Use Somebody (27 page)

“I do. Yes.”

He smiled and shook his head. “That won’t do, love. I want you there, too.”

“Why?” I said, slightly harsher than necessary. I cleared my throat. “I mean, I don’t need to be there. Really. We can work out the details and I’ll relay them to her—”

“I would despair if you did. That defeats the whole purpose.”

I looked down at my hands, trying to maintain my composure. He was making this more difficult than it had to be. Was he so unaware of the way I felt about him? Weren’t my feelings embarrassingly transparent? For the sake of my mental health, there was no reason for me to be present for their actual meeting. He was perfectly capable of sweeping her off her feet just by showing up and breathing.

I took a deep breath. My mama had always told me to be like a swan on the water. They glided along the surface, graceful and poised, while down below they were kicking along and propelling at full speed. Regardless of what was brewing underneath, she said it was important to never let the world see that side of me.

This was one of those situations where I was struggling to be like the swan.

“It’ll be fine,” I said. My voice was small as I sliced my own heart wide open. “You can just pick her up and take her out. Like a blind date.”

“A date?” His brow crinkled. “I don’t want to date her.”

“Oh,” I said, confused. What could he possibly want with Lexi other than…? My eyes widened as I realized. “OHH,” I stressed, horrified.

He threw back his head and laughed, deep and rumbly. I was once again caught up in the melodic sound of it. Seeing him so happy always made my heart grow wings and flutter away. For a second I forgot that the man I was falling for wanted to sleep with my best friend.

He looked at me, blue eyes glittering like sapphires. “You silly sausage,” he said around his smile, the warm hint of his accent irresistibly charming. I didn’t understand what was so funny but his delight was infectious. I smiled, eager to go along with whatever he wanted. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for this man. I never had any hope of resisting him.

“Is that what you thought this whole time? That I was asking you to set me up with your friend?”

I blinked repeatedly, trying to clear my head of his raw magnetism. “Um… Yes.”

“And you were going to do it?”

“You said…” I paused, trying to wrap my mind around this turn of events. Could he actually be saying what I hadn’t dared to hope? My heart was teetering dangerously on the edge of total devastation and the slightest chance of bliss. My voice cracked when I admitted, “I thought she was who you wanted.”

His expression sobered. The air between us grew heavier. The way he looked at me stripped me bare, like he was staring straight into my soul. But I couldn’t look away, and I couldn’t hide myself anymore.

At that moment, he had to know. He had to be aware of the way I felt about him, the pain I experienced in misunderstanding his request, and the depth of my feelings in my willingness to grant it anyway.

So he gave me something back.

His fingertips tilted my chin up until I was looking him straight in the eye. “No, sweet Scarlett, she’s not the one I want,” he whispered. “Why would I choose simple candy for the eye, over food for the soul?”

I inhaled, my rib cage expanding to full capacity. It felt like the first un-constricted breath I had taken in days. I could have cried. I could have screamed. I could have jumped on the table and sung the entire
Sound of Music
soundtrack. My skin was the only thing holding me in one place.

“Then, why…?”

“She’s your best friend,” he explained. “I just wanted to meet her. For you.”

* * *

[Present]

I was storming down Lexi’s driveway when Vance and Summer caught up with me.

“Wow,” Summer huffed beside me. “You really let her have it!”

Adrenaline coursed through my veins with every step. Had that really just happened? Was this some dream or had I—for once—said exactly what I wanted to say without stumbling over my words? I shook out my hands, trying to stop them from trembling under the weight of the moment. For it was truly a life-changing moment. I was no longer Little Scarlett, the doormat. Finally, I stood up for myself. Finally, I told Lexi what I really thought about the way she treated me and her so-called friendship.

Vance put a hand on my shoulder then quickly removed it when I shrugged him off, anxiously rubbing the back of his neck. “You doing okay?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly, turning away from them. A part of me felt really good for standing up to her. But the high was already starting to fade. What was the point? As suspected, she hadn’t taken one word of it to heart. It hadn’t changed anything, except now the bridge was burned. And Lexi was right, too. She was my former best friend, and it was her birthday. She didn’t deserve the entirety of my resentment dropped on her in one fell swoop.

Why was it so hard for me to stay mad at anyone, even when given a very compelling reason?

“I didn’t mean to… blow up.”

“I knew you guys used to be friends but I had no idea there was so much animosity,” Summer noted. “Was all that stuff true?”

I nodded solemnly. “Pretty much.”

“Why did she have your journal? And what happened on Valentine’s Day?” she pressed. “What was that all about?”

Vance looked at me curiously as well. I swallowed and shook my head. “Just… just drama,” I dismissed her questions, all ten fingers tightening on the journal clutched against my chest. I didn’t want to stand around talking about it anymore. I just wanted to be alone and process this by myself. “Sorry guys. Do you mind if I just go home?”

“That’s fine,” Summer said cheerily then turned to Vance. We had reached the truck at this point and he opened the passenger door so we could climb in. “We can drop her off and then head to Honey’s. Ever since you guys mentioned midnight pancakes, I’ve been totally craving them!”

Vance’s gaze flickered from me to Summer. “Maybe another time. I’m gonna head home, too.”

“Oh… we could watch a movie at your place?” she asked, hopeful.

He shook his head. “Sorry Summer. Not tonight.”

Our drive home was completely silent. With three passengers instead of two, the normal tranquility of Vance’s truck was nowhere to be found. The air grew thick with unease and I knew I wasn’t the only one who felt it. My argument with Lexi played on an endless loop in my mind. Meanwhile, the pout radiating off Summer on my left certainly didn’t help.

My head was swimming in so much negative energy, I didn’t even notice when Vance passed my house.

“That’s Scar’s street,” Summer pointed out as we drove past. “She’s the one who wants to be home so badly. You could have at least dropped her off first.”

I peeked at Summer from the corner of my eye. I understood that I cut our plans for this evening short, but that was no reason to practically shove me out of a moving vehicle.

“I’ll come back around,” Vance responded, continuing his drive.

In her silence, I could feel her sulking again. I debated just sucking it up and offering to go with her to Honey’s. But I had come too far tonight to give into my guilt again. Regardless of her moping, I was going to do what I needed to do for me.

* * *

As promised, Vance came back around to bring me home after dropping off Summer. He cut the engine—a clear sign that he wasn’t kicking me out just yet—and exhaled, the heavy sound accentuated in the stillness of the night.

I settled into the bench in no hurry to depart. After tonight’s disaster, I had just wanted solitude to work through it. But the ache to be alone didn’t exist when it was just me and Vance.

There was something about sitting in his truck that had become my safe place. The feel of the fabric seats beneath me, the smell of peppermint and spice. Without Summer’s tension between us, the air had returned to normal, feeling warm and comfortable once again.

“You know, I can’t say it was nice meeting Lexi. But it sure does explain a lot.”

A small smile broke through my vacant expression. Vance almost never spoke a negative word about anyone, not even his ex. It was nice to know I wasn’t the only one who had been pushed to the limit by Lexi. Surely now he had a better understanding of my disconnect with friendships. I couldn’t resist comparing them. Vance and Lexi’s friendships were in such different realms, they didn’t even exist in the same universe.

“I was proud of you tonight,” he said.

“Oh?” I looked over at him and smirked. I pulled my feet up onto the seat and wrapped my arms around my legs. “You like me being a bitch?” That might have once come as a surprise, but that was before I met his long-time girlfriend.

“Well, no,” he chuckled, shifting towards me. When he spoke again, his tone was serious. “You stood up for yourself. I know that wasn’t easy for you.”

I let out a derisive laugh and shook off his misplaced praise. “I blew up at her, Vance. I totally attacked her. On her birthday.”

“That doesn’t grant her permission to walk all over everyone,” he argued. “Okay. It was bad timing. But you’ve made excuses for her long enough. I don’t blame you for finally showing some backbone.”

“But I should have—”

“Stop right there,” he cut me off. “No should-have, could-have, would-have. What’s done is done. Focus on moving forward.”

I considered this, resting my chin on my knees. “Do you think I should apologize?” I asked.

“Honestly?” I nodded. “No. She needed to hear that stuff. All of it. You’re the one that deserves an apology, in my opinion. This time it’s on her to fix it.”

I glanced out the windshield in thought. I wasn’t going to hold my breath waiting for an apology from Lexi Monroe.

“I’m not saying it was perfect,” he conceded. “Ideally, you wouldn’t have hulked out. On the other hand, ideally she wouldn’t have provoked you. Ideally she would’ve treated you like a friend instead of a minion for the past umpteen years. You’re human—it’s not a crime to have emotions. If she were really your friend, she should understand that.”

Turning introspective, I pondered this. I supposed it could have been worse; there wasn’t name calling or hair pulling and nothing I said was false. It was just emotional. I’d been trying so hard to suppress my emotions that it felt weird and wrong to let them out.

But Vance was right, real friends should be able to feel, speak their minds, and understand one another. Should I really apologize for expressing myself, or for getting frustrated at her lack of effort?

Vance continued in my silence. “You gotta start somewhere. This was a good first step. Really. Now just think about how you’ll handle it better next time.”

I sighed. “I doubt there’ll be a next time.” I stared out the window, watching a handful of stars winking back at me. No thanks to the residential street lamps, this was nowhere near as dark as the mountains, where thousands of brilliant specks dotted the night sky. Down here, I missed the beauty, the seclusion. “I think I’ve known it since I left school… that Lexi and I were done,” I confessed. “She didn’t even internalize anything I said. She never will. I stopped trying years ago because it always fell on deaf ears. I don’t know why I thought tonight would be any different. Maybe I was hoping for some sort of closure. Instead, I burned a bridge.”

“This won’t be your last confrontation. Maybe it won’t be Lexi, maybe it won’t be this same situation at all. But it will happen again. You’ll have to stand up for yourself. I guarantee it. So tell me, next time, what will you do?”

It was hard to answer that. Everything would be so different next time around. Lexi and I had a lifetime of history and memories. It was difficult for many reasons to cut those ties, to make the change from ‘how it is’ to ‘how it should be,’ and to overcome how wide that gap had become. In a way, I couldn’t imagine facing a harder confrontation. I also couldn’t fathom investing so much in a friendship again. Maybe, like in dating relationships, the first one was always the hardest.

The upside to that? Maybe it was all downhill from here.

“Next time… I won’t let it slide so long. This whole mess escalated because for years, I said nothing… I just bent over and took it again and again until I exploded. So next time, if there’s an issue, I’ll address it quickly, before it gets out of control.”

He smiled softly at me. “That’s why I’m proud of you.”

This time, I couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit of pleasure in his praise. It had been so long since anyone said they were proud of me. If a person like Vance could approve of my actions, maybe I had finally done something right… or at least something pointed in that general direction.

I looked down while a warmth settled in my bones. Tonight hadn’t gone at all how I would have planned or hoped. But if it weren’t for Vance, I would be sitting alone in my room right now, wallowing in regret over another failure and analyzing it to death.

He was right, it had been a big step for me. And he knew exactly what to say to help me focus on the positive while also turning it into something constructive.