When I get home from school, Evan's car is in my driveway. I'm a bit confused, since he was planning on picking me up much later. Wilbur is having a birthday dinner with his mom then meeting us all at Rachel's at around 9. Instead of sitting in the basement, for once, we're gonna have a nice time in the pool.
I knock on the window of his car, obviously startling him. He looks at me before climbing out.
"Whatcha doing here?" I ask, placing my hand on his arm. "Not that I'm complaining."
"I wanted to talk to you." He says, giving me a strange feeling. We've been dating for a month. He can't be dumping me, right?
"Oh, alright," I give him an awkward smile. "Let's go inside, then."
I unlock my front door and let us step inside. I turn around as he locks the door behind him and reaches in his back pocket. My breath is taken away as I watch the paper unfold, revealing the letter I had wrote for Wilbur.
"How'd you get that?" I whisper.
"I took it from your bag right after you put it in." Evan says, his face turning red. "What the hell is this, Nicole? What, you're in love with him?"
"I'm not!" I reply, trying to not cry in front of him. "That was a stupid letter I wrote forever ago. I don't have feelings for him anymore. Especially now that I have you."
"I've known that he likes you, but I thought I could trust you. This really fucking hurts to read, Nicole."
My eyes widen. "Wait, he likes me?"
Evan scoffs with an eye roll. "Jesus, Nicole, that's not the fucking point! Now I have to constantly wonder if my girlfriend is in love with her best friend that she's always around."
"I'm not in love with him, Evan. I swear. I haven't been in years. And I really doubt that he has any sort of feelings for me. He's never expressed anything like that."
I watch his chest rise and fall rapidly. "That's hard to believe when you spend countless hours on some book that's all about you and him. When I catch him staring at you and you staring at him. You post him on your story every fucking day, you let him lie down on your lap, you just... you act like a couple sometimes and it really pisses me off. I can't trust anymore that if he, like, kisses you out of nowhere, that you won't enjoy it and dump me in a second."
Inside, I know that if Wilbur expresses his feelings (though I'm sure Evan is just paranoid), I will immediately run to him and accept it. But it's not real. He doesn't want me. There's no use in even thinking about that scenario. "Evan," I sigh, placing my hands on his shoulders. "I really, really like you. Not Wilbur or anyone else. How can I make you trust me on this?"
His hands reach my waist as his expression softens. "I don't like you hanging out alone with him. With Rachel or me or both of us, it's fine. But you two alone makes me uncomfortable."
I raise my eyebrows, not really expecting him to say that. "Oh. Okay, I guess."
"And it would be nice if we'd stop seeing him every single night. It's kind of annoying. The only alone time that we get is at your house in the middle of the night."
"He's still my best friend," I mutter.
"I know, and I'm not making you cut him off. It's just weird."
I don't wanna argue. I hate fighting with people, being yelled at, crying over it. So I just nod. "Alright. I understand,"
"Okay," He gives me a small smile. "Wanna go do something?"
For the next few hours, we go see a movie and get dinner. I'm pretty emotional the entire time, but I don't let it show. I'm sad and confused and angry. He doesn't seem to notice though, which is fine by me.
Before we get back to my house, he grabs a change of clothes from his. We go to my room and I search through my drawers, deciding to wear a simple blue bikini with jean shorts over them. I tie my hair into a braid as Evan stands behind me, arms around my waist, his face in the crook of my neck.
"You look so good," He mumbles into my skin. "Can't we just skip this thing?"
"No," I say, setting my rings on my vanity. "It's his birthday. You can skip it, though."
"Hmm, I don't trust Rachel to monitor you guys for me."
I clench my jaw and keep my emotions down. "Okay." I grab my car keys and my phone. "Let's go,"
