Page 70 of The Change Up
“We’re just agreeing to disagree.”
I watch Brynn’s eyebrows form a V as confusion laces her face. “About?” she draws out.
“I have feelings for Cody,” I rush out. “Macy knows. She’s figured it out from watching me.”
Brynn’s face morphs into shock. I can only imagine how she’s processing this news. It’s not something I have ever openly broadcast with my friends. And hell, I don’t even know if it’s a crush. Macy can think whatever she wants, but it doesn’t make it true. Maybe it’s not a crush. Maybe the feeling I’m feeling is hatred.
I watch as Brynn is hesitant in her response, “Chloe, that’s great. But I’m having trouble figuring out why you’re mad at Macy?”
Shaking my head, I go to tell Brynn that it isn’t what they think, but I don’t have a chance before Macy interrupts me.
“She’s mad at the way I called her out on it. I mean, it’s so freaking obvious,” Macy responds to the question before I have the chance. Standing from her spot, Macy turns to give me her entire attention. I can’t help the feeling I want to cower under her glare. But I won’t. I won’t give her the satisfaction when she doesn’t know the truth. “You stare at him like he hung the moon, but you’re too childish to say anything. You act like a lost puppy. Either man up and tell him, or get over it.”
“How about you just worry about your relationship with Gregg and stop worrying about me?” I snap, and anger courses through my body.
“Just go pack,” I yell, dismissing Macy. “I’m done with you acting like you’re so much better than me because you’re in a relationship.”
Macy plants her hands on her hips, chest heaving, as she stares me down. It’s intimidating and reminds me of how a parent would scold a child. But I refuse to let her get to me.
She doesn’t get to come into the house that we share, drop the bomb that she’s moving out to take care of some guy she barely knows, and treat me like the dirt on the bottom of her shoes.
“Whatever, Chloe. Keep standing on the sidelines looking like a psycho stalker. I’m not the only one that’s noticed.” As those words leave her mouth, Macy storms out of the room while I sink onto the couch.
Screw her and screw this friendship. If she wants to act like a child, she can leave. I’m used to people turning their backs on me.
“I was going to make some lunch, but I can go upstairs to give you girls some privacy.” My eyes widen as they snap to Brynn, her words interrupting my thoughts from the last time the three of us were in the same room. She meets my stare and gives a small shrug. “Or I can stay?”
“Yeah, that’d be great.” The three of us gather around the kitchen table as silence fills the space.
“I miss this. I miss our friendship. I miss you—,” Macy starts before pointing the last word at me. “Chloe.”
Tracing the lines on the table, I don’t look up when Macy stops talking. “I didn’t cause this, Macy. You did.”
“And I’m sorry for it.” She reaches across the table resting her hand on mine which causes me to flinch. “You’re right, and you have every right to be angry with me. I freaked out on you. It was all misplaced frustration, and unfortunately, you were the first one I saw.”
“But I don’t understand why you couldn’t have taken five minutes to explain to me—to us”—I point my finger between me and Brynn—“what was going on? Instead, you turned on me. You used my feelings for Cody as an excuse to attack me.”
I lean back in my chair and watch her process the words. Like Macy, I miss our friendship. Out of the three of us, Macy and I were the closest. Maybe that’s why she poured her frustrations out on me because she thought I could take it. And I probably could have if she hadn’t used Cody against me. It wasn’t necessarily her fault. She didn’t know my dark past with Cody, but it’s still not an excuse. I’m valid to have feelings and frustrations toward her.
“It looks like things have worked out between the two of you, though,” she muses. “I’ve been keeping up with you on Instagram.”
My palm meets the table. “You don’t get to take credit for that!”
Macy’s hands rise as Brynn flinches. “Cody and I had a past. A past that we never resolved or acknowledged. We’ve been skirting around our past for two and a half years. While I don’t think you meant to attack me, you attacked something that I’ve been fighting hard to avoid the whole time we’ve been here.”
Macy apologizes again as tears fill her eyes. She’s always been the most emotional out of the three of us. I mean, I’m not far from her on the crying scale.
“What happened?” she asks, swiping the loose tear away.
I spend the next fifteen minutes catching them up on our past, on parts of Cody’s past, and our reasons for why we didn’t broach the topic any sooner.
“Now I feel even more like the biggest asshole in the house.”
“Well, I mean…” Brynn trails off with a shrug.
“I still don’t understand why you did it. I mean I think I’ve assumed why, but I want to hear it from you. I thought we were closer than that.”
“I was scared. I was scared shitless actually. My entire world had flipped on its axis. I had spent weeks fighting my attraction to Gregg because I was afraid of getting hurt again. But in the process of fighting those feelings, I still got hurt. When I got the phone call he was in the hospital, it was like someone had ripped my heart out of my chest. In a second, my life flashed to a life without him. A life where I never had the chance to tell him that he was more to me. Honestly, and this is going to sound like an excuse, but you were the first one I saw, and I took that frustration out on you. I’d watched you and Cody parade around each other, and it made me so angry because it’s obvious you both had some kind of attraction, but neither one of you would act on it. At that moment, I was seeing how short life is, how quickly things could change. I was getting my second chance, a chance to move in with Gregg and help him with his recovery. Ihadn’t slept, and the stress was so insurmountable that I erupted on you.”
