The Space In Between

Chapter Thirty-Two

I SHUT THE car door, watching Eric carry Michelle towards the house. What a f*cking night. Andrea looked at me and I gave her a half smile. She still looked pretty drunk, and cold. “Let’s get inside.”
“Wait,” she said as she walked closer to me. I took her cold hands and rubbed them together between my hands to warm them up.
“What is it?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I know from day one my signals towards you have been confusing and all over the place. And I make rules. And I change them. I cry and say panda. But next I’m begging for soda pop. Then I want you to go away. And I change the rules again. And now we are friends, with no benefits, and I don’t know how I messed this up so much.”
“It’s all right, Andie.”
She chuckled. “It’s not. I just wish…” She wandered off with her sentence, shifting her feet on the ground. I kissed the top of her head and rubbed her arms.
“You’re drunk.”
“No,” she shook her head. “I’m wide awake. And I know deep down in my heart that if today were opposite day and you had told me you hated me…I want you to know that I would say I hate you, too.”
Her eyes glimmered like the white snow as she poured her heart out to me. She loves me. I went to open my mouth to speak, but before I could, she was bending over, violently vomiting on my shoes.
How f*cking romantic.





“THIS SUCKS,” ANDREA moaned into the toilet as I sat on the edge of the tub.
“At least with your new haircut you don’t have to worry about holding your hair back.” I chuckled towards the tequila-suffering beauty. Tequila was never a good choice. It had a way of making you feel like its best friend and suddenly, without any warning, it stabs you in the back and mocks you.
“I’m never drinking again…” she whispered. I laughed, secretly hoping she would remember her confession to me. My smile faded a bit as I thought of the other confession I’d heard today from Steve. I was beating myself up for knowing the lies Derrick had kept from her. But Derrick was gone, so what good would it be to tell her about Rachel and him? I wondered if she would still be mourning over a cheater…
I should tell her. If it came out I’d known and hadn’t told her, she would kill me. Even worse, she would hate me. And I didn’t mean the ‘opposite day’ kind of hate. And there were all the things I already wasn’t telling her—all the information about Iris, my past, and the paparazzi that she deserved to know.
I’d tell her when the time was right—and when her head wasn’t in the toilet.