Girlfriend's Best Friend

Chapter 24

        I picked up Brooke but I was in no mood to hang out. She got into my car and smiled brightly. Every time I was in a bad mood I took it out on people who didn’t deserve it, and I didn’t want that to happen with Brooke right now. I kissed her to make everything seem normal but I couldn’t bring myself to act like everything was okay. I don’t know how Brooke managed to act like everything was always perfect.

            “Cody, what’s wrong?” she said impatiently, sensing my obvious bad mood.

            “Kelli and I are fighting,” I said honestly.

            “About what?”

            “She thinks I’m losing interest in her.”

            “But you’re not—”

            “I am,” I said quickly but had to stop myself before tears fell. “I’m losing interest in her really fast and I can’t cover it up anymore."

            “Cody, but you have to. That’s part of the plan,” she said nervously.

            “How long am I going to have to pretend I like her, Brooke?” I practically yelled at her. I hated that I had to make Brooke think I was pretending to like Kelli, but how could I tell her that I liked both of them?

            “For as long as you want to be with me,” she fought back.

            I didn’t know if I wanted to be with her. Brooke’s brought me as much pain as happiness. She screwed up my perfect relationship, she made me fight with all my friends, and when people find out about her, I’ll never lose my reputation as a player.

            “Unless…you don’t want to be with me,” she said slowly. “Do you?”

            I couldn’t believe she was about to pull this. I just went through this with Kelli—I was not about to do it again. It was rewarding putting Kelli back together. But I think Brooke may be too broken to fix. She wasn’t only broken, but poisonous too. This is why no one could stay with her long. Because she was too much to handle and only brought you down in the process of keeping her up. I don’t know how Kelli’s done this since fourth grade. I took a deep breath, “Brooke—”

            “If you don’t want to keep this up then you don’t have to,” she bit hard on her lip.

            “Don’t try to give me that shit, you know how much I like you, Brooke. I wouldn’t have lied and cheated on Kelli for over a month now if I didn’t like you. Do you have any idea how hard this is on me?” Brooke had to realize that she’s not the only one with problems.

            “I know it’s hard on you Cody, I never said it wasn’t! But she puts you into a bad mood and then you take it out on me and that’s not fair—”

           “Take it out on you?? Brooke, I treat you so well, don’t try to say I don’t! When you’re crying or having a bad day or need someone to talk to who is always there for you to listen and help? Me. So don’t try to say I take out my bad moods on you when I push them aside to make sure you’re okay!”

           “What about the other half of the time when you’re ignoring me or jumping to conclusions about something you heard without asking me about it first or barely talking to me when we’re together so I end up feeling like I’m annoying you? Yeah you’ve probably treated me the best but you’ve also treated me the worst,” she yelled at me, but the worst part is that I knew what she was saying wasn’t completely untrue.