Page 13 of Unofficial

"You said we could have been friends if I'd told you the truth from the beginning. What happened to that?"

"I developed feelings for you. The last thing I'm willing to do now is set you up with my friends, Kade. If that's what you're looking for, you can go to hell."

"Do you really hate me this much that you don't even want to be friends anymore?"

"Trust me, it would be so much easier if I hated you," Jess says.

He tries to look into her eyes, but she won't quite meet his. "Then why can't we be friends?"

She shrugs her shoulders. "What do you need me as a friend for?"

"Because believe it or not, I liked talking to you."

"I liked talking to you, too."

"Then let's try it!"

Jess turns into the house, he takes a step forward, reading her intention as wanting to give it a shot. If he gets lucky, maybe she'd be willing to give the friends with benefits idea a shot, too, because not only does he miss talking to her, he misses the sex. Wakes up craving it. But before he can take that first step inside, she swings back around and hands him a box.

"Because I don't want to be just your friend. Maybe if you'd been upfront about everything in the beginning, we could have been. But you let me think we could be everything I thought we were for five months. Whether you believe you cheated or not, you deceived me. You knew I wanted more, and you avoided telling me you couldn't give me that. You can justify it and put a nice, neat bow on it to make yourself feel better about the situation, but it's the truth. I can't just get over that."

"I didn't mean to hurt you."

"But you didn't do anything to try and prevent it, either. You knew the moment you told me you didn't want to commit that I'd end the romantic part of our relationship, and that tells me you knew what you were doing. That you led me on, and what you did was wrong. But you did it anyway because you were getting what you wanted out of the situation."

Her words once again feel like they formed a hand-shape and slapped him across the face. "Jess-"

"You know the biggest difference between us, Kade? The biggest difference is that I would have done everything in my power to stop anyone or anything from hurting you. I sure as hell wouldn't have been the one to cause you pain if I could help it. But you didn't think about me or my feelings in all of this. You only thought of yourself, and that made you the one to hurt me. Whether intentional or not, still did. You knew what you were doing by not saying anything."

The pain in her eyes as she finally looks into his feels like a kick to the chest. Kade wishes she was angry. He can handle angry. Hell, he can handle hatred. "Jess, I'm sorry."

"Me, too. That's all your stuff, and you can just throw mine out. I don't want to see you again, Kade. Goodbye."

Jess shuts the door, and he stares at it for a minute before looking down into the cardboard box she handed him. His clothes, shampoo, and soap. Shifting it, he also sees movie tickets. She saved their tickets from the date they had the first night they slept together. An action movie she'd suggested, and he remembers thinking she was unlike anyone he'd ever met.

She watched the movie, interested and attentive, but she didn't mind when he decided it was time to focus on each other, letting him grope her right there in the theater. It was also her idea to leave the movie early before kissing his neck and rubbing his leg the entire drive back to his place.

Defeated, he lets his shoulders sag, and he knows Tim was right. Jess was different, and what he did was a shitty thing to do. Just as he turns to leave, the sound from inside the house stops him. He hears Jess crying on the other side of the door, and he remembers how she hadn't cried in front of him when she caught him with Lena. He knew she'd cried after she left that night when he saw her the following day by her swollen eyes. Now he can't help but wonder if she still cries, or if he just pulled the scab off the healing wound tonight.

Hearing her has him planted in place, and he debates whether he should pound on the door, forcing his way in to comfort her, or if he should just leave and let her heal. Knowing how much pain he caused her does something he never expected. It hurts him.

"I'm sorry," he whispers and opts to leave, walking to his pickup. Nothing he can say would do any good, and he decides to do as she asks, even if it drives him insane.

Chapter Six

Jess finds ways to keep herself occupied and not allow her mind to wander to Kade. During the day, she has work and friends and various distractions. Nights, however, are a completely different story. She doesn't have anything or anyone to occupy her mind.

She could go out, but too many places have memories she's not quite ready to face yet. Or push down. They have a lot of good memories she doesn't want to ruin. She already has the issue of waking up, and first thing in the morning, she forgets she's no longer with him. She reaches for her phone for the good morning text he'd send, and then she remembers. She doesn't need to have the same reality slap in the face all across town ruining her memories.

Tonight is no exception to her new standard routine. She makes dinner for two and packs up the leftovers no one else happened to be around to eat. Then she cleans up the kitchen and watches television. She used to read after dinner when she wasn't meeting up with Kade, but she can't focus that long anymore. Her mind drifts too easily about how much he would have liked the dinner she made or the show she could be watching.

How can he just treat her like they didn't have anything substantial? She knows they did. She could feel it. The way he'd look at her sometimes, out of the blue, would knock her off her feet. No one has ever just looked at her like that before, and that's not how a man looks at a woman he considers to be nothing more than a casual thing.

The sitcom on the TV drones on in the background, and she knows it's no use. It'll be another fitful night of sleep, so she may as well take a sleeping pill to try and get some rest. She's gotten surprisingly good at running on little sleep and caffeine, which is what she imagined she'd be like when she and Kade had kids. Kids they'll never have now, and she just prays she doesn't dream of him. The last thing she needs is another dream waking her up as she breaks into sobs.

Opening the bathroom cabinet, she sighs. She forgot to put his razor in the box she handed him, and she's been avoiding throwing it out for the past couple of weeks.

"It's time," she says aloud and takes it in her hand. "It's just a razor. It's not like he's coming back for it. It's not expensive or special. He probably doesn't even remember he left it here like everything else because he leaves his stuff all over town. With other girls. Get a grip, Jess."

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