“You…you really want me to leave?”
“Yes. I just…this is all overwhelming. I shouldn’t have…we shouldn’t have…You’re with Tal.”
“Right,” Eden says. Now fully dressed. “Nothing has changed, has it?”
She doesn’t give me a chance to point out that I know she loves Tal before she grabs her things and runs out of my room.
Eden
“Whoa, where are you going?” Tal asks when I run into him at the front door when I try to get out of this house as fast as possible.
“He…he remembers. Everything!” I tell him before I finally break down, burying my face in his shirt as I cry, the clothes and purse in my arms falling to the floor forgotten.
“Shit,” Tal says when he wraps his arms around me. “I was afraid of this.”
“He seemed so…different. He said he wasn’t going to keep fighting! He said…he said he loved me,” I sob into his chest.
“Let me talk to him,” Tal says. “Maybe things are different.”
I shake my head because I know that’s bullshit. I could tell within seconds after he woke up that everything had changed, and not in a good way. Sage couldn’t even look at me he hates me so much.
“I need to go,” I say, because I just want to be alone, not with the one person in the world who reminds me so much of the man who doesn’t love me more than his career. Pulling away from Tal, I swipe my fingers over my face to dry it and tell him, “Call me and let me know what the doctor says tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Tal agrees. Giving me a kiss on the top of the head, he says, “I’m so sorry, Eden.”
“Yeah, me too,” I agree while I bend down to pick up my things and finally leave.
Chapter Fourteen
Sage
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Tal asks when he storms into my room where I’m still sitting on the side of my bed, rubbing my aching head.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I don’t know how it happened.”
“I do – you’re being a dick!”
“What?” I look up at him to ask in confusion.
“Eden’s upset because you just threw her away – again!”
“I thought…aren’t you pissed we slept together?”
“No. I’m pissed that you hurt her again!” Tal says, which doesn’t add up.
“You were together for eight years, weren’t you?” I ask him. “You love her.”
Combing his fingers through his dark hair, he says, “It wasn’t what you thought it was. We’re friends with benefits, sort of…there aren’t a ton of benefits.”
“I don’t get it,” I tell him since Eden is here almost every night. “You love her so much you followed her to college!”
“I wanted to go to college rather than keep training and fighting. I knew she could use a friend after you dumped her, so I went to State with her!” Tal explains. “And yes, I do love her, but not the way you think. She’s my best friend, but she’s always been in love with you. I had no idea you wanted to marry her. Why did you break up years ago instead of proposing?”
“I didn’t think I could give her what she needed, and I saw the way you looked at her,” I finally admit to him.
“How did I look at her?” Tal asks. “Like a friend?”
“You looked at her like she was everything you wanted and couldn’t have!” I admit.
“What?”
“And I was right! You two may not have fucked when Eden and I were together, which I still don’t entirely believe, but you sure as shit didn’t waste any time going after her when we broke up!”
“I barely touched her those first few weeks other than to comfort her!” Tal says. “I was trying to make you jealous so that you would admit you made a mistake when you broke up with her!”
“You two seemed pretty happy,” I mutter.
“Looks can be deceiving.”
“Yeah, maybe so.”
“What are you going to do to make this shit right?” Tal asks me.
“I’m so confused right now that I don’t have a clue,” I admit.
“Well, figure it out and fast,” he says. “Because if you lose Eden a second time, I don’t think she’ll ever take you back.”
Eden
The next day, even though it makes me feel guilty, I call in sick to work. I may be the boss, and work is probably piling up on the girls, but I just can’t face anyone right now.
But I should’ve known that in our close-knit community, it was only a matter of time when I didn’t answer my phone that people would start showing up at my apartment.
“What happened?” Miriah says when I open the door wearing my robe over my pajamas. I don’t need to look in the mirror to know that my face, especially my eyes and nose, are red from crying.
“I’m sick…with a cold,” I lie to her between hiccupping sobs. “You should probably go…before you…catch it.”
“You are so full of it!” she declares, pulling me into a hug. “It’s Sage, isn’t it? I heard you’ve been staying with him and that he thinks you’re still together.”
“Not anymore!” I say as more tears fall down my cheeks. Before they can get her shoulder wet, I pull away. “I’ll be fine.”
“No, you won’t! I can’t believe he did that to you. Again!”
“It wasn’t his fault,” I say when I turn away to search for more tissues. I pull several from the box on the sofa and then flop down on it with Miriah taking a seat on the ottoman facing me. “He lost his memory after the hit to his head.”
Miriah winces. “He may have more than his head injured soon.”
“What do you mean?”
“I heard my mom talking to your mom…”
“Oh no!” I exclaim as I fall backward into the sofa cushions, wishing I could disappear into them for good.
“You know how they are! It’s a tight group, and everyone finds out everything eventually…”
As if on cue, there’s a knock on my door. No, it’s more of a banging.
“Oh no. My
