Food for Thought by Amy Lane

Author:Amy Lane [Lane, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-03-20T16:00:00+00:00

Bitter Almond

CHRISTINE WAS on her knees in the living room, going through his DVDs and pulling out the ones she’d brought over to watch.

The others she chucked across the room, where they hit the wall. Some of the cases had broken open, and the far wall was a mess of DVD covers and shiny—probably scratched—discs.

She was crying.

Emmett padded into the room with the towel tight around his waist, wondering if he shouldn’t have taken the time to dress, but he figured that just would have been more time for Christine to imagine the worst. Imagine him and Keegan laughing at her, imagine him thinking she was foolish, when she wasn’t the foolish one at all.

When he spoke, she didn’t startle, which confirmed his suspicion that she knew he’d walked in from pretty much the moment he’d arrived.

“When you tell your friends how this went down,” he said quietly, “you can tell them anything you want—I deserve it. I just want you to know something important. This is not your fault. You weren’t being stupid, or blind, or even cheated on, at least not until this afternoon. I wanted to want you. You’re terrific. You’re beautiful and awesome and amazing. And I thought that if I was going to settle down with a girl, it would have to be you, because you are really wonderful. But—” He swallowed. “—I just never was meant to settle down with a girl. And I kept lying to myself about that. And now I’ve hurt us all. And I’m sorry, but that’s not going to feel any better, so, uhm, you know. Keep doing what you’re doing. Just… well, George is in the bathroom, so if you could leave her out of this, I’d be really grateful.”

He heard her sob, and saw her shoulders shake. He couldn’t stand seeing her cry.

“I… can I put my arm over your shoulder?” he asked, feeling pathetic. “I… I hate to see you so sad.”

He barely saw her nod, and he was grateful that he’d wiped himself down before he’d come out into the living room. Clutching the towel around his hips he knelt down next to her and looped an arm around her shoulder. She couldn’t look at him, staring instead at her prettily manicured hands as she rooted through the DVDs.

“Why couldn’t you have just told me?” she asked, her voice broken and clogged. “Why… why did I have to walk in and see…?”

Oh God. He was such an asshole. “What you saw today was… was… the equivalent of the breaking of the dam of denial,” he said, and felt worse when she laughed at that, the phlegm clogging in her throat. “I… I’ve been trying to fall in love with you, but what I was really doing was—”

“Falling in love with Keegan.” She half laughed.

“Yeah. I’m sure on some level you’re not shocked,” he said dryly, and she made that hideous snorking sound again.

“No,” she agreed. “Not shocked. But… but… we could have been friends. I didn’t need a boyfriend, but now….

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