Consumed (Addicted to You Book 1) (14 page)

Colby had been bitter since I’d taken the trip to Canoe Bay. She had spent several weeks ignoring me and only speaking when it was required. Though I’d felt horrible for missing our plans, I also thought it was a little overboard to take it that far.

It was wrong of me to forget her birthday. I’d admitted that and apologized more times than I could possibly count. I’d made a mistake. But that’s all it was. A mistake. And I couldn’t understand why she hated me for a mistake.

She had eventually started speaking again, but her anger wasn’t gone. Neither was the resentment she seemed to have for Spencer. It had come to the point that we mostly spent our time together elsewhere unless Colby wasn’t going to be home. She made it hard for him to be around and made all of us miserable in the process.

“Aside from the obvious?” she asked.

“Well, what’s obvious?” her tone annoyed me. I didn’t like the way she spoke about him.

Obviously I couldn’t make the two of them like each other or be friends, but the hostility was taking a toll on me. I felt like I was torn between them and it was hard to cope with. I loved them both and sometimes it seemed like my best friend wasn’t okay with that at all.

“The fact that he’s arrogant and thinks that he can just control everything you do for starters,” she spat. “He doesn’t have any regard for our friendship. You have all but replaced every single person in your life with him.” She took a breath and thought for a second. “And that’s just the basics.”

“Sounds like it’s me you hate,” I pointed out. “I’m the one that keeps choosing him. I’m the one that forgot your birthday. I am the one that spends my time with him. He isn’t delivering orders for me to do so.”

“True,” she replied. “But at the same time, you’re in a relationship you’ve never had before. So you are being dumb.”

“Dumb? I’m dumb because I love him? I’m dumb because I enjoy the time I spend with him?”

“You aren’t enjoying it. You are obsessed with it. But that isn’t what I meant,” she stopped.

“Well, then what did you mean? Because I think it’s dumb to date guys I don’t even like just to say I have a boyfriend. I think it’s dumb to meet my men at a nightclub and expect it to last. ”

“Nice Avery! Thanks for making me sound like nothing more than a whore,” she snapped. After a deep breath she continued. “He’s going to hurt you again,” she stated. “He’s done it once. And he shows all of the signs of being a player. You just can’t see them because his game is working.”

“Game?” The comment pissed me off. “So you think that Spencer is playing a game with me? That’s the problem? Why is that Colby? Is it so hard to think that he could love me? That someone could love me and make me happy?”

“I didn’t say that. Quit twisting my words. You are looking for a reason to be mad at me and that’s not fair,” she shook her head and took another bite. “ Of course he could love you. Anyone could love you,” she corrected. “I am saying that he doesn’t love you. I know that you love him. I know that you want to believe he loves you. I know that you have convinced yourself that he does. But Avery, you need to understand that Spencer does not love you.”

I felt the anger boil below the surface. This was the biggest problem that I had with people. No one believed me. I was just ordinary average Avery Bradfield. Poor girl. In love with the hot guy and wishing she was good enough. Living a make believe fantasy in my head of a love that would never be real. I hated it. I hated the people that did that to me. That included my best friend.

“You are wrong Colby. He does love me. Spencer loves me more than he’s ever loved anyone. He loves me in a way no one else has ever loved me,” I was trying to keep my calm, but the more I thought about what she’d said the worse I felt.“

“Then why does he make you give everything up for him? Why did he end things? Why do you sometimes go days, feeling sad and alone, without hearing a word?”

“He has more in his life than me Colby!”

“At least one of you has something else left,” her sarcastic comment only fueled the flame.

“That’s because his life didn’t abandon him because he was happy. They didn’t ask him to choose. They let him do what he wants and are happy for him!”

“I didn’t abandon you Avery! I have always been here. You are the one that keeps choosing to abandon me!”

“I made a fucking mistake!”

“How do you accidentally forget the birthday of your best friend for the last fifteen years?” Colby yelled. “That doesn’t make sense to me. We had just talked about it the night before.”

“He surprised me. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry,” I said yet again, though I was tired of repeating the same things.

“And you never told him that you were spending Saturday with me for my birthday? Because either you did and he took you away,” she looked me eye to eye, “or you lied and you never told him that was our night together.”

I sat for a minute and tried to think back. I honestly couldn’t remember if I’d mentioned it or not, but I was certain that Spencer wouldn’t do that to me or Colby. He knew how important she was to me.

“I guess that means you don’t plan to answer me,” she shrugged. “Try this question, How did he afford Canoe Bay?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I’d never asked him. It wasn’t the kind of thing you asked a guy that had just surprised you with a romantic weekend getaway. “What was I suppose to do? Oh wow Spencer this is incredible, but how did you pay for it?”

“It’s over five hundred bucks a night for that cabin,” she told me.

“What? Are you serious? ”

“Yep,” she nodded. “Per night and you stayed two. Dinner is almost a hundred bucks a piece.”

“Maybe he found a special,” I suggested, unsure of an answer. “Maybe he has savings or used a credit card.”

“Even a special would be more than Spencer should be able to afford. Does he have a savings? Does he own a credit card?”

“ I don’t know,” I answered. “I’ve never asked.”

“What about his parents? Are they wealthy?”

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “ I don’t know a lot about them. He doesn’t talk of them much and I’ve never met them.”

“Who have you met Ave?”

“Some of his friends,” I told her. “Most of his friends, actually.”

“So no family?” I shook my head. “Sounds like he loves you a lot.” She said sarcastically. “Hasn’t he already met your parents, sister and a couple of random cousins?” I nodded. “So why haven’t you met his family?”

“I don’t think he’s close to them,” I admitted. “I think he has problems with his family. I know he tries to be close to his brother, but it doesn’t always work out.”

“Have you met his brother? Oh that’s right, the day you were going he called you and ended the relationship.”

“Colby, why do you have to ruin the time we spend together?”

“Me? Why do I have to ruin it?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “We could have had a good day.”

“Right,” she commented. “Because Spencer isn’t available. God knows if he was around, you would have bailed.”

“I love him Colby. He loves me. You can’t change that. I think you know that. I think that’s what the problem here really is,” I was almost shouting with no regard for who might be looking. “You don’t want me to be happy with him. You don’t want me to love him and him to love me. But why Colby? Are you afraid he will take me away, or are you jealous?”

“What? Jealous? Why would I be jealous?”

“Because I have what you can’t find,” I glared at her.

“Are you fucking serious Avery?” the shock on her face definitely appeared genuine.

“Yes, I am,” I told her.

“First of all, I don’t want what you think you’ve found. Second, I would never be anything but happy for you if you did. And finally, I don’t for a second believe that any of it is real. It’s in your head,” she snapped, her face flushing darker with red than I’d ever seen it.

“Well, you have to accept it. I love him and he loves me. Deal with it. Or maybe you aren’t really that much of a friend.”

“So you’d throw us away because I don’t like him? And you say I’m not much of a friend?” She snapped. “I think I”ll skip the movie. Let’s just go home.”

“That’s fine with me!” I snapped, finally aware that several people were watching the scene unfold in the middle of the mall.

I followed her back through the mall and out to the car without saying a word. I was angry and I was hurt.

Not once on the drive home did either of us speak. I didn’t understand why she kept pushing things with me and Spencer. She’d promised that she was okay with it and would get along with him. She’d told me she would be happy for me.

It wasn’t like I’d skipped out on her on purpose. It just happened. Couldn’t I make a mistake without Spencer paying for it for the rest of his life?

The idea of spending the rest of my evening watching Colby pout and slam things wasn’t appealing. That is what made me ask her to drop me off at Spencer’s. It’d be far better to enjoy an evening with him than for us to end up fighting any further. Our friendship was barely hanging by a thread and too much of this at once would snap it.

“I probably won’t be home tonight,” I told her as I was getting out of the car.

“Of course not,” she snapped at me. “I don’t understand why you don’t live with Spencer.”

“Would you like me to move?” I asked, hurt by her words.

“I doubt he’d let you,” she laughed. “That’d be commitment.”

“I’m done for tonight,” I was just about to slam the door when I stopped and opened it back. “Grow up Colby!” I yelled. “It’s not a fucking competition.”

“No, it isn’t,” she agreed. A competition would assume that I had any chance of winning.”

“Oh my god,” I screamed, slamming the door and walking away.

I heard Colby drive away before she even made sure that I could get inside and it made my anger even worse than it was. What if I couldn’t get in? What if he wasn’t home? Spencer lived in a less than great neighborhood.

That made me think of Colby’s question about Canoe Bay. How did he afford it, especially considering how he lived? I wanted to ask him, but I didn’t know how to approach a subject like that. I didn’t really know how to approach a lot of subjects. Like why he never talked about family or when I would meet them. I didn’t want to offend or upset him, but Colby had made me realize there was a lot I didn’t know about Spencer.

I resented Colby for making me feel insecure with him. I trusted him and I loved him, but she was making me feel doubts. Why? I didn’t understand what the hell had happened to my best friend. For the first time in my life I’d found someone that made me happy and suddenly it had to be a competition. I didn’t get it.

Colby and I had been friends forever. The thought that she’d believe a guy would change that confused me. She didn’t seem to understand that she was the one pushing me away from her and I couldn’t get that point across. In her mind, I was choosing Spencer over her and she was dead set on hating him. Which meant also hating me.

We’d been through so much together. Happy times. Heartaches. We’d never had a problem like this and I couldn’t figure out how to solve it. I was used to the Colby that was there and supportive. Sometimes I’d needed support for stupid things and she’d always been there. But once I was happy she had to start acting like my life was a personal insult to her. My choices and my feelings seemed to a slap in the face of our friendship. At least in her mind.

It was almost as if she was making me choose. The problem was that I would choose him and I knew it. He’d never ask me to choose and that was the biggest reason that I’d never choose someone else over him. Of course there was also the fact that I loved him in a way I’d never loved anyone else. I couldn’t picture anything that would make me walk away from him of my own accord.

‘Bet you wouldn’t love him so much if he chose another girl’ Colby had thrown in my face while we were browsing the mall. It was another way of hitting me below the belt.

She was wrong. If Spencer was happy, I’d be happy for him. At least I thought I would. But I didn’t understand why my best friend wanted to make me feel doubt and worry like that.

“Everything okay Avery?” Spencer came to the door and was surprised to see me. I hadn’t called or text to let him know I was coming.

Suddenly I was filled with paranoia. What if she was right? If he was playing me then he might have company. If someone else was there then I’d be humiliated and shattered and left alone in the dark of the night. My heart raced as I tried to calm the beast roaring its ugly head.

The question was a simple one and I should have been able to just smile and nod before I went inside. But I couldn’t lie to him and the words wouldn’t come out. Instead I just began to cry and shake my head no.

“Oh God,” he cried out and took me into his arms. “Are you hurt?”

I could feel his heart racing and hear the panic in his voice. He was worried for me. I knew I had to relieve that. I was barely able to muffle the sound of a no and he began to pull me inside.

“Let’s get inside and comfortable and you can tell me all about it,” he offered, taking my hand and leading me through his door.

By the time he got me to the couch I was damn near hysterical. The tears wouldn’t stop and my chest was heaving from the sobs. I could barely catch my breath.