She paces back and forth across my office. The words tumble past her lips in quick succession. It’s as though she’s afraid that if she stops, she’ll never restart.
“That’s a lot,” I say softly, wanting to offer support but not interrupt.
She stops walking and looks at me. “It was so much.” Her voice cracks. “And, like you, I looked up one day and realized that decisions had been made without me being asked. Only, Jack and Lacie had decided to move on together, and I was left holding a bunch of broken pieces of a life I had just a few weeks before.”
I was right. I don’t like where this is going.
“I remember asking him why he did that to me. How could he do this to me? And he said I was so self-absorbed with my own shit and that I wasn’t there for him. That he needed my support to get through law school, and if I wasn’t going to give him that, then he didn’t see why he should waste any time on me.”
A single, solitary tear slips down her cheek.
My heart breaks for her. Watching her cry feels like someone kicked me in the gut.
I reach for her, but she backs away.
“He told me I was weak and too emotional, and I would never make a good attorney. He threw all the things I’d confided in him back in my face and made me sound like an impulsive train wreck.” She wipes her eyes with the back of her hands. “Maybe I was.”
“You just lost your parents, Blaire. You’re entitled to be a mess. But you’re also entitled to have the support of your friends when you’re going through things like that.”
It takes everything I have to be kind and patient. What I really want to do is give in to the burst of adrenaline shooting through my veins and demand to know who this guy is and where I can find him.
But that won’t help her. And, for what might be the first time in a long time, she needs someone to put her first.
She sniffles. “I was staying in his apartment. I was on his phone plan. I had everything of mine tied up with his, and when he kicked me out, I had nothing. I controlled nothing in my life. I had to threaten to have the police come and let me get my things because he wouldn’t let me in.”
I take her hand in mine and pull her closer.
We stand with a few feet between us. The fear in her eyes from before is faded. A strand of hair is stuck to the side of her face with a tear. I use my free hand to brush it away.
The contact breaks an invisible wall. Her eyes fill with unshed tears.
“I broke down, Holt,” she says through a lump in her throat. “I sat one night in the bathroom of this shitty apartment that I found for next to nothing and told Machlan how he had to straighten up. How his future depended on it. How I expected him to make good choices. I hung up the phone and just cried.”
Tears flow down both cheeks. She tries to slip her hand from mine, but I hold it tight.
“I sat there that night with a piece of glass in one hand and a bottle of tequila in the other and a letter from the university that said if I didn’t get my shit together, I was out. I probably cried enough in that one sitting to fill the bottle up with tears.”
She lowers her eyes from mine.
“And I thought about just ending it all.” She hiccups through her tears. “I figured I could drink enough and then just do it and never wake up or feel anything again. I was so tired of feeling like I was drowning and that no one fucking cared.”
I pull her to me. She resists at first, but then melts in my arms.
My hands clasp at the small of her back as I rest my chin on top of her head. I squeeze my eyes shut and feel the sting of her words in my chest.
Her body goes limp in my arms as she succumbs to the emotions she’s been holding in for God knows how long. Her cries are quiet—her fists balling my shirt up and holding it tight.
I try to imagine her pain. I attempt to piece together a life without my parents, without my work, without my brothers who are my best friends.
The thought alone is enough to make me want to lose my mind.
We stand in the middle of my office for a long time, swaying back and forth. I hold her tight until her cries soften and then stop. My body doesn’t separate from hers until her fists let go of my shirt and her body stops shaking. Only then do I look down.