Page 31 of The Lucky One

He’d been pissed when I got home from Germany all banged up. But I’d been provoked. I told him what Michael had said about Emily—that she was easy—but he made me promise to never solve my issues with violence again.

“I know!” I slapped his hand away in frustration. His concern was coming too late.

“What on earth were you thinking, Paul?!” he yelled, grabbing me by the shoulders. Emily and Mom were frozen on the couch.

“You think I wanted this?” I pushed him away from me. “Chose to get beat up? Fuck no!”

“Don’t talk to me like that!” he roared. I had never seen him this angry.

“How am I supposed to talk to you then? ’Cause if I talk normally—”

Suddenly I felt lightheaded. The room was spinning around me. I dropped to my knees, trying to hold on to the couch for support, but it wasn’t enough. My knees gave way and I collapsed to the floor.

“Zack, go to your room,” some part of me heard Mom say.

I blinked. Emily was kneeling in front of me. She cupped my cheeks and whispered, “What do you need, Paul?”

I clasped my arms around her to finally get the hug I needed even more desperately than being seen. “I need you,” I breathed in her ear. Emily swallowed but returned the hug.

Everything in me went quiet.

It wasn’t the same anymore.

Rewriting the Story

Emily

“Who would hurt Paul like this? I mean, it’s Paul we’re talking about, he’s...” I took a deep breath, gripping the phone tightly in my hand.

“I know, Little German,” Jon whispered so softly that I had to press it to my ear to hear him. I’d expected him to get mad, freak out at least, but he was acting like he wasn’t even surprised that someone had punched Paul out.

“Jon, what’s going on? Do you know what this is about?” The way he stopped puffing on his cigarette made me feel like I was onto something. I hated my brain for immediately thinking he had something to do with it. It wasn’t fair. Yet I couldn’t shake off the suspicion that Jon was somehow involved in this mess.

“I saw it,” he confessed.

“Saw what?”

“Him get beat up. It was on my street.”

I sprang up from the couch. “Did you see who it was?”

Jon stayed quiet for what felt like an eternity. I tapped my foot impatiently. “Jon?”

“Fuck. They were too far away,” he muttered.

I swallowed hard, my worry growing, but the way he reacted—I didn’t want to interrogate him further. If he had something to do with it, he would tell me in his own time. He wouldn’t let Paul pay for his own involvement with gangs, keep mum to save himself. That wasn’t my Jon.

“I’m worried that he got seriously injured,” I said instead. “They’ve been at the hospital for so long now. I’m scared.”

“Me too, Little German,” he whispered into the phone, his voice oddly tight. My warning signals lit up; every little thing could trigger him. Like seeing his best friend get beat up by a stranger...

“I’m coming over,” I didn’t ask but stated.

“No,” he said, quick and sharp. “Be there for him when he gets back. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” I wanted to be there for Paul, make up for what I had done wrong, but I didn’t want to let Jon down either.

“Little German,” he growled. “I’ll never feel comfortable with you and Paul living under the same roof. I know how he feels about you, and how you...” He stopped speaking for a moment, and I felt my heart do a double flip. “You love with all your heart. If you stopped caring about him from one day to the next, you wouldn’t be the girl I fell in love with. So please, be there for our best friend.”