Comfort Zone (Awkward Love 4)

“Hi, I’m looking for—”

“I know who you’re looking for,” she says, her tone cool. “And she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Amber, it’s okay.”

Amber reluctantly steps back and opens the door. Brooke sits on the bed, her eyes red, like she’s been crying.

“Hi. Can we talk?” I ask her.

Brooke turns to her sister. “Can you give us some privacy?”

Amber huffs and turns around and stalks out. I walk awkwardly over to the door and close it, then I look around the room for somewhere to sit, the only spot being next to her, on the bed.

That would be way too weird.

Would we braid each other’s hair and paint our nails too?

“Are you here to gloat?” she asks.

“Of course not.” I frown at her and stare down at the letters.

“Why not?” she asks. “You hate me and you won, so make the most of it.”

“What did I win?” I ask. “And I don’t hate you, Brooke. You hate me.”

I shake my head, because I’m losing sight of the point of coming to see her. I’m here for a reason, not to argue over who hates who more. I sigh and sit down on the bed next to her.

“Help yourself.”

She nods at the open bottle of champagne sitting on the floor.

“We were supposed to have that on our wedding night, but since there’s not likely to be a wedding anymore…” She shakes her head and lets loose a bitter laugh. “I can’t believe I trusted him.”

“Brooke—”

“No, you don’t get to come in here and try and make me feel better just so you feel better.” She curses herself. “I knew. I knew, and I still let myself fall in love with him.”

“But he loves you,” I say. “You know that.”

“No. I don’t. How can I trust that what he tells me is the truth?”

“Because you’ve done just that for the last few years,” I remind her. “You believed something in him back then.”

I sigh when she doesn’t say anything, and stare down at the letters that are clutched tightly in my hands. Is it still worth the risk? This is the moment where I unravel twelve years of friendship in a matter of seconds.

“Here,” I say, holding the letters out for her.

“What are they?” She frowns at them.

“They’re letters. Jake didn’t cope very well, when his dad died,” I begin. “I wanted to help him, because it was so hard to watch him suffer, but didn’t know what to do. Then I had an idea. I thought maybe if he could talk to his dad, he could get some closure, and it might help him move on. So I set him up an email address.”

I pause for a second, the moment I told him about that email account still imprinted in my mind. He was so, incredibly grateful that I’d do that for him. I take a deep breath and then continue.

“The idea was, only he would have the address to the account, and nobody would have access to it. Not him, or me or anyone else. It was just a way for him to message his father.”

“That’s a really nice thing to do,” Brooke admits. “But what does that have to do with me? All it does is give another reason why you’re better than me.”

“I’m getting to that,” I assure her. I take a deep breath. Wow this is hard.

“When I set up the email account, I had every email forwarded to a second address. I had no intention ever of reading them…”

I sound like I’m full of shit. Why the hell did I think she would believe me?

“I just didn’t want something to happen where he decided he wanted to access them and couldn’t.”

Brooke frowns and glances at the letter I handed her.

“So these letters…”

“Are from Jake, to his dad,” I confirm. “Read them, and then decide how he feels about you.”

Brooke frowns, her hands shaking as she examines the letters.

“How do I know that you didn’t make these up? Or that Jake didn’t just write them up?”

“Look at the dates,” I say honestly. “Read what he’s saying. They’ll coincide with memories and you’ll never read anything as raw and emotional as this. That can’t be faked, right?”

She doesn’t say anything, instead she just stares at the same page. I nod and stand up, because I’ve done all I can.

“He loves you, Brooke. I’ll probably lose his friendship over this, but it will be worth it if this means you two can work it out.”

I walk over to the door, but then stop when I remember something. I turn back to her, even though she still won’t look at me.

“He said something to me before; if I lose Brooke then I lose everything.”

I open the door and walk out, stopping when she asks me something.

“Why did he freak out when you started seeing Liam, then?”