a hand at my expression. “Anyway, the name of the bird isn’t important, it’s the wailing and brooding part. That’s Byron. And my point is, he’s a one-bird kind of guy. If he’s decided you’re his bird, then God help you. You’re stuck with him.”

“How can he trust me to tell him the truth when the very idea terrifies me? He deserves so much more.”

“Hmm. How about you practice on me then?” Amelia bumped my shoulder with hers. “Go ahead. Ask me for what you want.”

Irritatingly, my chin wobbled. “I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“I’m afraid of making you mad.”

“Is this about the job? I already said I’d email about getting you an interview. You should have come to me. I could have spoken to the team on your behalf.”

“I know. In retrospect, I should’ve come to you.”

“Yes. You should have.” She bumped my shoulder again. “The community managers they’re looking at hiring, I checked out their channels. None of them bring the same kind of energy you do, the fun, the openness. All of them are only STEM focused and so serious about everything. Not that there is anything wrong with that necessarily, but I believe we need more than just one type of influencer.”

“Well, there you go. That’s what they wanted, and now we know why they didn’t call.”

“Exactly, which—if I’d known—I would’ve argued passionately against. This is my point. When you don’t tell people who love you the truth, and they’re counting on you telling them the truth, you make everything harder for everyone. Case in point, by not telling me that they didn’t call you, you’ve made my job harder.”

“I did?”

“You did. We want the doors open wide to all women, with all interests, right? And now I’m back to square one. I was counting on you. I need you in that position. I could have advocated for you before now and things would’ve been simpler. But just like Byron, you have it in your head that you need to take care of everything yourself. You two are exactly the same.”

“What? How can you say that? He’s so much braver than me.” As though to illustrate this point, I grabbed the bottle of whiskey and took another sip of liquid courage.

“Hear me out. He doesn’t expect anything of anyone either. Well, he didn’t. Until you. But the difference is, he goes out of his way to avoid people, wanting nothing from them, asking nothing without clear boundaries and expectations. Meanwhile, you go around giving everything to everyone and asking nothing in return. You’re infuriating.” Amelia clinked her gin and tonic against my mini bottle. “Need me, Winnie. Need. Me.”

“I—I do—”

“I’m so glad we’re finally talking about this, and that I’m drinking gin. I think this must’ve been bothering me for a while.”

“What’s that?” Taking my mini bottle with me, I stood and wobbled over to the fridge area in search of more tissues.

“I’ve been your best friend for the last six years, and you’re still holding me at arm’s length,” she ranted behind me, her voice growing angrier. “What do I have to do? What more do I need to do or say to prove to you that I have your back?”

Trying my hardest not to be irritated with Amelia’s claims to always have my back, I blew my nose, then tossed the used tissue in the trash bin. “I know you always want to have my back, but I can’t expect you to always be there for me.”

“Yes! You can!” She smacked her hand on the coffee table. “I will be there for you. I will always—”

“No, you won’t! You’re leaving.”

Darn it! I hadn’t meant to say that. But if we were doing this now, then I guess we were going to do this now. She wanted me to be honest? So be it.

Amelia straightened from the floor, wrinkling her nose as she crossed to me. “What are you—”

“You and Elijah.” I pointed toward the door of the suite. “You’re leaving. You two are moving in together. I can’t count on you.”

She reached for me. “Win—”

“No.” I lifted my arms away from her grabbing hands and backed up. “I get it. You’re in love, you want to move in together, your college roommate should not be a factor. I understand. I do not expect you to live with me indefinitely.”

She eyed me. “You think I’m moving in with Elijah?”

“Obviously,” I said. Then I took a sip of whiskey to keep from crying new tears. God, this hurt to talk about, which was why I didn’t want to talk about it.

But Amelia was staring at me like I had three heads, and two of them belonged to demon goats. “No. Not obviously. We are not moving in together.”

I stilled. “Wait, what? You’re not?”

“Yes, he wants to, but I’m not ready.” Amelia took a sip of her drink, watching me over the rim of the glass. “And even if I were, do you really think I’d just leave you? Do you really think I’d move out without considering you as well?”

“I—” I blinked, stunned.

“Yeah. That’s what you thought. Well, thanks.” She wagged a finger at me. “Thanks so much for thinking so little of me when I think the world of you.”

“God, Amelia, I’m—I’m sorry.”

“You really must believe everyone but you is a selfish asshole.”

“I do not think you are a selfish asshole.”

“You do.” She threw her free hand into the air. “You won’t let me advocate for you, for a position you’d be perfect for. You think I’m going to move out and leave you in a lurch. Either you think I’m a selfish asshole or your definition of a selfish asshole is completely different than mine.”

I sat down heavily on the floor right where I’d been standing, leaned an elbow on my knee, and covered my face. “I’m sorry.” I am the asshole.

“Why are you sorry?” she asked from above me.

“Because—” I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m sorry for not . . . trusting you.”

Amelia didn’t respond, but I didn’t hear any sounds of her departure either. Swallowing for bravery, I let my hand drop and braced myself to meet either her gaze or an empty room. When I looked up, she was still there. Still standing in the same spot. Still peering at me.

“I love you, do you know that?” she asked, her voice more gentle than I deserved.

My chin wobbled. “I do.” Sᴇaʀ*ᴄh the Find_Nøvel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“But do you trust it?”

I tried to swallow down the guilt and replace it with determination. I couldn’t. So I nodded instead.

“Then you have to let me in.” She sat down on the floor next to me again, covering my hand with hers. “You have to ask me for things. You have to have faith in me, like I have faith in you.”

“Okay,” I managed to croak.

“Come here.” Sighing heavily, Amelia pulled me into an awkward hug given we still held drinks in our hands and were sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Immediately, my arms went around her, and I held on as tears freely fell down my face. Again.

Amelia petted my hair and said, “Winnie, I’m sorry your aunt and uncle taught you that no one can be trusted, that the only person you can count on to be good is you. But they were wrong.” She pulled back, holding my shoulder and capturing my eyes. “Don’t let them rob you of living a full life. Don’t let them rob you of believing in other people, thinking the best of them, and expecting them to be there to catch you. You’re not forcing me to do anything. You’re not taking advantage of me.”

“Okay. Okay.” I wiped away more tears.

“I love you, Win. I want to love you. It’s my choice. And I need you to finally let me.”

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