Wren was silent for a moment. “What’s fake?”
“Caden and me.”
Her eyes flared wide. “I knew I was missing a part of the story. I thought maybe you guys had been hooking up for a while, and the fighting was just some weird kind of foreplay.”
I choked on a sip of soda and started coughing. “Definitely not foreplay.”
Wren studied me, looking for answers I probably didn’t have. “Why play lovebirds?”
I toyed with the tab on my soda can. “Rance wouldn’t leave me alone, and it was starting to freak me out. Caden’s dad is on his case about growing up and appearing settled down.”
“What do you mean freaking you out?” Wren’s voice filled with anxiety that immediately made me feel guilty. A guy who had been obsessed with her growing up had fixated on her so badly that he and two friends had attacked her, one shooting her in the chest and almost killing her.
I reached out and squeezed her hand. “Nothing like that. He just isn’t getting that a relationship isn’t in our cards. I thought if he saw me moving on, he would let it go.”
Wren relaxed a little. “How’s that working?”
“I think it is. He didn’t text yesterday. I’m calling that a win.”
She huffed out a breath. “Men. Such fragile egos.”
I choked on a laugh. “So true.”
Wren picked at her bread. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
I took a bite of my turkey club to buy time, but I couldn’t taste my favorite sandwich. “It’s the simplest option. He’ll be gone after the gala, and we’ll come up with some amicable breakup story.”
“But you care about him.”
I stilled. “Of course, I do. He’s Nash’s best friend. I’ve known him forever.”
Wren pinned me with a stare. “Grae, I may have missed it growing up, but I see it now. You’re good at covering, but I know you. There are times I see you looking at him like your heart is breaking.”
I swallowed against the lump in my throat. “It’s probably just me trying not to murder him.”
“G…”
I bit the inside of my cheek.
“It’s me. How many times did you hold me while I bawled after Holt left? You and Gran forced me out of bed, made me eat, and made sure Isurvived. You saw me at my very worst. You know you can trust me.”
My eyes burned. “I loved him.”
Wren took my hand, squeezing it in silent encouragement.
“I don’t know when it happened. It just always felt like he got me. That we understood each other in a way no one else could.”
“Looking back, you two disappeared at the same time a lot.”
A sad smile played on my lips. “We had this spot. If either of us was working something out in our heads, we went there. A lot of times, we’d find each other. Just talk it out—whatever was going on. After he lost Clara, we went a lot more. He was just going through so much…”
“And you were there for him.”
I nodded. “I tried to be. He was shutting down, and it killed me. But he still let me in. Things changed after I got sick. He pulled away. Started putting up walls.”
Tears filled my eyes, one slipping out and tracking down my cheek. “He never came to our spot again. Every time I went there, it killed something inside me that he wasn’t there. I had no idea what’d happened. If I’d done something. If it was stuff with his family. Caden was physically present, butmyCaden? He was just gone.”
Wren pulled me into a hard hug. “I’m so sorry. I wish you would’ve told me.”
