Page 51 of Jump on Three
She looked like she meant it, and I absolutely did want her to believe me since I couldn’t tell a lie if my life depended on it.
“Fine. I believe you.” I let my shirt unravel and picked at the thread along the hem.
“There’s something else, isn’t there?” she asked.
I nodded once.
“You’re sad about something?”
Sucking in a breath, I lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know if I’m sad. Maybe…confused.”
Her eyebrows popped. “About a boy?”
“Yes, but—”
“Oh my god.” She bounced the couch with her enthusiasm. “You have to tell me, babes. I may be terrible at my own relationships, but I give ridiculously good advice.”
I shouldn’t have told her anything since I was unwilling to speak to Delilah about it, but my confusion over Ivan had been stacking inside me for weeks. I was brimming—and not in a good way like Bella. Adding what had happened earlier in room three might have tipped me over the edge into something I could not handle.
“It’s Ivan. He was going to kiss me today, and I was going to let him…but then I said something stupid—”
“What’d you say?”
“It was a thought, but it came out as a statement. I said, ‘This must have been how Delilah felt when she confessed…’”
She hissed. “Oh no.”
“Yes. He did not kiss me and told me he understood I would never get over that and he’d leave me alone from here on out. This was after he’d admitted to wanting to know me since he first saw me last fall. He waited out my relationship with Charles, and he was careful and patient, and I think I messed up. But I can’t be with him, right? He was Delilah’s first, and that’s not right.”
There was a long beat of silence before Bella said, “He was never Delilah’s. They were friends.”
“But she wanted more.”
“And now she doesn’t.”
“I think it would hurt her for her to know he wants me when he didn’t want her.”
“You make his wanting her as a friend sound bad when it isn’t. Friendship is valuable.” She picked up one of her ringlets and twirled it around her finger. “You’re not the same person as your sister, you know.”
“I know.”
She tilted her head. “Do you really know? You guys look alike, and you’re thick as thieves, but your personalities are incredibly different. You don’t have the same interests or style. You wear your hair differently, you walk differently…you’re not the same.”
“I know this,” I gritted out with impatience. “Why are you saying this?”
“I’m sayin’ this because you don’t seem to get that you and Delilah are not interchangeable. Ivan wants you because you must be more his type. D’s hot. If Ivan had clicked with her on more than a friend level, I guarantee it’d be him takin’ her for ice cream instead of Rhys. That’s not what happened, though. She’s wild for Rhys frigging Astor, and more than anything, I bet he’s soothed the sting of rejection to a whisper of a memory.”
“I hope so. It killed me when she was hurting.”
“That’s because you’re an incredible sister, babe. That doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice what you want to spare Delilah a twinge of discomfort.”
I smoothed back my hair, tucking it behind my ear until it was just right. “I don’t know that I was anything with Ivan. I’m curious about him, and I like to look at him, but I don’t really know him.”
“So, get to know him.”
“It feels wrong.”
“Still? After all I just said?” She puffed her cheeks and blew out a hard exhale. “Damn. I thought I was convincing as all get-out.”