His Friends, Her Friends, His Mother, All Lied To Her Face Chapter 08

His Friends, Her Friends, His Mother, All Lied To Her Face Chapter 08

Ryan stayed in Riverton.

He kept appearing near me—sometimes outside my office, sometimes downstairs from my apartment building. Some days he brought me a hot breakfast; other days, he showed up with a beautifully wrapped gift.

I pretended not to see him.

When Tessa came to find me, I was about to head to my mother’s house.

I had just stepped outside when I saw her standing quietly near the entrance, twisting her fingers together. When she saw me, she called softly, “Claire.”

“What are you doing here?”

A mix of emotions crossed her face.

“I was wrong about Maya.”

“I saw myself in her—alone, with no one to rely on.”

“So I wanted to help her.”

I held her gaze.

“So you chose to push me down to lift her up?”

Her lips parted, but no words came out.

“Tessa, when you were at your lowest, wasn’t I the one who stayed by your side?”

—

I truly didn’t understand, so I asked her with complete sincerity.

“You could have helped her. Why did it have to come at my expense?”

“We’ve known each other for ten years. Honestly, your betrayal was even harder to accept than Ryan’s.”

Tessa’s face went white.

I suddenly remembered the day of my dress fitting. She had stood in front of Maya and told me that I had her and Ryan, so I needed to stop making a scene.

But one was my fiancé, and the other was my best friend. The two people closest to me had both chosen someone else.

It had seemed as though I had everything, yet in reality, I had nothing.

Thankfully, I no longer cared.

Tears streamed down Tessa’s face. She reached for me with trembling hands, but I stepped back.

The movement made her freeze. She looked up at me cautiously.

“Claire, can we still be best friends?”

I shook my head.

“The Tessa I called my friend was the slight, skinny girl who would still throw herself in front of me to protect me. She wasn’t the Tessa who joined everyone else in lying to me.”

“From now on, we shouldn’t contact each other again.”

Tessa sank into a crouch as though she had been crushed by grief.

—

By the time I had walked some distance away, I heard muffled sobs behind me.

I didn’t look back.

When I arrived at my mother’s house, she had already made a pot of my favorite soup and was watching television.

The moment I walked in, she set down the remote.

“Claire, would you go see a movie with me tomorrow?”

Warmth spread through me, and I immediately understood what she was trying to do.

My mother was in poor health and rarely went out. She only wanted to keep me from getting trapped in the past.

I smiled, walked over, and linked my arm through hers.

“How could I say no when Her Majesty herself asked?”

Life was quieter than it had been before, but being able to spend more time with my mother still made me deeply content.