“I’d thought I’d become a burden to you,” I said, straightening to look at her. “So many times before you could have settled and been happy if it hadn’t been for me.”
She gave a brusque laugh. “That’s not me, Emily. I’m not someone who wants to settle.” She let a beat pass. “At least, I wasn’t back then. When Reeve proposed, for the first time, the idea sounded kind of nice. I was just too scared to accept it.”
Her words were knives, slicing at me and the visions I’d had of a future with Reeve. Wounding any chance of repairing our friendship. What I wanted warred with what was best and every option in front of me led down a road I had no desire to go down.
But there had been so much honesty in the air already. The floodgates were open, and truth flowed off my tongue, without me even feeling like I’d chosen it. “Amber, I seduced him.” There it was – the worst truth of it all.
And wasn’t ironic? For years, believing she’d blamed me for taking her man. My vow to never let it happen again. Me, forced to do the thing that had torn us apart so that I could get her back. Now I learned that she’d never thought that about me at all.
It felt like a catch-22. Like I’d never had a choice but to become the person she’d led me to believe I was. I didn’t even get to enjoy the release of guilt before I had to admit that, even though I didn’t deserve the blame she’d put on me then, I did deserve it now.
My excuses held no water, but, with my head hung, I made them anyway. “I had to. To get to you. To try to find you, I seduced him.”
“I know.” Her voice was steady yet soft. “I already know.”
My head flew up in surprise. “You do?”
“Well, yeah,” she said, as if it had been obvious. “You couldn’t have gotten past that front gate any other way.”
Exactly. Which was why I’d done it. And yet I still felt so terrible about it. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?” Her expression was incredulous. “For doing what you had to in order to find me? I’m grateful! No one has ever done anything like that for me before. It’s only because of you that I’m still standing here. I know Micha didn’t hurt me enough to kill me that last time, but if I hadn’t gotten out, he would have eventually. It’s only because of you that I’m here.” She corrected herself. “Well, and Joe, but he told me you’d hired him to find me so that still counts as you.”
Now I knew what she meant about feeling unqualified to be a savior. Because I’d given up my search. I’d told Joe to stop investigating. He’d gone to Vilanakis on his own. “No,” I protested. “It wasn’t me.”
Again, she ignored me. “And imagine what a total asshole I feel like. Because I made you be that person again. I made you return to the very thing I wanted you away from. Trust me when I say it’s the last thing I wanted. I’m drowning under that guilt.”
“Stop it,” I said, standing, needing to meet her eye-to-eye. “Don’t you dare feel guilty. You came after me so many times. Saved my ass. Got me on my feet again. I owed you.”
She rolled her eyes so vehemently that her entire head swept with them. “You didn’t owe me shit. We were even and now I owe you.” She took one step toward me, taking a determined stance. “I’m going to pay you back, eventually. Someday. Somehow.”
“You don’t owe me.” I still couldn’t figure out how she’d thought we’d been even before. “There’s nothing to —”
“There is and I will.” Her tone said there would be no more arguing about it.
“Then pay me back by saving yourself, for once!” I snapped. “Stop with the bullshit life. Grow up! Think about your future. Make some goddamned plans.”
Her expression said she was stunned, and frankly, I was as well. I’d never talked to her like that. Never tried to suggest I knew what was best for her. Never realized how fiercely I resented the lifestyle we’d both once called our own.
But a dam had broken inside of me, and I couldn’t hold any of it back if I wanted to. She thought about killing herself? It broke my heart – it did. But if her life was so miserable, then why was she still repeating the same mistakes over and over? Why didn’t she at least try to get out? It wasn’t fair for her to talk to me about being scared of happiness, about being indebted to other people, as if she were the only person in the world who’d felt those things. As if she were the only one of the two of us that had it hard.
But I was a hypocrite.
Because even after I’d changed my circumstances, I’d still felt insecure and empty. So who was I to tell Amber about progress?
“I’m sorry.” I turned away from her, not wanting her to see from my expression how much of a sham my life was. “It’s not my place to lecture you.”
“No. You’re right.” Her tone had an edge to it that wasn’t there before, an edge that could simply be attributed to the rawness of her admission. Or maybe it was a sign that she was just as resentful of me as I feared she was.
Behind me, I heard her take a step, felt her moving closer toward me. Goose bumps rose along my arms and my neck tingled as I realized how near the edge I was. How easy it would be for her to push me off, if she wanted to. If she were that resentful.
It was a lunatic idea and I didn’t really think she had any intention of harming me, but because the thought crossed my mind, I jumped when I felt her hand land on my shoulder.