Magnolia Parks (The Magnolia Parks Universe Book 1)

I’m reeling afterwards. Mind’s on fire, an ache in my chest that feels like a hole. Everything’s slipping. He still into her? What else don’t I know? Is she lying to me?

She never lies to me, not about actual shit.

Might tell me she hates me or she’s done with me, but that’s as close as she’ll get to a lie. But now I’m thinking—why the fuck is he thinking about Parks while he’s with Daisy if he and Parks didn’t actually fuck? Right?

So she’s lying.

I dropped her home and headed straight back to mine. Did a line. Waited ten minutes. Did another.

Helps me focus and I needed to focus.

Pored over the cracks in our timeline, wonder if she filled them with Christian.

These are the days that follow. I don’t call her. Don’t text. Reply when she texts me though, but only because if I don’t she’ll go into full-blown panic mode, and I can’t right now—can’t figure out what the fuck any of this means or how I feel about it if I’m having to make her be okay too.

Cancel all my shoots for the week. I go to the café by our house, order in at night, do lines in between. Before I felt bad when I did the lines, like I was fucking Parks over but now I reckon she’s probably the one fucking over me, so rack ’em up.

That’s all I do for four days. Read a bit. Try to watch TV but can’t because pretty much everything I’ve got left to watch I promised I’d watch with Magnolia and so I start Narcos again.

Halfway through season two, Christian appears in my doorway. I frown over at him. He disappeared after that night. None of us have seen him since.

“Where’d you fuck off to?”

He shrugs, walks in, stands on the other side of the room with his hands in his pockets. “Just needed a minute.”

I don’t say anything. Don’t know what I’m supposed to say.

He breathes out, tired and impatient, watching me carefully.

“I’m in love with her, Beej—”

My jaw goes tight. Heart falls down five flights of stairs. He’s in love with her?

I sniff out this laugh that’s suspended in disbelief.

“What?” he asks, nervous.

I shake my head. “You’re just not the first person to tell me that lately.”

“That’s fucked up,” he tells me. I nod. He shakes his head, happy for the connection point, I think. “She’s fucked in the head,” he tells me.

“Oy,” I growl reflexively, even though I don’t think I disagree. Even if I don’t, no one can talk shit on her except me; it makes me angrier that he feels like he can.

“She is, man…she needs everyone to love her,” Christian says. “You, me, Tom, Jules—it’s fucking shit. And she—”

“Stop.” I frown. “What are you doing? This isn’t about her.” A lie. It’s always about her. “It’s about you being my best friend and loving her—”

“I didn’t mean to—”

I let out an incredulous laugh. “You fucking dated her. Behind my back.”

“Beej—” He bangs his head back against the wall behind him “It was an accident. We were hanging out—we’ve been friends forever—longer than you—”

I give him a warning look. Fuck him.

“I was just with her, the same as I’d been with her a billion times before. And then one day we kissed.” He shrugs. Shrugs like it’s nothing. Like it’s not the biggest fucking betrayal in the history of time.

“Oh,” I say and nod, over-emphatically. “You kissed.”

“It was rainy, in a phone box—”

I shake my head quick. “I’m not asking for a fucking play by play—”

“Then what are you asking?” His voice getting louder.

“Why her?” My tone meets his.

“Because she’s Magnolia fucking Parks.”

I look away, shaking my head a bit. How much shit is she going to get away with in this lifetime under that hat?

“And she was sad. And I wanted to make it better.” He shrugs like he can’t help it. Maybe he can’t. I can’t. “But she was sad because of you. Because for her, it’s always you—”

“That’s not true anymore.”

“Yes it fucking is, man—how can’t you see that? Everything she does is because of you, or about you, or trying to fuck you up because you fucked her up first—”

I cover my face with my hands, feeling weird and exposed. Peek through my fingers at my old friend. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because she’s yours.” He glares over at me a bit. “And even when she isn’t, she is.” He glances up at me. “And I don’t want her. I just—I don’t know how to get past her.”

I grind my jaw, feel my own eyes soften a bit. Fuck.

“Yeah.” I breathe out my nose. “Know the feeling.”

Christian rubs his jaw, watching me carefully for a few seconds.

“Beej, I’ve gotta talk to her.”

I bang my fist on my bed absentmindedly.

“What are you going to say?”

He gives me a long look, doesn’t have to tell me what he’s going to say, I already know. He’s going to tell her. I feel sick for a second. Wonder if he’ll go to her, tell her he loves her. And I wonder for a second whether he’s more worthy of her than me? In some ways maybe he is.

In every way imaginable, Tom’s more worthy than us both.

He shrugs, a bit helpless. “I have to.”

I give him a wary look. “I trust you.”

He nods once, then he leaves.