Lover (Court University 4)

To be able to say them, to feel them.

And all in the past tense.

I had been in love with her, was in love with her.

Was.

It was like air fully came through my lungs, like I could breath for the first time. It made me sit straighter, see clearer.

Was.

“That,” she said, her eyes meeting mine. She chewed her lip. “Like I said, I’ve been a shit friend. I knew that but I wanted to be your friend so bad. You’re addictive, Arizona.”

I was addictive?

I’d been obsessed with her for years, locking away shit inside myself for years because of her. Because I had been in love with her.

Was.

The thought made me smile now, but December obviously didn’t know why. She just continued to chew her lip, studying me.

“What do you need from me?” she asked, her breath hitched. It was like she anticipated my next words, like they worried her. Her lips worked. “How do I not be a shit friend?”

She could never be a shit friend, not truly. A shit friend completely abandoned you, but in this case, I’d abandoned her. I’d done it through both physical and metaphorical distance. I’d kept her at arm’s length when she’d always, always been there as a resource for me. She always reminded me how she was there, never forgot about me.

But I had her, and though I’d always made myself available to her in the technical sense, I had kept a part of myself away.

Perhaps, the most important part.

I worked my palms. “First off, you could never really be a shit friend.” I dashed my eyebrows. “You check on me all the time and bug the shit out of me until I tell you what’s up. Always fucking do.”

The woman was the first in my DMs during finals week, making sure I wasn’t stressed or needed anything. She was as attentive as I’d been for her at the wedding, and I did tell her most things.

Ironically enough, it was the stuff that didn’t matter that she always got. My life was an open book to her besides anything that actually counted, and thinking back, she probably had poked so much over the years because she’d known the truth. During those final days in high school, I’d admitted my feelings to her, but I think we both thought I’d get over them after she chose someone else.

As the years passed, it must have been apparent I hadn’t, and she had done all the poking. She never let up, always wanting me to be open with her I just never did.

Completely on me and something I was correcting at the present. I was finally past all those old feelings. I was and it felt good.

I eyed her. “And second, I don’t need anything from you. But there is something I need to start doing.”

“What?”

I studied her. “Saying no to you,” I said, laughing. “I’ve never been good at it.”

Brielle was right. Things may not have been a certain way with December. I may not have been “unavailable,” but I certainly acted like it. I allowed myself to become a yes man and probably due to nothing but fear. Maybe I’d been afraid of losing my friend. Maybe I’d just been afraid. Either way, I couldn’t do it anymore and had a feeling I didn’t need to. She’d always be in my life whether I said yes to her or not.

She was annoying in that way.

I couldn’t get rid of her any more than she could get rid of me and she knew that.

Laughter as she threw her head back and brought her legs up. She tossed her dark waves around. “Royal said this was coming.”

“What?”

“You,” she said, grinning, “cutting me off. He seems to think I take advantage of you.”

Okay, my jaw dropped seriously to the damn floor. Royal Prinze coming to bat for me? I must have heard her wrong.