Page 83 of Stolen Summer
It fucking stung.
No, stung wasn’t strong enough for what I felt, for the emotion clogging my throat. It fucking hurt like a lacerated wound.
How foolish of me to think Cole was different, that he wasn’t just some rich jerk with no regard for labels.
Why had I let my guard down?
I’d broken my cardinal rule.
Never trust a summer prick.
Trusting led to things like opening your heart and relying on another person. Two things I rarely did for good reasons. In my life, people could be shitty, downright jackasses. Were there good, trustworthy people? Yes, but the number of assholes outnumbered them by the thousands. I was lucky to find Frankie. She was like my other half, and right now, I needed my best friend.
When shit got rough, she was the one who pulled me through, stood by me, and would go down with me.
I pulled out my phone.
“Frankie,” I said when she picked up, my voice hitching.
“What’s wrong?” she asked without hesitation. Frankie knew me like a sister and could immediately tell something had happened by my tone.
“I need you,” I whispered into the phone.
“I’ll be there in ten.”
The longest ten minutes ever passed before I finally heard Frankie’s car pull into my driveway through my opened bedroom window. I had the curtains drawn like a barricade between me and the house next door. I didn’t want to see it. I considered hauling out the storm shutters again just to prevent any temptations. I wouldn’t be the poor girl pining for the prince in the castle she could never have.
I wasn’t Cinderella.
And Cole wasn’t my fucking Prince Charming.
In the end, I stayed in my room, unable to find the energy to do anything but sit on my bed and wait for Frankie.
She let herself into my house and poked her head through my bedroom door. “Well, don’t you look like someone shit on your heart.”
I didn’t mean to laugh. Nothing inside me felt any joy, yet Frankie could draw out the emotion regardless of how deep it was buried under heaps of pain and hurt. A weak chuckle escaped my lips despite shaking my head at her.
Then the tears fell.
In only a few strides, Frankie was at the bed, climbing in beside me. Her arm wrapped around my shoulder, pulling me in close to her. “Oh, honey, if he doesn’t want you, then he’s a colossal idiot.”
I rested my head on her shoulder. I’d expect a mom to say something like that, and since I didn’t have one, hearing it from Frankie was just as good. “He really is,” I agreed.
She laid her head on top of mine. “Is he at the house?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m about to run over there and show him what real pain feels like.”
“That would be fantastic.” But then I remembered. “He has a gun.”
Frankie didn’t so much as bat an eye. “Don’t we all.”
“Frankie,” I shrieked through watery eyes, my voice coming out deeper and huskier than normal. “You do not have a gun.”
She clucked her tongue. “Arie, have I taught you nothing?”
I couldn’t tell if she was serious or trying to lighten my mood. What mattered was she was here when I needed her. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”