The Bars Between Us

34. 'Crush?'

I sit up reaching for the wine glass, the TV playing lowly in the background. I return to my slouched position next to Piper on the couch.

"You know, if you can get the time this week we should go down to New York," I suggest, leaning my head so I can see her. She meets my eyes.

"To go shopping?"

"Well yeah we could... but I was thinking that we could look into that case I showed you. You know, talk to people. See where it happened. The case file was what I was down there last week for."

She sits up, looking back at me. I take a sip of my wine, not looking at her, waiting for her response.

"OK, what's with you and this case?" I bite my lip, sitting up as well. I place the wine glass down on the coffee table and decide whether to be 100% truthful with her or just to tell her some of it. She's my best friend and she already knows more than my parents do. She's proven to me that she won't judge when I told her about Roman, but this is different. I don't want her to think that I'm obsessed, or crazy for liking Nixon. Technically I'm still married to Roman and I don't want her to get the wrong idea, even though she'll probably be happy that I no longer want to be with Roman.

I place a hand to my head, rubbing slightly. I'm getting a headache trying to understand what the right thing to do is. Why does it have to be so complicated? Why can't Roman be a good husband? Why did I have to meet Nixon, and start whatever kind of relationship we have? But at the same time, I wish for nothing different. For some reason, even with Nixon being a criminal, and nothing happening other than him noticing things no-one else has and me saying that I think he's innocent of the crime, he's one of the people I feel that I can really trust.

I let out an exhale loudly.

"I-" I pause trying to form all of my thoughts into a coherent explanation before I continue. "The case came from a guy at the prison, who I have, kind of, befriended..."

"Befriended?" she asks.

"Well yeah."

"Dee-" she starts, but stops herself halfway through, "I know you've made friends in the past at the prison, but you've never gone as far as to look into their guilt before."

"Well, Nixon's... different," I say, wanting to take it back as soon as I said it. It sounded worse than I intended. I should have just said that I never doubted the other people's guilt, but I didn't think that Nixon was innocent until he asked me. It wasn't like I made the decision without prompting. I hadn't even considered anyone else's guilt before Nixon.

"Don't tell me you have a crush on him," she says raising her eyebrows at me. I pick up my wine glass and take a gulp. "Oh my god, you do!"

I scoff, standing up and going to get the bottle of wine. If I have to keep avoiding her questions, I'll need more wine.

"So?" I ask, walking back to the couch. I pour both of us a new glass, before placing the bottle on the table.

"What do you mean so?"

"I don't know - it's just a crush. Nothing can happen," I say what I have been reminding myself for the past weeks.

"Yeah, but if you find him to be innocent you'd get a chance," she says grinning at me, "that's why you're so adamant on finding him innocent."

"What? No, I'm still married to Roman." I play what I just said over in my head, again and again, noticing how disappointed I sound.

"Not for long," Piper mutters. I shoot her a look, and she rolls her eyes at me. "Look, I just don't want you to get hurt - by Roman or this Nixon, OK? Just be careful you're not giving him the wrong impression if you only see it as being a crush. And I think New York sounds like a good idea. I'll have to see whether Mr. Woodley will give me the time, however."

I stare at the TV. Am I giving Nixon the wrong impression? I don't even know what that impression would be, and what Nixon thinks our relationship is. All we've done is ever talk, and not once did our relationship possibly being more come up. I just thought we were friends, but with Mason's call, I'm starting to think that maybe the feelings aren't just on my side.

I hope you liked it!

I will be posting another part on Radish later today, so it will be a month again until I post here. Radish also has this new feature which is an in-app live chat. It goes up for 3 hours after a part is posted, where you can interact with other readers and me (the author)! If you subscribe to The Bars Between Us on Radish you will get a push notification 30 minutes after a part is posted, saying the chat room is now available, and another 15 minutes before it ends. Why am I telling you? Because I'll be hanging around, and chatting to all of you who want to join.

If you don't have the Radish app, it is entirely free (apart from any coins you want to buy to get parts), and available on iOS and Android. So why not download it and come and say hi, and join in the conversation. I would love to talk to you. I hope to see you there later!

What did you think?

What will happen next?

Thanks for reading, voting, commenting, sharing, and following!

CC ;)