comparison with mine. Besides, even without all that, I was the one who could work for home, so why shouldn’t it be me?
I was being that stupid, drama-filled idiot that couldn’t make up her mind. I was the stupid ass who rather pass on a good thing than take the risk.
I curled my legs tighter under my ass as my head dropped along the backrest of the couch. “I’m an idiot, aren’t I?”
Fiona gave me a small, sad smile. “Yeah, you are,” she agreed. “But not for the reasons you think, Vee.”
I snorted. “Oh, there’s more than one reason?”
Fiona smiled wide this time. “I’ve known you my whole life, Vee. I’ve seen you do some pretty idiotic things in our times.”
My head popped up. “Because you weren’t right there beside me during these idiotic times?”
“True,” she concurred. “However, we’re talking about you. Not me.”
“I have no idea what I’m doing, Fiona,” I told her honestly. “Like, legit, I have no clue what the hell I’m doing.”
“You’re being an idiot,” Fiona replied. “But you’re being an idiot because you’re not being completely honest with Will.” I already knew where she was going with this, but I didn’t stop her. “You’re letting Will think it’s over because you don’t trust him and that’s not fair. He has the right to know that it’s over because you’re scared to commit to him and the long-distance.”
“But the long-distance is a legit issue, Fee,” I pointed out.
She reached over and put a hand on my knee. “It is,” she agreed. “It is, but it’s an issue because it’s long-distance, not because you don’t trust him. You want to make yourself believe that he’d cheat but, Vicky, seriously, you’d never date a man you really believed would cheat on you. If you truly, deep down, believed Will was that type of man, you would never have agreed to date him in the first place.”
“Fee-”
She leaned back and curled her hands in her lap. “I think you got scared of too soon, too fast,” she continued. “I think you really love that man but, in your head, you’re trying to convince yourself it’s all happening too fast. It’s not that you don’t trust Will. It’s that you don’t trust you. What you’re feeling.”
I hated how every word out of her mouth sounded exactly like the truth. It was a horrible feeling to acknowledge how I never really gave this thing with Will a chance. At least, not fully.
“What did Damien have to say about…all this?”
Fiona actually laughed, then grimaced. “I don’t think you really want to know.”
I cringed. “That bad?”
She shook her head as she smiled. “He said he was disappointed in Will. If it were him…”
I didn’t think I could, but I laughed. “If it were him, I’d be kidnapped and held as a hostage in New York right now.”
Fiona chuckled. “Yes. Yes, you would,” she teased, but not really. “Yeah, he still struggles with this whole God-given-free-will thing.”
I stared at my beautiful friend and said something I never thought I’d say. But, hey, love makes you plenty stupid, so…“How crazy would you think I was if I told you I envy that?”
Her head reared back, and her brown eyes widened. “Envy what?”
I shrugged a shoulder, trying to downplay it. “I don’t know,” I evaded. “I guess that Damien loves you so much that nothing could or would keep you from him.”
Fiona blinked and then blinked some more. “Are you high?”
“I’m serious,” I whined.
She leaned forward. “Vicky, Damien is a goddamn psychopath,” she pointed out. “There’s nothing romantic about his insanity.”
I cocked a brow. “Tell me that doesn’t turn you on?” I challenged. “Tell me it doesn’t complete you knowing that Damien will never look at another woman for as long as he lives? Tell me that you don’t fucking burst with the love that man feels for you because you don’t think he loves you, you know it?”
She relaxed and relented a bit. “Okay,” she mumbled. “Maybe if you take out the bullying, the blackmail, and the madness…then, yeah, I’m blessed that he loves me the way he does. But, Vee, that shit’s not for everyone. Trust me.”
I let out a small chuckle. “It’s not that I’d want Will, or whichever man I’m with, to be a raving psychopath, so much as it would have been nice if Will had chased me, you know.”
“For the record, I think he would have, Vic, had he known what the real issue had been,” she replied softly. “Right