I Have Lived and I Have Loved - Willow Winters Page 0,32

attention. A few times they’d gotten to me, but the focus was usually with Willow.

My phone sprang to life, and I scooted to the edge of my bed. Bracing my elbows on my legs, I cradled my head in my hands for two seconds.

The ringing didn’t stop, so with a groan, I grabbed for it. “Hello?”

A soft and tentative voice. “Is this Mackenzie?”

I stood. “Who is this?”

“Cora.”

Ryan’s friend. No, correct that, the girl who had a crush on Ryan—the guy I kissed last night.

I bit my lip. What was my role?

“Uh, hey. Yeah. It’s Mackenzie.”

“Oh, thank God.” She laughed. “I swiped your number from Ryan’s phone. There’s another Mackenzie in our class who likes him, so I wasn’t sure if I got the right one or not.”

Another one? I frowned. “No, this is me. That other girl, does she text him too?”

“What?” She sounded distracted. “No, no. Well, yes. She texts him, but I don’t think he responds.”

Relief. Phew.

Seriously, how many girls were after him?

“Okay.”

And then silence.

I waited a beat. She called me.

“Um, so okay, I called to see if you needed a ride to school, or if, like, you wanted to meet me somewhere in school? I could be your guide through classes, you know?”

Well, fuck.

She was going the friend route, which meant I’d have to adhere to the friend code. So hands off Ryan, but I’d already violated that rule. And because I didn’t have the energy to worry about this, I blurted out, “Look, I have to tell you . . .”

I paused for a breath. She started to break in, but nope, I was doing this. She probably knew what I was going to say and wanted to put up a roadblock. But I had to say this because I didn’t know her when I met Ryan. But I’d begun to depend on him since June twenty-ninth.

I spoke over her. “Ryan and I are something.”

“What?”

I groaned inwardly. She sounded like she wanted to cry.

“I’m sorry, I—”

“Oh, that’s okay. Just don’t do it again, you know?”

“No. You aren’t listening to me. I’m sorry you’re hurting, but I can’t step back. I wanted you to know this before we even think about becoming friends.” I took a breath. “And if you don’t want to anymore, I understand.”

Ryan wasn’t into her. I knew that, and she knew it too. She also knew he was into me.

Maybe if Willow were still alive, I wouldn’t need Ryan and I’d really like Cora. Maybe then, I would have been able to step back, but I wasn’t in that place.

I gentled my tone. “I’m sorry, Cora. I know you like him.”

She sniffled on her end. “Then why are you pursuing him?”

It wasn’t like that, but . . .

“Because I need him right now.”

More sniffling. I heard her blow her nose.

“I always thought maybe, you know?” she finally said, her voice resigned. “He seemed disgusted with Erin the last time we saw her, and I had hope. Like I had a chance, finally.”

Sadness weighed in my chest, but my need to get through this shitstorm outweighed that. Call me a bitch. Call me a whore. Call me whatever negative thing you want, but in that moment, I was just a survivor.

My phone beeped again.

Ryan: Leaving in thirty. You want coffee?

Crap. I had to get dressed.

“Cora,” I said into the phone. “I gotta get going, but I’ll see you at school.”

I hung up, typed out a quick “yes” to Ryan, tossed my phone onto the bed, and hurried into the shower. I didn’t have time to wait for her answer.

Chapter Thirteen

Two things didn’t happen later that morning:

I didn’t tell Ryan about Cora’s phone call. If she wanted to mention any part of the conversation to him, that would be her decision.

And my arrival at school in Ryan’s truck did not go unnoticed.

Heads turned and people were starting over to him when I got out. Their mouths dropped, and everything erupted in chaos.

That was an exaggeration, but with my fragile sense of reality lately, it seemed like chaos. The girls who had been walking toward him turned and hightailed it back to their friends. I could hear the whispers.

It didn’t get any better when we got inside. Someone tripped as she tried to veer around us to get to her gossiping friends, squeaking as she fell. When she scrambled to her feet, her face was flaming red. She pushed all the way into her group of friends for cover.

Ryan’s eyebrows went up at that one, and