“I’m fine.”

Lie. I was the farthest from fine I’d ever been. I knew it and so did Tori.

“You’ll be fine,” she argued. “I know you will. Being here, away from him, just like before, you’ll be fine. It just might take a little longer but you’ll get there.”

Tori thought she had it all figured out, that I’d found my happiness on my own, and since I did it already, I could do it again, but that was just it.

I hadn’t found my happiness on my own.

I had Tori, and yeah, being with her every day helped, my new job and the friends I’d met here, Shay and Kali, but I’d had someone else, too.

And since Tori hated Marcus now to the point of death plotting and most likely wouldn’t have an issue with me feeling things for someone else, it was time I crawled out from behind my secret and shared it with her.

I was numb enough. If she ended up hating me for a few days, I might not even feel it.

I sat up and let the blanket slip down over my shoulder, gathering the cocoon I’d inhabited around my waist as I twisted on the couch and sat knee bent, foot resting beneath my thigh, and body angled to face her.

She looked super pretty in a soft yellow strapless sundress and a red lip, her hair twisting loose in beach-water waves.

I was wearing leggings and a UNC hoodie, hadn’t brushed my hair since yesterday, and my eyes were swollen from tears shed.

Sweet blues roamed my face, shining upbeat.

“There you are,” Tori said, smiling lightly. “Forgot you had all that red under there.”

I quickly finger-combed my hair.

God, I needed a mirror.

And a toothbrush.

Tucking chunks of tangled red behind my ear and swiping my tongue over my teeth, I prepared myself for confession, taking a few deep breaths and reaching for Tori’s hand.

“I need to tell you something,” I began, watching her scoot closer and feeling her hand tighten around mine.

I held on tighter, wet my lips, and got on with it.

“I’ve felt different over the past month. Happier. You saw it. I was just …better in a lot of ways I think, and I know a lot of that had to do with being here with you and meeting everyone at work, but there was something else helping me, getting me there a lot quicker than I was expecting and making me feel things I haven’t felt in a really long time. Maybe ever.”

“Oh, God,” Tori whispered, suddenly looking concerned. “Are you hooked on something?”

“What?”

She pulled my hand into her lap, jerking me forward.

“I watched this Lifetime movie a couple months ago about a woman who was down on her luck, recently divorced due to the loss of a child; and it being too much for her and her husband to handle together, they split up. Then one night, she went out to this club and got hooked on smack.”

I pulled my hand back, taking hers with me and keeping them between us.

“I am not hooked on smack,” I hissed. “I don’t even know what that is. What is it?”

“I think it’s a combination of crack and crank. Or it could be heroin.” She moved to get off the couch. “I’m gonna Google it.”

“Wait a minute.” I tugged her back down.

My best friend was crazy.

“I am not taking any drugs. That’s not what I’m trying to tell you.”

Tori studied me, soundless for a second.

“I’ve been talking to someone,” I finally admitted.

“Like a therapist?” she asked, eyes lighting up. “That’s great!”

I blinked heavily and sighed.

“No, like a man,” I replied, watching her brows slowly knit together. “I’ve been talking to this guy and not in a billing your insurance type of way, okay? We’ve been …sort of dating, exclusively on the phone, I guess, just talking a lot but it’s done now. We’re not anymore. It all ended Thursday night.”

Because he didn’t want to know me.

I fought tears, slumped sideways, and fell into the couch, resting my heavy head on the cushion.

“I miss him so much,” I whispered. “If Marcus hadn’t eaten my heart I’d swear it was breaking.”

Tori’s mouth dropped open.

“You’ve been dating someone?” she asked, shocked voice barely above a murmur. “Who is it? And when did you have time to meet him? All you do is work.”

I wiped at my face with my sleeve.

“You’re not mad at me?”

“What? Why would I be mad at you? You were happy.”

My lip twitched. I loved this girl. Seriously.

Tori dropped her head on the cushion beside her shoulder, mimicking my position, then continued on to say, “And I’m sure whatever reason you had for keeping this to yourself was a good one and not something I would be mad at you for. That being said, you owe me a month’s worth of details and you’re not allowed to skip over anything. That means I get to hear everything, juicy stuff and all, starting with who this guy is and how you met.”

She had a point. I owed her a lot, and since I did the shitty thing by keeping this from her, the least I could do was share a few details.

Even the private ones.

“Remember that guy I accidentally dialed thinking he was Wes?”

Her eyes widened.

“Him?”

I nodded.

“He texted me the next day and it just …went from there. Quickly. Texting and talking, every day, sometimes multiple times, for hours.”

“You gotta be kidding me,” she murmured.

“It was fast but it was easy,” I continued. “Like, really easy. I could talk to him about anything. He knew about Marcus, I told him, and he was good about taking my mind off of it, making me laugh and stuff. And the things he would say to me, Tori, it was like he really cared about me, like he wanted me to be happy more than anything and it just got to me. You know? I started really caring for him, thinking about him all the time, what he looked like, where he was, if he was thinking the same way about me. I know I had feelings for him. A lot of feelings, especially after we started doing stuff on the phone together.”

I gave her a look then, indicating my meaning, and it came across loud and clear, Tori’s mouth pinching together thinly and her cheeks flushing.

“It was sudden and probably too fast, I know it was, which is why I kept it from you, but I really wanted to know him. Like …know him. Talk to him in person and do all the other stuff we were already doing but really do it. More than anything, I wanted that. More than I wanted to patch things over with Marcus.” I swallowed thickly, eyes lowering. “But Brian didn’t. Told me so Thursday night. Said he didn’t want to know me. That’s the last time we spoke.”

“He actually said that to you? That he didn’t want to know you, he said those words?”

“Yep.”

“Did he have a reason?” she asked, tugging my hand a little and raising my eyes.

When I caught hers, I replied, “Did he need one?”

She frowned.

He didn’t. Tori knew it and so did I.

Having a reason wouldn’t change anything. It could be the noblest reason on earth and it wouldn’t lessen the pain I was feeling or make any of this better. Besides, whatever it was, if Brian had something driving his decision to keep me out, it still had everything to do with me.