I do know what she’s talking about. I’ve lived with that type of responsibility since the moment a doctor told me I had type 1 diabetes. “Screw that, Abby. You don’t know shit about me.”
“You’re right, I don’t. Nobody knows you. You just walk around and stay silent and act insane and not one person knows you and in the end no one knows me. But the difference between us, Logan, is that your secrets won’t kill you. Your secrets won’t kill anyone. My secrets—they can hurt everyone I know and love. I’m seriously tired of having this conversation with you. I’m seriously tired of having to tell you in eight different languages that we are no longer friends.”
“You keep saying the words, but it’s me that keeps catching you when you fall and when you’re in my arms, I never feel you fighting.”
Abby presses her lips together in an annoyed way. “I am failing to, once again, see how any of my problems are your problems. I’m also failing to see why you can’t just listen and stay away.”
The out-of-control urge to shake her rips through my body. “Because I care for you. Because all of us care for you. You might be able to turn off your feelings for us, but we can’t turn off our feelings for you.” I pound my hand to my chest. “I can’t turn off my feelings for you!”
My chest rises and falls like I just rounded all three bases to make an infield home run and Abby appears just as flustered.
My secrets could definitely kill me just as much as a bullet to the head could kill Abby and that’s what’s frustrating about this. She can walk away from this life, but me...with having diabetes...I don’t have a choice.
The door to the cabin opens and the laughter that had been falling from the guys walking in dies. Abby and I keep staring at each other, both of us daring the other to look away. Her cheeks are red, so is her neck. She’s flushed with anger, flushed with embarrassment from the words I just admitted to her.
Isaiah walks out of the bathroom and he circles the room, avoiding walking between me and Abby and greets Noah first and then the other guys.
West lopes in like he always does, that overconfident stride with his hat on backwards and tosses an arm around Abby. “Rough night, Abby?
“Screw you, Young.” She pushes him away, breaking eye contact with me, and he only smiles at her, undeterred by her anger. “I need one of you to take me back.”
There had been rustling as Ryan, Chris, Noah, and West had been dropping their stuff on the floor, but all movement stops.
Ryan eyes me as he steps forward. He’s always been the leader of not only our baseball team, but of me and Chris. His girlfriend is Beth, the best friend and the self-proclaimed adopted sister of Noah and Isaiah, so he holds a lot of weight not just with me, but with a lot of guys in this room.
“I’m going to admit to not being up-to-date on things,” Ryan says to Abby, “but weren’t you shot and then just kidnapped?”
Her face squishes in disgust as she levels a glare at me. “Fantastic. You told everyone. What a great friend you turned out to be.”
She’s needling me. Trying to poke me until I fall off the edge. Abby wants me to get mad, toss her out, drive her home and permit her to continue to sacrifice herself for me and for her grandmother. Abby knows I pride myself on my ability to keep not only her secrets, but my own. She’s testing me...trying to make me believe that she thinks I’m not loyal.
Since I’ve met her, Abby has pushed and pushed and pushed. First into attraction, then into friendship, then into caring. If she walks away now she’ll never come back, and it dawns on me that she’s pushed me into falling in love.
I’m in love with Abby, and I hate her for it. It’s impossible to love someone who is willingly throwing their life away.
“Think I’m a shitty friend, Abby?”
She cocks her head in that seductive, deadly way. “Yes, I do.”
Secrets. Secrets are how Abby operates. It’s how she’s able to keep her job, keep up that damn wall that she throws up any time any of us get too close. Abby told me her secrets. Told me because she trusted me. Told me because she cares about me. Told me to drive me away, but Abby doesn’t understand that I’m desperate to keep her safe even if it means losing her in the process.
“Abby has a lead on who shot her,” I say and Abby’s eyes widen. “And she has no intention of quitting selling, even if it means she’ll die in the end.”
“What are you doing?” Abby steps toward me.
“You said it—your secrets could kill you, so let’s not make them secrets anymore.”
Abby rushes at me like she’s going to take me down, but West snakes an arm around her waist to prevent the tackle. “Easy, Abby.”
“I’m going to fucking kill him.”
“Fine,” I say. “But then you’ll still be alive.”
“You’re such a hypocrite,” she spits. “You keep your secrets, but you can’t keep mine.”
Pain and hurt and agony flash across her face and each emotion tears at me. I draw a hand over my face and dig for the courage to say the rest—to kill what’s left between me and Abby.
“Don’t do it,” Abby begs and Abby never begs. She’s crushing me, but it would crush me more if she died. “Please, Logan, don’t do it.”
“You were shot. You were shot and then you were kidnapped. You don’t have any more second or third chances.”