“Thanks, Captain Obvious. You think I don’t know that? I don’t even know how to apologize for being so unbelievably clueless.”
“I don’t think you can. That’s a whole lot of old hurt she’s been living with.”
Zach glared at him. “Not helping. There’s a d
istinct possibility she’s done with me. On every level. Forever.” The very idea of it made him want to put his fist through a wall. Or maybe his own face. He scrubbed both hands through his hair. “I hurt her. Like really fucking hurt her.”
He was never going to get her face out of his head. That twist of unvarnished grief and pain when she’d finally dropped the mask and stopped hiding. The image was burned indelibly into his brain.
“Yup.” Leo’s easy agreement made him want to scowl.
“I get it now. I understand what I did back then. I see how that was hurtful, and made her pull away and…basically everything that happened after because, yeah, it was shitty. I own all of that. But I don’t understand why this is so fresh and raw. Why is she so upset about this now?”
With a head shake that clearly said I-pity-how-utterly-stupid-you are, Leo kicked his feet up on the wooden door balanced over two milk crates that served as his coffeetable. “So let’s review, shall we? You were an oblivious dumbass in high school and didn’t get that your best girlfriend was trying to change things. You thought it was a joke, and she went with that rather than admit the truth. Why do you think she did that?”
“Because it would have changed things. Because she was embarrassed.”
“Right on both counts. So she grabs for the explanation that it was a joke to save face, pulls back, spends a fucking decade more or less avoiding you. Suddenly, she’s back here, and you’re picking back up with your friendship as if nothing happened.”
Zack thought about the weeks she’d been back, about that initial reticence that seemed to fade as they got comfortable with each other again. Her standoffishness made sense now.
“Except this time,” Leo continued, “it’s you who wants to change things. You’re not satisfied with the status quo, and you ultimately decide to pursue her. How did that go for you?”
He considered all those steps, big and small, he’d taken toward something more. At each and every point, she’d stepped back, emotionally and literally. “She balked.”
“Why?”
Zach didn’t think it was out of disinterest. “She’s scared.”
Leo nodded. “Yes. Why?”
“Because it would change things. Because we can’t uncross that line.”
“Has she said that?”
“No. But it’s why I’ve hesitated.” And it was hard not to question every move he’d made, wondering if there’d been a better way.
Leo nodded again, looking for all the world like he was pleased a difficult student was finally getting a clue. “Right, so you pursue, she balks. And you finally work your way around to realizing your dumbassery from high school. And what do you do? You immediately go to confront her about it. No stopping to think what bringing up this obviously painful thing directly to her was going to do. No considering how bringing up this old, no doubt embarrassing event was going to impact her. All you could think about was getting to the bottom of the why. When all this time she’s put all this effort into avoiding you, avoiding this topic because she didn’t want to talk about it.”
“But—”
Leo’s face hardened. “No, stop with the buts. There’s no justifying you being a fresh dumbass. You want to know why she’s acting like this all just happened? Because you embarrassed her. You dragged this thing I have no doubt she’s spent years trying to forget out into the open, destroyed the cover story you’ve both been living with for a decade, and put her on the spot, expecting some kind of an explanation that demands a vulnerability from her that you, frankly, haven’t earned. That’s not even fresh dumbassery. That’s composted dumbassery over years that has fertilized the earth for a truly bumper crop of stupid. Instead of approaching this whole thing from a place of vulnerability yourself, where you put yourself and what you feel out there, you cornered her about her feelings.”
Defensive, Zach rose to pace. “What the hell was I supposed to do?”
“Admit you’re in love with her for a start.”
His knees wobbled as he rounded on his friend. “In love with her?”
“What is it you feel when you think about her going back to Austin?”
Zach’s chest went tight with panic as desperation clawed up his throat. Fuck no, she couldn’t go back to Austin. Not like this. Not with everything completely messed up between them. He didn’t want her to go back at all. He’d been fighting that nagging sensation that he was going to lose her from the moment he’d seen her again in The Grind. Because she was the piece he hadn’t known had really been missing.
“Shit.”
Whatever was on his face apparently confirmed Leo’s theory because he kept on rolling. “Right, so you’re in love with her, and you corner her about what may be one of her greatest sources of humiliation ever. You don’t just point out the white elephant, you parade that shit around in a fucking tutu, and it’s everything she’s been afraid of all this time because now you know. And everything’s changed and your friendship is fucked up and it’s not even because there was kissing. What is it you think she’s going to do in response to all of this?”
“Run.” Because that was her M.O. It had been her response to all of this from the beginning.