The Lying Season (Seasons #1) - K.A. Linde Page 0,54
up.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yep. And then he gave all these bullshit excuses for why he hadn’t told me they’d broken up weeks ago. That day when we went to Court’s for the trial run.”
“Oh geez.”
“So, anyway, I told him I didn’t want to be used and to leave me alone while he had shit to figure out.”
“Damn,” English said. “No wonder you’ve been so pissed.”
“Yeah. Well, he tried to talk to me at work today. But I blew him off. I don’t know what to say to him. And Danny called, and I think he’s supposed to call sometime tonight. I don’t even know what to say to him.”
“Okay, slow down. Too much at once,” English said. She snatched my spoon from me and dug into the ice cream. “So, Sam is single. He wants to talk to you. And he kissed you.”
“Correct.”
“But Danny also called and presumably wants to go on a date.”
“Also, yes.”
“Hmm…”
I took my spoon back and dug in for another bite of the ice cream. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You don’t know, or you don’t want to admit it?” she asked intuitively.
“In a perfect world?”
She nodded.
I took a deep breath and continued, “I’d try it out with Sam again.”
“I see.”
“I know that you don’t like him.”
“I never said that,” English said. “What I said was that I didn’t like what had happened in the past. That he’d broken your heart. I didn’t want to see you get hurt again.”
I shrugged and had more ice cream. Maybe there were answers in the cookie dough.
“You don’t want to date Danny,” English decided.
“Not really. He was nice. I mean, I gave him my number. But he just wasn’t…it.” I sighed. “I know I’m still messed up from Thomas. It’s just hard to let go.”
“But you can with Sam?”
I nodded reluctantly. Because I could. Even though things were screwed up with Sam now. It had been so perfect and easy when we were first together. There was so much history there that it’d felt like we were drawn together. Before I’d known about Claire, it was as if we were magnets. Even after, I’d be lying to say that we’d just been friends. That was a clever lie we’d been telling each other. Because that kiss had said it all.
“Okay”—English shifted to face me—“I’ve been against Sam from the start. But I think you need to give this another chance.”
“What?” I gasped through a mouthful of ice cream.
“Hear me out. Sam was always that guy for you. No matter how broken you were or how mad you were at him…you still wanted him. You still wanted to make it right. And you’ve changed so much since I first knew you. Maybe he has too. I think you should go for it. Because if you don’t, you’ll always wonder, What if…You’ll compare every guy to him. Wonder if he’s waiting on every street corner. You need to find out if he’s really the guy you want. Even if it means putting your heart on the line.”
“I don’t know, English. How do I put myself out there again? That level of vulnerability”—I shuddered—“it feels like a risk.”
“A calculated risk. You look at the odds and decide if the pros outweigh the cons. You know what the chance of failure is. You’ve already seen failure in this. It’s not an election. You don’t have to plan out all the moves. You don’t have to decide a year out what the first Tuesday in November will look like. You just…try.”
“That easy, huh?” I asked my friend who knew all about jumping, talking to the girl who had never taken a risk…let alone with her heart.
“The easiest and hardest thing you’ll ever do. Let go. Live.”
I sighed and bit my lip. “Maybe I will.”
22
Sam
I hefted a box into my arms and tossed it onto the top of the stack I’d made in the one spare corner of my apartment.
“That’s the last of it,” I said to my now-empty apartment.
After how hard I’d fucked up with Lark, I’d come home to my apartment and seen Claire staring back at me from every available space. She wouldn’t be back until the end of the summer, when we’d have to decide what to do about our shared place. But I couldn’t keep having her stuff in my face.
If I was going to live here for another couple of months, I couldn’t see her every day. Not like this. Not if I was going to move on.