Page 8 of Trust Again

“Yeah, right?” She bent forward and grabbed a handful of chips. Sea salt and vinegar, my favorite. She sniffed at them, and her face beamed with joy.

Watching Allie eat was the best. She got so excited about the strangest things, you might have thought she came from another planet. Her parents had deprived her of so much. But she was making up for it now, by trying anything and everything she could get her hands on. It was adorable.

“Now that we’ve talked about my parents, let’s talk about your favorite topic, please,” she said through a mouthful of chips, a meaningful expression on her face.

Even though she wasn’t exactly spelling things out, I immediately knew what—or who—she meant.

Nathaniel Duffy.

“I’d rather not.”

“Dawn—”

I sighed. “Okay. I’m glad he doesn’t have my new number.”

“You’re avoiding my question.”

Ugh. I really didn’t want to talk about Nate.

“As your best friend I am responsible for bringing up sensitive topics. Talking is important,” Allie scolded me as she munched away.

“Fine,” I sighed, slowly rubbing at the throbbing that began to grow in my temples. “He didn’t try to reach me again. I mean, I had to change my number to stop his calls in the first place, but everything has been great since then.”

“Why do you think he was trying so hard to reach you?” she asked.

I shrugged. “No idea. To be honest, I don’t care. We haven’t talked since Thanksgiving, and I hope it stays that way.”

Before moving to Woodshill, I’d spent my days under a dark cloud, mourning my lost future. Everything Nate and I had planned that would never happen.

Six. Damn. Years.

Wasted.

Sure, at 13 you shouldn’t expect to meet the love of your life, but with Nate and me… it was different. Special. Like what you read about in romance novels.

We’d been friends since childhood. He got everything I had to give: my first kiss. My senior prom. My virginity. My past, my future, and everything in between.

Girls always dream of happy endings—and I found mine in Nate. At least that’s what I believed until I caught him with Rebecca Pennington. She was a landscape architect from next door, with whom Nate apparently had more in common than I thought. The girl with the perfect body that I saw under Nate’s body in bed.

Inourbed.

“Maybe you should tell your dad,” Allie suggested, and I stiffened.

“No way.”

“He thinks you parted on good terms,” my friend ventured. “What if he were to give out your number, meaning well? Then the switch to a new number and all that effort would be pointless.”

“You sound like my voice of reason,” I groaned, collapsing into my chair. “I wish you’d just encourage me to go out again, introduce me to hot guys, and remind me how to get laid.”

Allie’s eyes widened in surprise. “Is that what you want?”

“Of course not,” I growled. Hell no, there was no way I wanted that.

“Because if you do, I know someone who would definitely volunteer to solve the problem.”

I looked up. “Did you just describe my vagina as a problem?”

“No, I’m just dropping a hint that Spencer still has the hots for you.”

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