Chapter 8

And I might never have this chance again.

“Well, goodnight.” Rachel told me as she stood to leave.

“Rachel, I like you.” I said at the same time.

She stopped, looking surprised but not necessarily shocked.

“I’ve liked you for a good long while now.” I shrugged in the uncomfortable silence that followed.

“Oh.” She finally said. And then, “I’m sorry, Liv. I just—I don’t—!”

I understood then that Rachel was trying to let me down easy, and I let out the breath I didn’t know I had been holding. I couldn’t believe how incredibly relieved I suddenly felt in that moment, and I realized just how much I had been hoping Rachel wouldn’t say she liked me back.

“It’s not anything against you!” Rachel said quickly, misreading my stunned expression. “It’s just that I like…”

I glanced up when she didn’t immediately finish, and Rachel sighed, her gaze dropping as she continued. “Chris. I like Chris.”

Her admission caught me off guard, but everything started falling together quickly enough. I saw it all more clearly now—the looks I had seen her and Chris share, the way Rachel would sometimes seem flustered when Chris was around, and how evasive Chris had been lately whenever I would talk about Rachel.

“And Chris likes you, too…” I said, more of a statement than a question as the realization dawned on me.

I watched Rachel blush as she hesitantly nodded.

“I think so,” she said. “But I think he’s too afraid to act on it—I am, too! It’s just, we don’t know how you’d take it. I mean, it was pretty obvious you had a crush on me.”

Rachel’s blush deepened as she hurriedly explained and I had to laugh a little even as I continued to take in all this information.

“And here I thought I had been so cool about it.” I quipped drily, and Rachel laughed, too.

“Wow, you and Chris, huh?” I said after a moment. “Makes sense.”

I smiled then, mostly from the fact that I was feeling so free all of a sudden. My silly crush on Rachel was gone, and there was so much possibility now ahead of me—particularly when it came to Thea.

“I didn’t expect you to be this goddamned happy about it,” Rachel grinned, and I laughed again.

The two of us talked a little bit more before finally saying goodnight. I stopped in the living room on the way back, my eyes coming across something under the Christmas tree that I hadn’t seen before. I walked over to take a closer look and smiled.

There were three gifts under that tree now—one for Rachel, one for me, and even one for Chris. None of them were signed, but it was clear who they were from. I took mine and opened it, eager to see what Thea had gotten me.

It was a teal cashmere scarf, and I instinctively held it to my cheek to feel its softness. I smiled, remembering the night Thea had lent me her own scarf, and I knew that Thea must have been thinking about that, too, when she had bought this one for me.

I was still smiling by the time I got back to my room, scarf in hand, only to find my bed empty. Thea was no longer there, and I figured she must have woken up and decided to sleep in her own bed.

I didn’t think much about it. I was feeling too good about Thea anyway—particularly about how tonight had worked out for us—and saw no reason why I shouldn’t let her get some rest.

I barely saw Thea in the next couple of days, and not for the lack of trying.

For some reason, she always seemed to be hurrying off somewhere else every time I saw her in the loft. And when she wasn’t, she was always busy with one task or another and couldn’t seem to be bothered with anything more than simple hello’s.

It wasn’t until Sunday morning, when had Thea quickly left soon after I had entered the kitchen, that it occurred to me she might have been avoiding me. The thought only further confused and frustrated me, and by Sunday night, I was determined to find out why.

I waited in the dining room for Thea to come home, but it wasn’t until it was almost midnight that she finally walked through the door. She stopped when she saw me there, but then she looked away and proceeded to walk towards her room, and I was too stunned by that to react right away.

“Thea!” I finally called before she could disappear through the hallway. I stood up from my chair, moving quickly so that I could catch up to her.

Thea stopped, but it was a full beat before she turned to me, a soft easy smile on her face. “Oh hey, Liv,” she said.

I was suddenly aware that we were alone, and that I had no idea how to say what I had wanted to say. In the end, I decided to latch on to something safe.

“I just wanted to say thank you,” I began, softly clearing my throat. “For the gift on Christmas.”

I watched Thea’s shoulders relax a little and realized that she had been bracing herself for what I was going to say, which only made me more convinced that she didn’t really want to talk to me.

“No problem,” Thea said, keeping her smile chill and breezy.

That’s the thing with chill and breezy, though: it has a way of seeming cold and distant, depending on the situation, and I felt myself hesitating on whether to even bring up the subject or not. But then, Thea began to turn away and the decision was made for me—I didn’t want to spend another day wondering where we stood after Christmas Eve.

“Have you been avoiding me?” I asked suddenly, bringing Thea’s eyes back.

Her smile seemed a little forced as she started to shake her head no. But then she stopped, and it was as if some invisible tension had been cut loose from her body as she decided to just come clean.

“Okay, yes. I’ve been avoiding you,” she sighed. And then, she turned away again, having already answered my question.

“Well, will you at least tell me why?” I frowned, cutting ahead and facing her in an effort to get her to stop.

Thea shifted uneasily on her feet, her eyes looking everywhere but me. “Do I have to?” She asked.

“Do you have to?” I repeated incredulously, suddenly feeling a little angry. “No, you don’t ‘have’ to, Thea. But three nights ago, I had the best sex of my life with you, only to have you suddenly acting cold the next day so no, you don’t have to, but I think I deserve at least some explanation.”

Thea’s brows drew together for a moment before she forced herself to relax.

“Liv, we had sex, okay?” She told me. “Let’s not make a big deal out of it.”

I was stunned enough that Thea was able to walk past me into the hallway and disappear into her bedroom. Not a big deal? The single most electrifying night of my life and, for her, it wasn’t a big deal?

I was more than a little angry by the time I strode towards Thea’s door and knocked. She opened it after a moment, looking a bit impatient herself as she waited for me to say something.

“Don’t you think we should talk about it?” I asked her, and the humorless laugh Thea gave in response only irritated me more.

“Talk about what?” She asked incredulously. “Liv, we had sex, and fine! If you so badly need to hear me say it, then yes, it was good for me too… it just wasn’t good enough for you not to go for Rachel in the morning, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Thea said with a sad, little wince as she took note of the surprise on my face. “I heard you tell Rachel that you like her—mere hours after the so-called ‘best sex of your life’. So tell me, Liv, what else do we have to talk about?”

There was no mistaking Thea’s anger as she had spoken, and I opened my mouth wanting to explain. But the words wouldn’t come and the look on Thea’s face said she probably wouldn’t believe me anyway.

“Well?” Thea prompted, her eyebrow raised in a challenge. “You said you wanted to talk. So talk.”

“I’m trying to!” I said in frustration, before grumbling. “If you would just stop looking so goddamn impenetrable for a minute.”

A slow smirk spread across Thea’s lips, but those brown eyes were cold as they met my gaze. “I didn’t seem so impenetrable to you on Christmas Eve, did I?”

But then she collected herself in the next beat. “Look, I get it.” Thea sighed. “You like Rachel, and that’s o—”

“But I don’t!” I protested, not knowing how to make Thea understand. “I mean, not anymore.”

My words only seemed to anger Thea further, however.

“Why?” She bit out. “Because she rejected you? Yeah, I heard that part, too, Liv.”

Thea’s hand slipped from her door as she let out an exasperated breath, and she seemed more disgusted with herself than mad when she next spoke.

“I mean, it’s my fault too I guess, because it was pretty clear from the moment that I met you that you were into her,” Thea continued. “I just thought… I didn’t know what I thought, but I could chalk up that night to simple mistake, and that’s okay.”

Thea sighed, looking straight into my eyes as she proceeded. “Liv, I’m sorry that Rachel doesn’t like you back—but I know that I don’t want to be with someone who’s still hung up on someone else, and I think we should just leave it at that.”

Her words stabbed at my chest, and I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I could only watch as Thea shut the door and locked it behind her.

I stared at that closed door for a few moments, unable to breathe. My thoughts drowning in the torrent of pain that suddenly hit me as I realized what had just happened.

I had my chance, and then I went ahead and blew it, and now I had lost her completely—and all because I was too stubborn to let go of my crush on Rachel until it was too late.

The pain in my chest became too sharp, and I finally took a breath. I turned quickly and tried to rush into safety, knowing what was coming next. But I was too late this time, too, and the tears were already spilling down my cheeks by the time I reached my room.

I tried my best to get through the next three days bravely—I really did. But it was hard, seeing Thea day after day knowing that she wanted no part of me now.

She had stopped avoiding me, but only in the sense that she was no longer immediately leaving whenever I was there. She still wouldn’t be alone in a room with me, she still wouldn’t talk to me except for a few civil exchanges when Rachel was around, and she still would hardly even look at me. And knowing Thea’s reasons now only made the pain of it worse somehow.

I did my best to act as normal as I could, except, I didn’t think I would ever feel normal again. My mind kept reliving my night with Thea and all the feelings that came along both with it and after it, and by Wednesday night, I had given up all pretenses.

Rachel was at work. Thea hadn’t come home yet. And I had decided to self-soothe by sitting in front of the TV with a blanket and watching Breakfast at Tiffany’s with a tub of salted caramel ice cream.

I had never been one to cry over sappy romcoms, especially not one that I had practically seen hundreds of time, and yet I couldn’t stop myself from blubbering towards the end. Audrey Hepburn had just decided to leave her cat out alone in the streets, under the pouring rain, and there was never a character I related to more in that moment than that unwanted feline.

“What, I leave for two weeks and you end up a sobbing mess when I come back?” Chris joked as he shut the apartment door behind him, giving me a start.

I glanced to where he stood, wiping the tears from my eyes, and ended up half-sobbing, half-laughing as he started towards me. He couldn’t have come home at a better time—I badly needed a friend these days.

Chris took one look at the TV as he approached, then at the ice cream in my hand before his expression changed.

“Oh no,” he said, rushing to sit next to me and give me a hug. “You really are a sobbing mess!”

I tried to laugh again, but all the sadness I had been holding in through the last couple of days came rushing out and I started crying hard. Chris continued to hug me close as I sobbed uncontrollably on his shoulders, and only when my tears grew calmer did he finally decide to say something.

“So, are you going to tell me, or should I keep trying to squeeze it out of you?”

I smiled, sniffing and wiping my nose as I gave him a playful push. Chris let me go, but the concern in his eyes was real and I nodded. And then I told him everything.

I told him how Thea and I had sex, and how I realized just how much I liked her then. And then I told him how Thea said she didn’t want me because she had overheard me confessing my crush on Rachel and Rachel telling me she liked Chris the morning after.

I stopped, realizing what I had just let spill out, and shot a glance at Chris to see his reaction. He had a look of such pure wonder in his face, it was like watching a little kid open his gifts on Christmas morning.

“Rachel likes me?” Chris repeated, almost to himself. And then he seemed to realize that I was still there, and I couldn’t help but grin a little as I watched a slow blush crept into my friend’s cheeks. At least one was going to get a happy ending.

“Yes,” I told him, still grinning. “And by the way, were you ever planning to tell me you like her, too?”

“There you are!” Chris exclaimed when he finally found me through the crowd. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been looking all over for you!”

It was 10:30 in the evening on New Year’s Eve, and Chris and I were at a party at Maude’s. Thea had immediately declined when Chris invited both of us, opting to spend New Year’s Eve at the loft, and I felt like I didn’t have any choice but to go after that. I didn’t want Thea to be alone on New Year’s Eve, but I also knew that she didn’t want to spend it with me either.