Unbroken Rules (Rules 3)

“Yes, I am. It’s not a big deal. So what if my mom hates me? Some people don’t even have a family, and I’m over here crying like an idiot. I—”

“Hey!” His hand flew up to my jaw, and he lifted my chin up. “I don’t care if somebody else has it worse. You can’t tell the guy with a cut that his blood isn’t real because someone’s hemorrhaging next to him. If you’re feeling it, it matters. End of story.”

His words comforted me but also validated my pain, which only made me cry harder. Caleb wrapped one arm around my shoulder, and I released my knees, leaning into my best friend’s chest. I cried and I cried into his cardigan, and he let me.

“Sometimes, I think I hate her,” I sobbed. “But then I realize I hate me more.”

The alcohol spoke for me, but it understood my pain better than I did. I’d never talked about my feelings toward my mother before—really talked. I’d mentioned it to my friends a few times, of course, but I’d never dived deep, tear-my-wounds-wide-open-and-pour-salt-into-them kind of deep. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like you want to blame your parent, but you can’t because… deep down, you’re so desperate for their affection, so you blame yourself instead. You blame your mere existence. And you wonder how anyone could ever love you if…” I sniffled. “If the one person in the whole world who’s supposed to doesn’t.”

Speechless, he looked at me for long seconds.

“You’re wrong.”

I stared at him through the tears.

“It’s easy.”

“What?”

“Loving you.”

I’d had Caleb tell me he loved me many times over the years, but in a playful way—one of those you know I love you when he annoyed me type of thing—but somehow, combined with the way he was looking at me, this one felt different.

Overwhelmed, I mumbled, “What?”

He hesitated for a second and grabbed the rum bottle right off the floor to chug what was left of it as if to give himself courage.

He sucked in a breath. “It’s true. You’re funny, beautiful, you’re kind. Winter, you… You’re amazing.”

Words failed me. But his didn’t. He said the three words—the ones that have the power to destroy any friendship in minus two seconds.

“I love you, Winter. I’ve loved you since we were kids. I… I was scared to tell you, but you don’t deserve this. Your mom is awful. It’s not your fault. It was never your fault.” He wiped one of my tears away with his index.

In that moment, my hazy thoughts blurred everything: my actions, my feelings, the lines. The alcohol in my veins stole what was left of my common sense. I leaned forward and kissed him. He kissed me back. Stop, this is wrong. So wrong.

When we ended up naked on my bed, in the dark room where we once played hide-and-seek as kids, an alarm went off on his phone. He stretched his arm and pulled it out of his jeans pocket on the floor. He turned the screen over to me.

Midnight.

“Happy Birthday, Winter.” He smiled, but all I wanted to do was cry. Crawl into a ball and sob until I couldn’t breathe. Cry until the sting between my legs disappeared. My head was spinning, pounding along to the beat downstairs. I couldn’t believe I’d just done this, crumbled under the pressure of wanting to get my first time out of the way. I would’ve chased any high to get me out of this low, to feel wanted even for a second. “Are you okay?” he asked, worried. I nodded, but the tears rolling down my face didn’t lie. He was an amazing guy. The right guy.

Just not my right guy.

I realized the expectations weren’t true—life is rarely perfect, firsts aren’t always made of fairy tales, and the guy I’d known forever? The guy I’d cried to when my fourth-grade crush George Bay had gotten a girlfriend? The guy I’d never, ever thought I’d kiss? Well, I’d slept with him and I didn’t know myself anymore.

But I did know one thing: I didn’t sleep with him for the right reasons.

It wasn’t because I loved him.

It was because I loved that he loved me.

NOW

Lying in bed, I adjust my pillow with a heart so heavy I’m surprised my body hasn’t sunk into the mattress yet. The apartment is quiet. Allie and Caleb went home, Haze is long gone, and Kendrick and Will passed out shortly after the Never Have I Ever disaster. Allie’s been blowing up my phone, asking me why I never told her about that night. I was honest with her: I was ashamed, plain and simple. A lapse of judgment, a drunk mistake. That’s all it took to completely wreck a lifetime of friendship.

The clock reads 2:00 a.m., and as exhausted as I am, I can’t close my eyes. Not when he’s somewhere out there, doing God knows what alone in the middle of the night. I stare at the one-sided conversation on my screen.

Winter: Where are you?