Page 29 of My Fake Date With My Childhood Friend (Port Lane Romances #3)
twenty-one
The phone barely had time to ring before Liv answered it. “Hello?”
“I threw out Joseph’s necklace,” I said in a rush.
After her apology, Nikki and I had gone back to her house where we burned all of Joseph’s thing in the bonfire pit in her backyard.
As the only thing I had left from my relationship, my contribution had been the locket Joseph had given me.
Charlie was right — I’d been holding onto it for a reason and I needed to let go to be able to truly rid myself of the past.
“His… necklace?” Liv sounded like she had no idea what I was talking about, which I guess made sense.
As close as Liv and I had become over the past couple of weeks, I didn’t like to bring up Joseph too much.
It didn’t seem very like the best way to prove that Alexander and I were together and in love.
I took a deep breath and thought of the most succinct way to explain this whole situation.
“When Joseph and I were dating, he gave me a necklace. It was the only thing of his that I kept after the break-up. I guess it was the last piece of our relationship I had left… and I just finally threw it out.”
“Good!” She said. She sounded genuinely relieved. “So, what are you going to do now? Are you going to tell Alexander?”
I let a sharp breath of air. “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.”
“Right,” Liv said. She paused for a second before she asked the question I’d been dreading: “Have you talked to him since your fight?”
“No,” I said. I fell backwards onto my bed, landing in a pile of pillows. “He answered one of my texts saying he needed some space, but that’s the full extent of our conversations.”
I set the call to speaker-phone so I could look at the text from Alexander again.
I’m not mad, Penny. Please just give me some space.
It had come in just an hour ago, right when I was in the middle of making the fire with Nikki.
In a moment where I had somehow forgotten our fight, I went to send a photo of it to Alexander and tell him that we’d finally made up, only for all my happiness to dissipate when I saw the text and remembered what had happened.
Alexander didn’t want to know that I finally made with my best friend. He didn’t want anything to do with me.
“Are you going to his Christmas Eve party?”
“Of course,” I said. I went every year; my attendance was not optional.
“So, you’ll see him there.”
“But he said he wanted space.”
“Christmas Eve is still two days away,” Liv said.
“That is plenty of space. You need to talk about this soon so he knows the truth. He thinks you’re still into Joseph and if you don’t tell him the next time you see him, then he’ll keep thinking it’s true.
And then you two will never get back together. ”
“But what if he doesn’t believe me?” I hated how desperate I sounded.
It was like I was back the way I was after Joseph broke up with me, when all I wanted was to be liked again.
But no — I wouldn’t let this be like my break-up with Joseph.
Back then, I didn’t know my identity outside of being his girlfriend.
Now, I did. I had other friends and a whole other life outside of being Alexander’s girlfriend and I wouldn’t let myself get sucked back into the pain of living my life for a boy.
Did I want to be with Alexander? Of course.
But would I die if he didn’t take me back?
No. If this didn’t work, I would pick myself back up and would not let it ruin my life. Never again.
“Alexander isn’t Joseph,” Liv said. “He’ll listen to you and hear you out. I mean, he obviously still likes you. The fact that he isn’t talking to you just means you hurt him badly. You need to do something big to convince him that you still love him.”
“You think so?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “He just wants you to show that you care. Pull out all the stops for him.”
“Maybe you’re right,” I said quietly. I didn’t know how I was going to do that but I was sure I could figure something out.
I probably couldn’t see him for a few days, anyway.
Maybe it would be best to give him some time to cool off then find a way to beg for his forgiveness at his annual Christmas Eve party. “Maybe it’s not too late.”
“I know I’m right,” she said. “And it’s never too late. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. It’s the way I always hoped Joseph would look at me. Alexander likes you so much, he just needs a little push.”
“Okay,” I said, with a firm nod of my head. “I’m going to do it. I’ll find some way to win him back.”
“Good,” Liv said. “In a couple of years, you’re going to look back at this whole situation and laugh. I know it.”
I was glad she was confident because I sure wasn’t — and I really felt like I needed someone rooting for this to work.