Best Friends Don't Sleep Together - A.H. Series #1

Chapter 19

I can't have heard it right, it's not possible. My Chris would have never left me to grieve my unrequited feelings for so long without doing anything to avoid it. Knowing what I felt, my Chris would have done all he possibly could to spare me the heartache. He wouldn't have spent years talking to me about his girlfriends, confiding to me, asking for advice, even relying on me to fix his relationship problems.

He cannot have possibly been fully aware of everything I felt, since the start even. Ten years of him nonchalantly telling me about this and that girl he found cute, how his dates went, how he was falling for this and that, how he hoped it might work. Ten years of him coming to me first whenever he found someone he liked, ten years of him not sparing one single detail about his love life. All of that cannot have possibly been intentional. All of that cannot have been done with full knowledge of my feelings. I refuse to accept it.

"You ..." my voice was barely audible, "you knew?" I staggered back, kind of wanting to get away from him. Because that wasn't, could not be my Chris. My Chris would have never hurt me intentionally, he would never let me cry my heart out of him.

Chris heaved a deep sigh, taking a step closer to me, as if attempting to grab my hand, but I pulled it behind my back, to avoid every kind of touch. The sad look on his face might have worked in other circumstances, but even I could see that sadness was mostly due to sense of guilt. "Vivy, I ..."

"Since when?" I asked in a murmur, once again bracing myself and putting some physical distance between us, to make sure he would not be able to use my own stupidity against me.

"Vivy ..." Chris took a step closer.

I shook my head, my body stiffening. "Since when, Chris?"

He sighed, raking a hand over his face. "I don't know ... junior year?" My eyes opened wide. "It was Latasha, she ... she made me look closely."

"Latasha?" I repeated. "You mean your ex-girlfriend Latasha?"

"We didn't really date." There he went again with that guilty look on his face. "I only told you we did because you saw us together, but ..."

"It was just sex, wasn't it?"

One more sigh as he dropped back against the counter. "It would have been more, maybe. But she said she didn't want to ... interfere."

"I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

Chris pursed his lips. "Latasha and I went on a few dates, and there was sex, yes. But after the fifth date, she said she didn't want to keep going."

"Because of me?" I frowned. I barely remember Latasha Thompson, they only dated for a few weeks, but what I do remember is that she was the nicest one. Among all the girlfriends he's had, Latasha was definitely the nicest, at least to me.

"Somebody told her who you were, and she saw us together, she said ..."

"What does that have to do with-"

"I'm just saying, I started paying attention because she made me." Chris confessed. "Latasha told me to look closer, there was something you were hiding, and when I didn't understand she just ..." he sighed, "the point is, it was junior year."

Ten years. Not one less. It wasn't a sudden revelation a few months ago, after all the nights I spent awake cuddling him to sleep, trying to soothe his heartbreak after Karen. It wasn't four years ago, when Brian broke up with me and I didn't want to admit why. Ten years. Ten damn years. He almost knew even before I did.

This can't be real. I felt like I was about to faint. "Ten years." I murmured, out of breath. "You knew all this time, and never even thought about telling me? Not even once?"