Stir Me (Rouse Me 2)

She pushes off the couch and moves towards the window. Her back is to me, like I'm the enemy.

"I trust you," she says. "But there's no way she only wants to be your friend. Not with this kind of attitude."

I push off the couch. "It's only a house."

Alyssa turns back to me for a minute. Her eyes are so sad, like she's about to cry. "Was it only a house when you offered me your spare room?"

"No."

"So it's only a house when you're giving it up to Samantha?"

I move to her. I wrap my arms around her waist. I rub her shoulders. "I can't fail her."

Alyssa shrugs her shoulders, pushing me away. She moves to the kitchen. "The sleeping pills again?"

"You say it like it means nothing that I left a bottle of sleeping pills next to the bed."

She turns her attention to the coffee machine. "You made a mistake. But do you really think things would have been different if you had left them in the medicine cabinet?"

"I knew she might take them. Deep down, I wanted her to take them."

We've talked about this before, but it was under vastly differen

t circumstances.

No, not vastly different. Before, there was space creeping up between us. And now space is creeping up between us again.

Alyssa takes a sharp breath. "Listen, Luke, I really, really don't want to devalue your feelings. You have every right to feel guilty, even though it wasn't your fault. But are you going to keep bending over backwards for her just because you made this one mistake?"

"It wasn't one mistake. I promised to be there for her and I failed."

"Does that mean you're in debt to her forever?" she asks.

"No. We're friends. I want to help her."

"Yes, and having friends is great. And it's normal for friends to sometimes be weird or needy. And it's also normal for her to sometimes ask too much or demand too much attention. But it happens constantly."

"We're normal friends."

Alyssa shakes her head. "You're not normal. I'm not going to be able to be patient if you're going to bullshit me."

"I'd never bullshit you."

She looks away, her hands curling into tight balls. "Things are so hard right now. Meetings, and press, and the show premiering. I need to feel like you're on my team."

"I am."

"What if you had to choose between us?"

"Ally--"

"No, just hypothetically. Gun to your head--would you rather be her friend or my boyfriend?"

"That's ridiculous."

"Still. Which would you choose?"

"Ally--"