“No,” I replied, “we don’t.” My eyes started to sting. Keep it together. I really didn’t want to ugly cry in front of him. “I don’t want to lose you, though.”
“Neither do I.” He got up from his chair and moved next to me, wrapping me up in one of his arms. That was better. I needed him to not hate me enough to touch me. “There’s just too much to make this work and I think we’d both end up hating each other if we force it. I think we’re better as friends.”
That was what I thought, too, and what I wanted, but it was still hard to agree that we were never going to get back together. “I’d really like the friend thing.”
“Good.” He leant over and kissed me softly for one second. I knew that was it, the goodbye kiss that officially ended our relationship once and for all. I gulped and blinked rapidly, trying to stop myself from crying. Even though it was a mutual decision it still royally sucked.
When I’d composed myself, I smiled at Lucas. “What else has been going on then?” Friends would ask that, right?
“Not much, been racing a lot.”
“Do you race for anything?”
“It’s not Fast and the Furious, Tegan.”
“Well, I don’t know,” I said. “It just seems pointless to do it for no reason.”
“There’s a reason. You race for the biggest balls.”
“Lovely,” I replied, turning my nose up in disgust. I wished I never asked. “Can I come again?”
“Wanna perv over the Lamborghini?”
I nodded. That car was amazing. “And you can take me out in it again and let me have a go. Danny doesn’t need to know a thing.”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”
I laughed and laid back in the sofa. This was going well. The friend thing was going to work.
“Tell me how sixth form is going? Are you going to uni?”
I launched into giving him the low down on my classes and what I wanted to do once I’d finished my A levels, which wasn’t a long discussion because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go on to university yet. It was really nice to have a conversation with him that wasn’t intense or full of tension.
“I should get going,” I said after forty-five minutes of chatting.
“Alright.” He got up with me and walked to the front door. “You sure you don’t want me to take you home?” he asked.
“Thanks but I already have a bus ticket.”
“Okay, I’ll see you soon.” We exchanged a hug and I kissed him on the cheek. It felt normal and finally uncomplicated.
“See you later, Tegan.”
I turned around and said, “Thank you so much, Lucas.”
“For what?”
“For saving me.”
He nodded, his lips pulled up into a genuine smile.
‘Thank you’ seemed so small compared to what he did for me but I didn’t know what else to say. There was nothing huge enough to describe how grateful I was to him. He let me go despite not wanting to so I could concentrate on getting better.
Walking away from Lucas felt odd. We were one hundred per cent over but I felt fine about it. I wanted him in my life but friendship was all we were supposed to have and I was so lucky that we managed to get past the crap to be friends.
“How did it go?” Mum asked the second I stepped through the door “Good, actually.”
“Really? That’s great. What happened? What did you decide to do?”
I held my hands up. “Can I get properly inside the house before you start the inquisition?”
Mum waited literally until I was sitting down before asking, “So, what happened?”
“We talked about what we wanted and realised we just want to be friends. That was about it.”
“That was it?” Ava said flatly.
“Okay, no, but that’s all I’m going to tell you.” I grinned smugly and reached for the bowl of peanut M&Ms. They already had the junk food laid out, result. “I think things are going to be okay. I’m determined to work on fixing it like I am with you two.”
“It’s fixed, Tegan. We’re family, you’re my daughter, and I will never stop loving you. No matter what you do or how big of a pain in the arse you become, our relationship will always be fixable, I will always forgive because that’s what you do when you’re a mother.”
A few months ago I wouldn’t have believed that, I wasn’t close to them and I barely felt like family but that’d changed. It wasn’t just what you did when you were a mum it was what you did when you loved someone and I loved them both so much.
“See, baby sis, everything is fine so stop worrying and feeling guilty. It’s done, you’ve apologised a thousand times and you’ve changed your life. We forgave you a long time ago.”
“Thanks, Ava,” I said.
She smiled and added, “So, you’re really not going to spill? It’s a girls’ night, it’s like compulsory.”
I rolled my eyes, though she did have a point. But I’d only just started joining in on their girls’ nights so I didn’t feel compelled to spill all. “If I feel like it later I’ll tell, okay?” I said. That was the best she was going to get because, frankly, it was private and that’s how I liked it.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Tegan