The Friend Zone(93)

I shook my head. “No. That’s not it, Sloan.”

“Yeah. It is.”

“Sloan, he doesn’t know what’s best for him. He’s just thinking about right now.”

“No. You’re the one who doesn’t know what’s best for you. She ruined you. She spent your whole childhood setting a bar she knew you’d never reach, and now you think you have to be perfect to be good enough for anyone.”

We stared at each other. Then Sloan’s chest started to rise and fall in the rapid way that told me a breakdown was coming. I instinctively pulled tissues from a box on the end table just as her eyes started to tear up.

“Kristen? Brandon’s accident is my fault.”

I was used to this. She lost focus a lot. This time I was glad for the change of subject. “No, Sloan, it wasn’t.” I took the plate from her lap and put it on the coffee table and gathered up her hands. “None of this was your fault.”

She bit her lip, the tears falling down her cheeks. “It is. I should have never let him ride that bike. I should have insisted.”

I shook my head, scooting closer to her. “No. He was a grown man, Sloan. He was a paramedic. He went on those accident calls—he knew the risks. Don’t you dare put this on yourself.”

Her chin quivered. “How can I not? Shouldn’t I have protected him from himself? I loved him. It was my job.”

“No, it wasn’t. People make their own decisions, Sloan. He lived the life he wanted to live. He was a twenty-nine-year-old man. He was capable of making choices.”

She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “So you can decide for Josh, but I shouldn’t have decided for Brandon?”

I saw the trap, but it was too late.

She shook her head, blinking through tears. “You have no clue, do you? You think he’s settling? For Josh, not being with you is settling. Don’t you get that?”

“Sloan,” I said gently. “You don’t und—”

“Don’t I?” she snapped. “Do you think if Brandon wouldn’t have been able to have kids after his accident that I would have been settling to stay with him? I would have taken him any way I could have him. Disabled. In a wheelchair, without his fucking arms and legs. This thing that you’re obsessed with doesn’t matter. He loves you. He wants you.” She breathed hard. “Don’t be like me. Don’t live the rest of your life without the man you love. Go home, Kristen.”

“Sloan—”

“Go home! Get out of my house!”

Her shout shocked me into action and I stood.

“Go home.” Her eyes went hard. “And don’t you ever come over here without Josh again.”

She picked up Stuntman and shoved him into my arms. Then she corralled me out of the house onto the front porch. She took the house key from the planter and slammed the door in my face.

The shock had me standing there staring at her door for a full minute.

She kicked me out.

She went off on me, and the crazy bitch kicked me out.

I hovered a hand over the door and knocked. “Sloan, open up.”

The chain raked across the door and the bolt locked.

“Sloan! Come on!” I pressed the doorbell in quick succession.

Nothing.

Un-fucking-believable.

Well this was just perfect. Who was going to make her bed? She couldn’t even wash the dishes. The ones from lunch would probably just get moldy in the living room. And what about dinner? She would starve to death without me. She was being completely unreasonable.

Stuntman looked up at me like he didn’t know what just happened. Neither did I.

I walked out to the car and dropped into the driver’s seat, crossing my arms.

Maybe the back door is unlocked.

Sloan and I had never had a fight before.

I let out a long breath. I got it. I understood her feelings—I did. My best friend was living her nightmare. She was in her own personal hell, and the man I loved was alive and here, and I wouldn’t have him. Of course I could see how that hurt her, how trivial my reasons looked in the face of what she was enduring. It made me feel like shit that she thought I was being petty.

But it didn’t change a thing.

Josh wanted to make a blind, emotional, knee-jerk decision that would alter the rest of his life, and I couldn’t be a part of that. I just couldn’t. Sloan could be pissed at me all she wanted. I was doing the right thing, and sometimes doing the right thing was unpopular, but that didn’t make it wrong. Sometimes you had to be cruel to be kind, and I wasn’t going to be bullied into changing my mind.

I drove home, Sloan’s words pinging painfully around my mind like a ricocheting bullet. They didn’t change anything. But they hurt.

When I got home, I dropped my car keys onto the table in the kitchen and looked around my immaculate house, feeling lost.

What did I do now? I’d always had Sloan. What if she was really serious about this and she wouldn’t see me anymore?

I realized suddenly that I needed her almost as much as she needed me. Taking care of her helped me to stick to my guns with Josh, because even though she was a mess, a mess was something to clean up. And now, without the distraction, the emptiness was overwhelming.

I sat down at the kitchen table and pulled a stack of napkins in front of me and started to straighten them, lining up the corners and chewing on my lip, thinking about my next move.