Page 56 of Fall of Us
My eyes widened in horror. Andrew had never sounded so mad.
“Excuse me?”
He stood from his spot next to me on the couch, set his plate on the table, and ran his hands through his hair. Everyone stared at him as he glared at me.
“How long are we going to keep this up? We’re fucking living together, Brandon. Are we going to wait until after a wedding? Maybe a five-year anniversary? When will you not be afraid that we’ll fail? Because I’ll tell you what, by us not being honest about it, you set us up to do just that.”
Oh no. I couldn’t swallow the food that was in my mouth. My hands grasped for the napkin on the table, and I spit my bite into it.
“Andrew?”
“No. Listen. I was willing to play this game for a while. Dammit, Brandon. I’ve been in love with you for so damn long.You’ve dangled this in front of me so many times and we’ve kept brushing it off. Like a fool, I thought it was real this time. Now look at us.” He paused to motion around the room. My entire body burned with embarrassment as our friends looked on in horror. “We’re going to be living with each other and you still can’t say it. We’ve been real for weeks.”
I gasped for air as he finished his speech. The room blurred as my eyes stung.
“I’m—I’m sorry.”
A humorless laugh escaped from Andrew. His eyebrows slammed down, and I’d never once seen him look so cruel. “Sorry isn’t going to cut it this time.”
He said nothing else, only grabbed his jacket and walked out the front door. My body refused to move, glued to my seat as my heart shattered in my chest.
“What the hell just happened?”
I could barely see Chase through the tears that clouded my vision.
“I...” My throat closed off. Words were impossible. So instead of continuing to explain it to everyone, I stood and followed Andrew out the door, praying that he hadn’t gotten too far.
How long had I remained frozen in place?
By the time I’d made it down the stairs and into the street, Andrew was nowhere to be seen. It didn’t stop me from running down the street, though I had no idea what direction he went in.It was so cold, but I couldn’t feel it with my desperate need to find him.
“Andrew!” Maybe if I yelled loud enough, he’d hear me.
By the time I reached the end of the block, my lungs burned. I never was much of a runner, and the cold wasn’t helping.
There was no sign of Andrew.
My glasses fogged up as I struggled to keep the tears at bay. I yanked them from my face and walked back without them. When I walked back inside, they were still sitting there. I wiped off my glasses and shoved them back on my nose, seeing their confused faces more clearly.
The words still wouldn’t come.
No one asked anything, but the second I dropped to the ground and started crying, Nathan was there, wrapping an arm around me. Chase came in on the other side and I clung to them as I cried it out.
I knew I was pushing my luck the longer I continued to hide what was going on, but I didn’t think it would have tossed him over the edge. Then again, he was right. We probably shouldn’t have hidden it to begin with.
“I want to take it back.”
It made little sense. I knew that. It didn’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth, anyway.
“Take back what?” Chase didn’t sound as if he was judging me, but more coercing me into continuing to talk.
“If I—If I could do it again, I wouldn’t ask him to hide. He deserves so much more than that.”
No one spoke, not that they could over the sound of my sobs.
This was an epic disaster of my own creation.
“It sounds like he went to Joe’s place.”
