A Deal with Demakis(44)

                And look how things panned out with your best friend, an insidious voice whispered in her ear.

                She ran the back of her hand over her trembling lips. The taste of him wasn’t going to come off so easily. “I don’t love you. I...”

                He jerked back slowly, his gaze incredulous. “Have you still not learned the lesson? Your love for Tyler blinded you to everything, crippled you into not living your life. You still want that love?”

                “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

                “Tyler had an affair with Faith behind your back. He cheated on you with your friend.”

                She raised her head and looked at him, fury and self-disgust roiling through her. “You’re making this up...you’re...”

                Her desperation had no end, it seemed. If Nikos had been angry before, he was a seething cauldron of fury now. Taking her arms in a gentle grip that pricked through her, he set her away from him.

                “I’m an unfeeling bastard, true. And I’ve no misconceptions about what or who I am. However, I don’t settle for what people throw at me. I don’t let them treat me like trash.”

                She closed his mouth with her hand, and sagged against him. “I had no idea about Tyler and Faith. That they even liked each other that way. I...”

                There it was, the tiny truth that been evading her for so many months, the last piece in the puzzle that threatened to pull her under.

                She had done all this.

                She finally understood why Tyler had called her selfish. Because he had felt bound to her by his guilt, because even though there had been proof enough that they could never be more than friends, she hadn’t wanted to let him go, because her refusal to move on had meant he couldn’t move on, either.

                Because she had been the one who had gone to juvie, even though both of them had been responsible for the robbery.

                All because she had been scared to live her own life.

                So many times, Tyler had asked her to apply to a college somewhere else, asked her to change her job, always encouraged her to reach for more, to take a risk and she...she had been scared to leave his side, scared to venture into an unknown life, amongst unknown people because she had been terrified of being alone.

                Of having no one who loved her, of mattering to no one. And so she had continued on her little merry way, clinging to Tyler, clinging to Faith, ruining all their lives in the process. She had convinced herself that he loved her, that she loved him in a way she hadn’t, forced herself and guilted him.

                And that’s what he was doing again. He was leaving Venetia, breaking her heart because he felt guilty about how he had treated Lexi. And Lexi couldn’t let him do that anymore.

                She couldn’t be a coward anymore.

                Straightening her shoulders, she looked at Nikos. Fear was a primal tattoo in her head that she had to mute long enough to speak. For the first time in her life, she wanted something. She wanted to be with Nikos, she wanted to revel in the desire she felt for him.

                She had to do it now, before she lost her nerve, before she forgot how many lives she had ruined because she had been scared, before she crawled back into her safe little place and let life pass her by.

                She had to let Tyler go, she had to set herself free. If she fell, he would be there to catch her. He always would. She knew that now. Which meant it was time to start living.