Who did that kind of shit? Who went into someone’s phone and did that? Because she was jealous? I’d been seventeen and basically a family member. It wasn’t like he’d been in love with me or had treated me in any way that was different than a beloved, pesky little sister. I’d been at the age where I was barely building my sense of self-worth, and she had stolen almost all of it with her terrible comments. She had made me second-guess one of the most important relationships in my life after I’d lost Mamá Lupe, when I had literally been at my lowest.
And now, apparently, that hadn’t been the only thing she’d stolen.
She’s taken something so much more precious: time.
So I answered. Because I wasn’t going to lose what I’d just gotten back, especially not because of Jessica again.
“Hey,” I answered, rubbing over my brow bone with my index finger. “I’m—”
He cut me off. “Where you at?” His voice was off, all tight and rough.
“I’m sorry, Zac. I left. I had to get out of there.”
He said something under his breath I couldn’t understand.
God, I felt like an asshole. I should have at least warned him on the way out instead of just… leaving. “I’m sorry. I just got so mad. I wasn’t thinking straight. I was upset—I am upset….”
There was a pause, then a sigh over the receiver. “You goin’ home?”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
“Okay. I’ll meet you there.”
Oh hell no. “No. No. It’s okay. Stay there. I’m fine. I’m just… sad and mad and want to think about stuff.” Maybe he wanted to go home and think about things too. “I’ll call you tomorrow. I’ll go by the house. Deal?”
There was a beat of silence. Then I might have even heard him swallow hard. “Bibi—” he started to say before I interrupted.
“Promise.”
I managed to hear him breathe over the line.
“I just can’t believe what happened. I think I’m in shock a little, but I promise I’ll go by the house tomorrow. I’m fine. I’ll be home in like twenty minutes.”
He made another sound before, “Text or call when you get there?”
She had stolen this from me.
I had let her steal this from me.
I couldn’t believe it.
“Yes.”
“All right.”
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Not really, darlin’.”
I feel you, I wanted to say but didn’t. “Tell me all the gossip tomorrow, okay? And I’m sorry you spent all this money on this costume and I barely got to wear it. I’m sorry for leaving. I’m sorry…” For being an idiot.
He hummed just as Trevor’s familiar voice said something in the background that I couldn’t understand—my cue to get off the phone.
“I’ll let you go. I’ll text you when I get home. Be safe, okay?”
His “yeah” was a little too simple, but I let it go.
“Bye.”
“Have your key ready when you get out of the car, ’kay?”
That brought a smile back onto my face.
This was the man who had loved me for half my life.
“Yeah, I will. Be safe too. Love you.”
His “Love you too, kiddo” was instant.
And I carried his words with me on the silent trip home and up the stairs and into my apartment. My hands felt like ice cubes, and my heart seemed to have grown to the size of a boulder inside of me. Something deep within my nasal cavity burned too.
I couldn’t fucking believe it.
I sucked in a breath through my nose as my eyes tickled and my chest hurt. I started peeling my costume off, the shoulder pads going first.
I had cried real tears because of how some insignificant asshole had made me feel.
The hoodie part of the catsuit went next.
I had lost ten years of friendship with someone I loved because of one person’s words and deeds.
One or two hot tears slipped out of my eyes, but I held the rest of them back.
I wasn’t going to cry over this. I wasn’t. I refused to.
I collected the pieces of the costume that Zac was going to need to return—or that I would probably offer to return since he had paid for the rental—and folded it neatly on the floor beside the door, wiping at my face once with the back of my hand. Back in my bedroom, I took a rinse in the shower while my eyes tried to tear up some more, and I had just managed to slip on a cropped tank top and pull some old leggings on when my doorbell rang.
Then a fist pounded at the door. “Bibi, it’s me.”
I froze.
That was when my cell phone started ringing from where I’d left it on the kitchen counter.
“Bianca?”
Shit!
“I can hear your phone. I’m worried about you.”
I wanted to tell him that I was fine and to go home, but I already knew how that was going to end. He’d wonder why I wouldn’t open the door, expect the worst, and threaten to come in.
“I’m not dressed for company,” I called out weakly.
“Like I care.”
I was worried he’d say that.
Neither one of us said anything until he knocked again, weaker that time.
“Please?” Zac pleaded quietly.
I sighed as I made my way over to the door, unlocking and then cracking it open to find him in his Woody costume, standing there, leaning a shoulder against the wall with an expression on his face that just screamed… exhaustion. And for once, he didn’t exactly smile as I stood there in my old pajamas, showing off my not-a-six-pack. I wasn’t going to assume he didn’t notice that my eyes were more than likely red from trying my absolute hardest not to cry since I’d gotten home.
“Hey.”
“I was worried about you,” he said steadily, that soft gaze moving over my face slowly.
“I was worried about you too,” I told him, squeezing into the opened doorway just enough so that it didn’t swing wide and show him the inside of my apartment. “I’m sorry I left you there. I just… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you. I know you wouldn’t have left me. That was a shitty thing I did.”
His handsome head tilted to the side, but there was no smirk there. He was off. I could see the steadiness of his breathing from the way his shirt and vest rose and fell, the little star pinned to his breast doing the same.
“I’m sorry, Zac.” I felt the tears pop up in my eyes all over again as my throat started to close up. I tried to hold my breath so that I wouldn’t cry. And failed.
As my gaze went fuzzy, I reached up and used part of my shirt to dab them. Zac’s shoulders dropped down, and I barely heard him say, “Oh, kiddo.”
I sucked in a breath through my nose and lifted my shoulders, dabbing at my eyes even more. “I should have told you,” I whispered, looking down at my bare feet balancing on the doorway before I stepped onto the concrete outside.
But the tips of his boots came into my view, lining up right along my toes a moment before those warm, strong arms came around me, pulling me gently into his chest, into a hug that had my cheek going to the yellow button-down shirt. “You ain’t got nothin’ to cry over.”