Toxic: Logan's Story (Torn #4)(9)

“I’m…yeah…I’m going to go. Call me when you’re done.” She gave Chloe a hopeful smile as she grabbed her keys, and then she made a hasty retreat out the door.

Chloe and I were silent as we stared at each other. She looked away and quickly bent down to start scooping the escaped feathers back into the bag. I took a deep breath before I knelt beside her and started helping.

“How have you been?” I asked once we finished searching for feathers.

“Fine. You?” She stood up quickly and set the bag by the door, trying to avoid all eye contact with me.

“Not so good. I’ve missed you a lot, Chloe. I don’t like how things are between us.”

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“I tried calling you first to see if it was okay for me to come by, but it went straight to voice mail. I wasn’t sure if you were avoiding me or if you had shut off your phone.”

She shook her head as she walked over to pick up her phone. “It’s off. I would never ignore you, Logan. I’ve missed you, too.”

My forehead crinkled in confusion. “Why is your phone off? What if someone needed to get a hold of you?”

She snorted in a very unladylike manor. I couldn’t help but give her a small grin. It was so Chloe.

“Like who? Besides Rachel and Jade, no one has been speaking to me.”

Jade? She hadn’t mentioned spending time with Chloe. Then again, why would she? She knew that I hated when she would mention Chloe or Drake. I made a mental note to ask her about it later.

“Has anyone been giving you a hard time since…everything happened?”

She shook her head as she set her phone back down. “No, everyone has left me alone, even Amber.”

I frowned, unhappy that Amber hadn’t listened to me. She’d let me come between her and Chloe.

“I see. I’ll talk to Amber tomorrow. She doesn’t need to ignore you because of me. You’ve been friends far too long to let me get in the way. That doesn’t answer my question though. If no one was bothering you, why did you shut off your phone?”

She gave me a weak smile as she sat down on her bed. “Um…my mom has been calling me a lot lately. I shut it off, so I wouldn’t have to hear it ring all night.”

My body went rigid. Her mom was a psychotic bitch who thrived on making Chloe’s life miserable.

“She’s still bothering you?”

She nodded. “Yeah, but it’s not a big deal. I just ignore it.”

I sat down next to her. I was about to hug her, but I stopped myself at the last second. For the first time since we had become friends, hugging her felt wrong. “Why didn’t you tell me? Have you been talking to her?”

She scooted across the bed a bit to get away from me. I winced, but she didn’t seem to notice.

Jesus, how did we come to this?

“No, I haven’t spoken with her since that day I called you. Drake got on the phone with her then, and I think he scared her off for a while, but she’s back with a vengeance.”

I couldn’t help but stiffen at the mention of Drake.

“And I never told you because it’s only been happening for the last week or so, and we haven’t exactly been on speaking terms. I couldn’t just run to you about it like I did before.”

I took a deep breath before turning to look at her. “Chloe, you can always come to me about this stuff, no matter what’s happening between us. Just because things ended the way they did doesn’t mean that I don’t care about you anymore. You’re still my best friend and always will be. That’s actually what I came here to talk to you about tonight. I miss you, Chloe. I know that there’s nothing left between us romantically, but I don’t want to lose you completely. You’ve always been such a big part of my life. These past few weeks have been hell without you.”

Tears broke free from her eyes and started rolling down her cheeks. She threw herself into my arms and hugged me as tightly as her tiny body could manage. My gut clenched at the contact. God, I’d missed her, but it hurt like hell to hold her, knowing she wasn’t mine anymore.

“Oh, Logan! I’ve missed you so much. You have no idea. After everything, I was so sure you’d never speak to me again. I thought I’d lost you!”

She sobbed into my chest as I rubbed her back.

“I told you, I just needed time, Chloe. I could never leave you for long. You’re too important to me. I felt like I had a hole in my chest.”

She pulled back to look at me. “I have, too. My world is not the same without you in it.”

We sat together on her bed and just talked for hours. She finally came clean and told me everything that had happened from the beginning. I listened quietly as she spilled every regret, every loss, every happy moment. When she finished, we were both shaken and tearful.

“I wish you would have told me everything from the beginning, Chloe. Things could have been so much different for all of us.” Maybe it wouldn’t have broken me if I had known. I didn’t tell her that though.

She obviously had enough guilt to deal with right now without me adding anything extra to it.

She nodded as she wiped her tears away. “I know that now, but I figured it out too late. I was too deep in with you, and I didn’t want to hurt you.”