It was a big thought, a big emotion, one that needed space.
So I scooted back from the edge, stretched my body out on the floor, and stared at the framing of the balcony roof.
“Which quality do you find most attractive in a man?” Amber had asked next.
“Hmm.” I didn’t have to think long. “Power.”
“You really would like my father,” she’d muttered. “Why power?”
“I don’t know. It’s sexy, I guess.” I hadn’t known how to articulate the appeal. My entire life, I’d felt powerless. With my mother and her drinking. With my body and its abundant curves. With the swim coach who considered me a team filler and never bothered to time any of my laps or check out my form. Power was an enigma to me. I was fascinated by it – by what it could do, by what it could inspire, by what it could create.
“Personally, I like a guy with money,” Amber had said. “Which is a lot like power, but not really. I want the guy to have the money and me to have the power.”
“Yes. That’s what I mean,” I’d said, wanting to be liked more than to be understood.
But Amber had already understood me more than I’d realized. Propping herself up on her side, she’d said, incredulously, “You wouldn’t know what to do with power if you had it. You don’t know what to do with the power you do have.”
“I don’t have any power.”
“Those knockers!”
I shook my head. “You’re funny.”
“You’re naïve.”
It hurt because it was true – I was naïve. My ignorance was one of the reasons I’d felt so powerless. It was a side effect of not having anyone. Who was going to teach me how life worked? I’d had no friends. No father. An addict of a mother. A mediocre education.
There wasn’t any way to hide my naïveté. It was who I was. But I’d hated that Amber had figured it out so quickly. It embarrassed me, more than my abundant chest size and my cheap clothing.
All of a sudden, Amber was on top of me, her weight propped up with her hands at either side of my head. “Hey,” she’d said. “I wasn’t saying that to hurt your feelings. I like that about you. That you’re green.”
Before she’d ever spoken to me, I’d been enamored with her. She’d been a falling star that I’d been lucky enough to catch sight of – far away. Too beautiful and fantastic and special to engage with or touch or truly look at. Too special to notice me.
But here she was, her face just inches above mine, saying that she liked the thing I hated most about myself.
It felt like the light had just gone on. Like the black-and-white story I’d lived in all my life had an Oz. It was a remarkable moment, completely different from any other I’d had before. So if it was odd that she leaned down and placed her mouth on mine, I didn’t notice. It just added to the singularity of the occasion.
At first, her lips only dusted against mine, soft and full and cherry-gloss flavor. Then they nudged my mouth to open so they could wrap around my bottom lip and press. Less than five seconds later, she’d pulled away and it was over. Short, but unabridged. Complete. Exactly as long as it should have been.
And while it was somewhat arousing, that was only one component of the kiss – a kiss that had so many layers, all of them dependent upon each other, none of them significant when dissected alone. It didn’t leave me questioning my sexuality or hers. It didn’t leave me questioning anything. It was the kind of kiss that answered. Everything.
After, she sat up, straddling me, and smiled triumphantly. “There. We’re bonded now because I was your first.”
Then she rolled off me, lit a cigarette, and flitted on to the next item on her brain.
In the next few weeks, we became nearly inseparable. She opened my eyes to so much, but she let me keep them closed a lot too. She let me be naïve so she could be powerful, and I was attracted to her for that, like I was attracted to so many powerful men after her.
We never kissed like that again, not just the two of us. Our sexual interactions were always about the men involved, not each other, and almost five months would pass before that phase of our life began.
But she’d been right – we were bonded. Because she was the first girl I’d ever kissed. Because she was my first everything.
CHAPTER 22
I stood outside my bedroom door for several minutes, centering myself. The words I needed to say to Amber – the ones I’d needed to say for so long – were no longer stuck in my throat, but they were still jumbled and thick on my tongue. There were so many ways I could start, so many different narratives I could deliver, and I didn’t know how to decide which way to go.
Just tell her you love him.
That was what it came down to. Telling her I loved Reeve. Everything else was just decoration and excuses.
So, after several deep breaths, I put on a smile and went inside.
“Hey,” I said, then immediately frowned at the scene. My suitcase was open on the bed. A stack of my T-shirts had been dumped inside, and now Amber was returning from the dresser with a handful of shorts.
She glanced up at me as though I’d interrupted her, adding the clothes in her hand to the shirts in my bag. “I haven’t seen you in a one-piece since the summer we met.”
“Yeah, I thought conservative would be most appropriate for this trip.” I folded my arms across my chest and watched as Amber, back at my dresser, opened up a drawer and pulled my suits out, one by one, seemingly impressed that there was only one bikini.
“Thoughtful of you.” She crossed back to the suitcase, where she heaped them on top of my shirts. “There’s no hiding that body, though. You’re still every man’s wet dream.” Her tone was both complimentary and accusatory.
“I’ve been trying to do my laps when no one was around.” My defensiveness was automatic, but it was also a stall tactic. Even if the tension in the air was in my head, the packing was not. I had barely been prepared to come in and upset her with talk of Reeve. I had definitely not been prepared for her to already be upset.
“I know you have. You can’t help being born to look like sex on a stick. You’d think I would have learned already.” My mouth opened, but I didn’t get a chance to say anything before she turned from her task and asked point-blank, “Where were you?”
“Just now? Sitting outside. Thinking.” Again, I was defensive. It had been true. It just hadn’t been where I’d been last. And, though I meant to talk to her about it, I didn’t think Reeve should be the first item of discussion.
No, the first item we needed to address was the underwear she was now stuffing into the outside pocket of my suitcase. “Amber, what are you doing?”
She sighed, a deep, remorseful sigh that seemed to empty her completely. “You have to go, Em. You can’t be here anymore so I’m helping you pack. I’ll arrange to have you on a flight back tomorrow.”
“Okay.” But what I really meant was give me a minute to process. “I don’t understand what’s going on. Did something happen?” Had she seen me in the hall with Reeve after all?
“What happened is you’re in the way and I need you gone. You being here has ruined everything.” The intensity of her voice increased abruptly. Hints of accusation became full-out blame so quickly it was obvious that she’d been holding these feelings for quite some time.
Well, I had feelings I’d been holding on to for a while as well. “You’re the one who talked me into coming!”
“You know why I did that,” she seethed, her eyes narrow. “And I shouldn’t have. I should have realized that nothing’s changed, that you’ll always come between me and whoever I love.”
“Wait… what? When have I ever…?” The only other man who’d been an issue had been the one who’d raped me. “You said that you knew I didn’t go after Bridge.”
She shook her head dramatically. “It doesn’t matter if you went after them or not,” she said, heading into my closet. “They always wanted you more. You were always the prize.”
I fol
lowed after her. “What the hell are you talking about? That was you. Which one of any of the men that we’ve been with didn’t want you the more?”
She spun toward me. “Oh, let’s see. Bridge, Rob, Liam, Bryan.” She ticked the names on her fingers as she named them. “Reeve.” She turned back to her task, jerking sundresses off hangers and piling them over her arm.
I was flabbergasted. “Bridge was a sick asshole. Rob was your boyfriend. Bryan – Bryan proposed! To you!”
“Bryan only wanted me if you were part of the package. Liam liked playing house with me, but he wanted you. And Rob? Are you serious?” She paused to read my reaction. “Rob was the whole reason I found you in the first place.” Then she trekked back out to dump the clothes she’d gathered into my suitcase.
I hesitated for a second before trailing after her. “What are you talking about?” Her last statement, as incomprehensible as it was, also resonated with potential. Like, discovering a connection that had always existed but had never been fully realized.
Her jaw tensed, and I suspected she regretted bringing it up.
But it was too late to take it back now. “Tell me what you’re talking about, Amber. What do you mean Rob was the reason you found me in the first place?”
She folded a dress into a square, the same dress she’d just folded. “Did you think it was my idea to bring someone else into my relationship with him?” she asked, quietly.
“You wanted to share him with me. Because we were friends.” It was what I’d believed for so long, but saying it out loud, it felt hollow.
“You’re as naïve now as you were then.”
I leaned against the foot of the bed, my head spinning. “That night we first hung out…” The questions she’d asked – would I go for an older man, had I kissed a girl, wanting to see my breasts. “What was that? A screening?”
“Ding, ding, ding!”
“That night was everything to me. It changed my life.” I sounded like a kid who’d just discovered the truth about Santa Claus. I felt like one, too – stunned, disappointed, betrayed. “And that was just for him?”
“Yes,” she snapped.
She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “No. That’s not true.” Her voice was softer. She dropped her hand and met my eyes. “I mean. He wanted me to find someone to join us. But I found you because I needed to find you. And I didn’t take you to him at first because I wanted you to myself. Then I wanted you with me everywhere.”
My legs felt weak, so weak. I sunk to the ground, my back pushed against the footboard for support. Our friendship, the one relationship I’d built my entire life around, and it was based on a lie.
Amber dropped to the floor beside me. “That night meant everything to me, too, Emily. It wasn’t just for him. I didn’t mean that. I meant that I wasn’t looking for friends back then. And he forced me to go out and it ended up being the best thing because I found you.”
I hugged my knees to my chest, as if, by curling up into a ball, I could somehow close the wound she’d opened.
“Please believe me, Em.” She scooted closer, her expression sincere. “If it had been just for him, would I have kept you around for all those years after?”
“Well, I don’t know,” I retorted, my throat tight. “Maybe you kept me around to get the men since they ‘always wanted me more’.”
“You still don’t see it, do you?” Her tone was gentle, affectionate. “This isn’t something I made up to make you mad. Think about it. Really look back and think about it.”
I didn’t need to think about it. I remembered everything. Our past lived in my head with startling clarity. I could recall it at any time without any prodding.
Still, I found myself looking at it again now. Because she’d challenged it and because I suddenly didn’t trust anything, including my memory.
But try as I might, I didn’t see what she wanted me to see. “I was always the third wheel. You were captivating and dynamic. You were the main girlfriend. I always had the spare room.”
“You always chose the spare room.”
I twisted to look at her. “Because I thought that’s what you wanted!”
“It was!” She smiled, and I could see it was a tactic to fight tears. “It just wasn’t what any of them wanted.”
I dropped her gaze. It was too hard to hold all the pain and sadness buried in her eyes. Pain and sadness that she was inferring I’d caused.
I stared at my kneecaps, not really seeing them. Instead, I saw Rob, the “rich uncle” she’d taken me to meet as a birthday present. “She brought you here for me,” he’d told me when he’d made his moves. He’d told me outright, and I still hadn’t gotten it. Hadn’t wanted to get it.
“Liam,” I said, thinking out loud. Amber had played doting wife, but maybe she’d given herself that role. It was me he’d loved to spend hours talking with over a bottle of wine. It was me he’d buy gifts for, little presents he’d find around town that reminded him of me.
“He was so in love with you. You were so detached. So unattainable. When you decided we should leave, I figured you’d finally realized that he would have been the one for you, if you’d let him.”
My head snapped up to see if she was serious.
Her expression said she was. “I could never decide if that bothered you because he wasn’t what you wanted or because you were worried about me.”
“I don’t know.” I was numb. Had I known Liam had felt that way? Deep down somewhere, had I known?
I’d wanted to leave because he’d scared me. He’d made me understand things about myself, how I liked to be treated, how I liked to be fucked. He’d made it easy to be that way with him – because he’d loved me? Because he’d loved even the bad things about me?
“Things were better when we stopped sharing guys,” Amber said, and I wondered if she were taking her own trip down memory lane or if she were just guessing the places I was visiting myself.
She’d resented me. For so long. It was apparent now, so clear I couldn’t believe I’d never seen it.
It triggered my own resentment. “Then the real reason you ended our friendship wasn’t because you thought I was better than that life. It was because you were afraid I’d get in your way with your next boyfriend.”
“It was both,” she admitted. “You can’t tell me there aren’t things you’ve done for me that didn’t have a benefit for you as well.”
Reeve. I’d gotten involved with him because of her, but also because of me. “No, I can’t.” It wasn’t enough of an apology. I just didn’t know what exactly to apologize for.
I tried to imagine what it must have been like for her, to feel like I’d always been between her and the various men she loved. “You should have gotten rid of me earlier.”
“Emily,” the word was thick. “I never wanted to get rid of you at all. You were my touchstone. I kept hoping that somehow, someday it would work out, and we’d both find whatever happy ending we were looking for. But then Bridge… not only was I not enough for him – not good enough for that fucking useless asshole – but he also ended up hurting my best friend. So bad.” Her voice cracked, and my gaze followed a tear dropping down her nose.
“You pushing me away hurt almost just as bad.” My eyes were dry, but my chest ached.
More tears fell, wetting her cheeks. “I know,” she said. “It hurt me too.”
She sniffed, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “Ending things with you didn’t work anyway. You were still there in the middle of my relationships, even when you weren’t physically present.”
I shook my head, not understanding.
“Like, with Reeve. I’d finally found a guy who really loved me. Me. And the whole time, I couldn’t stop wondering whether or not he still would have picked me if he’d known you.”
“That is not my fault.” But it made me feel sick because she’d been right. It made me sick because I understood – I’d done the same thing, imagining her there thro
ugh so much of my relationship with Reeve.
“I’m not blaming you. I’m telling you how it is.” She swallowed. “I’m telling you I know there are parts of him that are better suited for you.”
She shut her eyes as a slew of new tears fell.
“Amber…” I reached out for her.
But she stood up, pulling away from me. “I can’t do this with you anymore, Emily.” She rocked back and forth on her feet. “I can’t. Blue raincoat. I quit. Because I don’t want to compete with you again. I want to love you and I want to love him and I don’t want those two things to conflict with each other like they have over and over and over.”
I scrambled to my feet. “Don’t you see I feel the same way?”
“Yes, I do! That doesn’t make this any easier.”
No. This made it harder. Knowing all of this, and I still hadn’t said what I’d planned to say. But how I felt didn’t seem to matter as much at the moment as how he felt. If we both loved him, then he needed to be the one to decide. And he had.
“He wants me.” I didn’t say it triumphantly, but I said it proudly. I said it definitively. I said it knowing it was what needed to be said most.
As heavy of a declaration as it had been, it didn’t faze Amber. “He wants you because they always want you. Because you’re an option. If you weren’t here anymore, he’d come back to me.”
I gaped. “And you want that? To be his second choice?”
“I was his first choice, first.”
It was a truth that slammed me in the gut. How ironic that I’d been wrong all those times that I’d thought she’d been the star of our relationships, and now, when I finally wanted to be the star, I was merely an understudy.
She turned him down. I kept coming back to that. She’d left him. For reasons that she could justify until she was blue in the face, and it still didn’t change the fact that she’d let him go. She’d forced him to move on. That wasn’t something she could just take back.
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