Enemies with Benefits

Chapter Thirty-Seven

- Caleb -

"Your girl still avoiding you?"

I rolled my eyes at the comedian of a bartender. "Har har, jackass. She's with her friend in New York. I told you that two nights ago."

Ryan shrugged, wiping up a puddle from someone's spilled drink a few seats down.

I'd closed out the bar the last now three nights, though not for the drinks themselves. I hadn't had a friend I trusted since Seth had stabbed me in the back, and Ryan was replacing that shitty memory quickly. I appreciated him, especially because he'd taken care of Rachel when we'd only been acquaintances mere weeks ago when she'd gotten plastered. I'd asked him to keep an eye on her, and he did.

Ryan eyed me up, his eyebrow quirked.

"Don't give me that look. She's coming back," I promised, no longer needing to say it to myself to force myself into believing it.

Had it been a shock to hear she was on the other side of the country? Absolutely. I'd told her to go home and be sure this was what she wanted, and all of a sudden, she was on the other damn coast.

But I didn't blame her. Not like I once would've. She went to Hailey, and I understood why. I selfishly wanted her a mere minutes' drive away, but she needed this. And I needed to let her have it.

The moment she told me, I'd wanted to flip my lid. But instead, I kept my promise to Rachel and to myself, and I called Dr. Nichols.

_

"I suggested she go home and have some time to think. She left the whole state. Went to the other side of the country, actually. So she damn near left the entire US. Just like she did nine years ago, and that took her almost a decade to come back."

"Her biggest fear is people leaving, right? Caleb, what's worse than someone you love leaving you?" my therapist asked.

I shrugged, entirely unaware of the answer to that question.

"How would you feel if someone you loved and spent most of your life trusting as your friend turned out to be lying at every corner anyway? Even if she knew that Leah wasn't a true friend, thinking it and confirming it are two very different things. And now, she's spent nine years hating not necessarily you but the situation. And it's all been a lie. So, yes, to take time to be sure you're both ready for this, I believe she did what was best for her in going to someone she can fully trust. Someone she can be herself with while they've also not been an insider into this situation from day one."

I nodded along, understanding icing through my veins where betrayal had ignorantly started flowing through.

"Now, I need you to find what works for you. Because sitting alone as you did nine years ago, closing yourself off to the world, it won't give you any different outcome than it did the first time. If Rachel found a true friend to confide in, why don't you?"

Oh, what a loaded question. But then again, if I could sit here and let my shit out for a stranger after all this time, maybe it was time to trust someone else again. Or, at least, try.

Rachel will come back, I reminded myself. She loved me, I knew, and I had wanted to wait for her to say it until we were unconditionally and irrevocably okay.

Happy.

Together.

_

When I'd gone to the bar later that night, Ryan had seen me looking like a damn loner. I hadn't meant to, I just felt like a scolded puppy with its tail tucked between its hind legs because my first instinct had me thinking the worst. But I'd not acted upon it, rather sought my therapist. Which I figured had to count for something.