Dear Friend,

chapter 18

Lennox Monroe

After Mason had let me into his apartment, he made his way to the kitchen and I stood in the entryway setting down my bag and taking off my coat that I had just put on to leave.

"Make yourself at home. Do you want me to make you a drink or anything?"

"No, I'm alright. Thanks though." My voice was shaky as I spoke up and he popped his head from around the corner after hearing the change in my tone.

"Here. At least a drink a glass of water?" He came to join me in the living room with two glasses in his hands, reaching out to give me one.

"Sure. Thank you." I grabbed the glass from him, setting it on the end table next to me not bothering to take a sip. "Mason, I mean it, I'm fine. This was a bad idea. It's late and I'm sorry to be a bother, I should just go home."

I started to reach for my things that I just put down and started to stand before he was stopping me.

"Lennox, relax." He laughed slightly. "You're not a bother at all, stay as long as you need. I just wanted to make sure you were safe."

"I appreciate it, I really do. I've just got a lot going through my mind right now."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No. I don't want to dump all of that on you when you're not involved."

"Hey, I promise it's fine." He extended his hand out to grab mine giving it a small squeeze to reassure me that he was listening. "You can tell me as much or as little as you want."

"Okay," I took a deep breath contemplating how much I wanted to share and where to start. "You already know this part, but Harry and I have known each other since we were kids."

Mason obviously knew the story was going to be about Harry and I could see the way his teeth immediately clenched when I started to talk about him, but I chose to continue anyways.

"We were inseparable, it was the two of us and then our friends Evie and Nate. We did everything together and we were just always so close and then I was in Paris studying abroad in college and when I got back suddenly everything changed. It was like Harry threw away all those years and was just fine with it. It hurt and it was confusing and I hated it so much."

No matter how long it's been, or how many times I've told the story, it still hurts to talk through.

"So then, how did you guys get back in contact?"

"Do you remember when I was gone for those few days at the beginning of the school year?" He simply nodded in response to my question. "That was the first time I saw him again since my going away party when I was in college. Nate and Evie got married a few months ago, and we were in the bridal party, I didn't even know he was going to be there until he showed up at the rehearsal dinner."

"So you guys just seemed to patch things up when you saw each other then?"

"Not exactly," I let out a laugh even though the story wasn't that funny "I tried running away from him at first, then I snapped at him, and then I ignored him for as long as I could."

"So it sounds like it went well!" Mason joined in the laughter about the situation since the story wasn't quite adding up to us being friends again.

"He sent me a text that he was going to be in New York and I kept ignoring him until I agreed to meet him for dinner. I don't even remember what made me say yes but I did and it felt like how our friendship used to feel so we just fell back into our normal routine from there I guess."

"That sounds great," He hesitated before going on "Now are you going to get to the part about how it's almost six months later and you're leaving his apartment on the borderline of a panic attack?"