The Buddies Rule | ✓

Chapter 29

Chase merely shrugged before rising to his feet, "I don't know. I tried to come up with some big goodbye speech when he stopped by earlier, but, words just couldn't cut it."

I nodded, giving him a small smile. "Things just won't be the same around here without him."

"He and Alan," Chase added in. I could feel my eyes practically popping out of my head in shock. Chase had barely uttered Alan's name over the last six months. "Lewis told me about that little email he sent you. He said you deleted it before showing it to him."

"It was barely worth talking about," I muttered. "Alan's not worth our time if he's not going to own up to his mistakes. We've all done it, why can't he?"

Chase pursed his lips together, stopping himself from saying whatever he was about to say. He stood, shoving his hands into his pockets; just the same way that he always did at times like this. He felt as uncomfortable as me, and I hated not knowing why he felt that way.

"Have we owned up to it?" He started up once more, looking to me for my reaction. "Have we owned up to our mistakes?"

I stood there, staring back at him and not dating to move an inch.

Even if I hadn't said the words out loud, I had actually owned up to what I had done. I knew my actions over the last semester had been wrong, despite the fact that they were fueled by love. All I wanted to do was to figure out who was genuine with their feelings, and who was genuinely good for me.

But Chase needed to actually hear me say all of this.

"I know what I did, or didn't do, was wrong," I agreed, trying to force myself to say the words. "I can't stand here and defend myself to you, because we both know that I was scared. I kept coming up with excuses, and you and Alan kept finding ways to confuse me whenever you got the chance-"

"I wasn't trying to confuse you, Bree-"

"I know that too," I interrupted him. "I know that none of this is what we had in mind. But a long time ago, you asked me to tell you everything. You said that because we were best friends, we needed to tell each other things, everything, and I haven't lived up to that promise."

Chase closed his eyes for a second, but it was a long enough second to make me feel like time had stopped entirely. Even after he opened his eyes, he stayed quiet, just running over the conversation in his mind. Neither of us knew what to say next, because in reality, we had neglected to tell each other everything.

"We haven't been best friends for a long time, Bree," Chase shook his head. He took a few steps around the coffee table, making sure that there was still some distance between us. "At least, not like we used to be. I don't feel like I can come and talk to you about anything, anymore, and I know you feel the same way."

"Yeah, but we can fix it. We just both have to-"

"What?" Chase cut in. "Try? Work a little harder? That's what we should have done those first two weeks of school this year, Bree. We're too far gone to even try to salvage what we had."

His words left me speechless; they left me feeling as hopeless and as lost as I had felt when I'd walked into the apartment ten minutes ago.

I guess I finally knew what was bugging me.

"Even if your not my friend anymore, Chase," I all but whispered, "I'm still yours."