Finding Perfect (Hopeless, #2.6)(3)

I throw my hands up in defeat. “I thought you were going to help me. That’s why I told you all that.”

“Well, I was wrong. This is like…severe adult shit. I’m not there yet.”

I drop my head back against the beanbag. “You suck as a big sister.”

“Not as much as you suck at being a boyfriend.”

Why does any of that make me suck? I sit up straight now and scoot to the edge of the beanbag. “Why? What did I do wrong?”

She waves her hand at me. “This. You’re avoiding her.”

“I’m giving her space. That’s different.”

“How long have things been weird between y’all?”

I think back on the months we’ve been together. “It was great when we first got together. But when I found out what happened, it got weird for like a day, but we moved past it. Or I thought we did. But she always has this sadness about her. I see it a lot. Like she’s forcing herself to pretend to be happy. It’s just getting worse, though, and I don’t know if it’s college or me or everything she went through. But I noticed in October she started making more and more excuses not to hang out. She had a test, or a paper, or she was tired. So then I started making excuses because if she doesn’t want to hang out with me, I don’t want to force her.”

Hannah is listening intently to every word I say. “When was the last time you kissed her?” she asks.

“Yesterday. I still kiss her and treat her the same when we’re together. It’s just…different. We’re hardly together.”

She lifts a shoulder. “Maybe she feels guilty.”

“I know she does, and I’ve tried to tell her she made the right choice.”

“Then maybe she just wants to forget it ever happened, but you ask her too many questions about it.”

“I don’t ask her any. I never ask her. She doesn’t seem to want to talk about it, so we don’t.”

Hannah tilts her head. “She carried your child for nine months and then put it up for adoption and you haven’t asked her questions about it?”

I shrug. “I want to. I just…don’t want her to feel pressured to relive it.”

Hannah makes a groaning sound like I just said something that disappoints her.

“What?”

She looks at me pointedly. “I have never liked a single girl you’ve dated until Six. Please go fix this.”

“How?”

“Talk to her. Be there for her. Ask her questions. Ask her what you can do to make it better for her. Ask her if it would help her to talk about it with you.”

I chew on that suggestion. It’s good advice. I don’t know why I haven’t just straight-up asked her how I can help make it better for her. “I don’t know why I haven’t done that yet,” I admit.

“Because you’re a guy and that’s not your fault. It’s Dad’s fault.”

Hannah might actually be right. Maybe the only problem between Six and me right now is that I’m a guy and guys are dumb. I push myself out of the beanbag. “I’m gonna go over there.”

“Don’t get her fucking pregnant again, you idiot.”

I nod, but I don’t go into detail with Hannah about the fact that Six and I haven’t had sex since we’ve officially been a couple. That’s no one’s business but ours.

I didn’t think about that. The one time we had sex was honestly the greatest sex I’ve ever had. If she breaks up with me, we won’t get to experience that again. I’ve thought about what it’ll be like so much, in such extensive detail, I’m confident it would be damn near perfect. Now I’m even more bummed by our prospective breakup. Not only will I have to spend my life without Six, I’ll also spend the rest of my life never being interested in sex again, since it won’t be with Six. Sex with Six is the only sex I’m willing to entertain. She’s ruined me forever.

I open Hannah’s door to leave.

“Do the dishes first,” Chunk says with a muffled voice.

Chunk?

I turn around, inspecting Hannah’s room, looking for where Chunk might be hiding. I walk over to the pile of covers on Hannah’s bed and pull them back. Chunk is lying with her head muffled by a pillow.

What in the hell? I point to Chunk while looking at Hannah. “She’s been here this whole time?”

“Yeah,” Hannah says with a careless shrug. “I thought you knew.”

I run my hands over my face. “Christ. Mom and Dad are gonna kill me.”

Chunk tosses the pillow aside and rolls over to look up at me. “I can keep a secret, you know. I’ve matured since you moved out.”

“You literally just told me ten minutes ago that no one can change in a span of three months.”

“That was ten minutes ago,” she says. “People can change in a span of three months

and ten minutes.”

There’s no way she’s going to be able to keep this quiet. I should have never said

anything to either of them. I throw the covers back over Chunk and make my way to the door. “If either of you tell them about this, I’ll never speak to you again.”

“That’s an incentive, not a threat,” Chunk says.