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“Why did you break it off?” I asked slowly. “Between V and me.”
“Because pieces of us were always going to be in those messages. And I knew if I kept on, it would only get worse. But I still didn’t know how to tell you.”
“I thought I’d lost my best friend.”
“And I hoped I,Levi, meant more to you.”
“I thought it wasfake,” I snapped. “I thought you were using me for Calvin.”
“Damn it,I know. I know it was illogical. You only looked at me and saw your brother’s enemy. I wanted you to seeme. And V felt like a distraction for both of us.”
“H-he—” I wanted to say he wasn’t, but then I remembered the regret I felt for not getting to know him early in our marriage.
What must he have felt like, having me in front of him and not seeing him? How many times did I look through him in favor of a man in my phone?
I wassoangry that I didn’t know, but I also didn’t know if I would have believed him if he told me before.
I would have made it about Calvin.
Damn it. He was right. How much power was I giving my brother without realizing it? How many times had I interrupted my own happiness by wondering what his next move was?
“Fuck, we made a mess of this.”
“We did,” he admitted.
This must have been how Lily felt when she figured out she had it wrong for four years. Nothing made sense. Yeteverythingdid.
The pang in my temple was a dangerous reminder that I couldn’t think too hard on this. I tried to rub it away.
“What’s going on? Is it a migraine?”
“It could be the start of one,” I said. “I’ll go take the emergency stuff.”
“Please,” he urged. “I don’t wanna stress you out.”
“Is that another reason you didn’t tell me?”
“After the migraine, yes.”
I let out a sigh. “You can’t treat me like I’m fragile. And keeping secrets makes it worse.”
“I know. But youjusthad one, and I didn’t ... So much time had passed that I didn’t know what to do.”
“It’s almost like when I kept my migraines from you for so long that I ended up in the hospital.”
“Yeah. It was.”
“I wondered why you forgave me so easily. You were hiding something of your own.”
“That, and I can’t stay mad at you.”
I looked away, knowing I felt the same. Underneath my anger for him was a feeling of longing. I still cared about him more than anything. This one thing didn’t undo all of the things he’d done for me, all of the times he’d saved me.
“Stay mad at me as long as you want,” he said. “But go take your medicine andrest. I’ll be in the guest room.”
He walked away before I could stop him and I fell back on the couch, looking at the sky.
What would Gram have done if she were here? Would she have held on to her anger?