Until Friday Night (The Field Party, #1)

by Abbi Glines

But people weren’t born cruel. Life made them that way.

I closed my eyes and pictured her up there in that window. Lost in her thoughts. In her solitude. She had spent so much time the past two years locked inside herself. Not talking to others. I didn’t like to think about it. The idea of her being alone hurt me. I understood it, but I wished I’d been able to be there for her the way she was for me.

“Did you ever have times when you couldn’t breathe? When the pain was so intense, it squeezed your throat and held on tight?”

I learned to think about something that made me happy. That gave me peace. I refused to let the pain control me. And the squeezing would ease up, and I could breathe again.” She gave me peace. She was the only thing that had given me peace in a long time.

“One day that is what will happen, West. And it will be incredibly hard. But what you can do now is make the most out of the time you have left. Talk to him even if he can’t talk back. Hold his hand. Tell him everything you want him to know. So when he’s gone you don’t have regrets.”

If I talked, they’d want me to talk about him. About what I saw him do. About how he begged me to forgive him as I screamed for my mother to wake up. And I couldn’t do that. I wasn’t ready. I doubted I ever would be.

us. Remembering the way he would refer to us as “my girls” made my stomach churn.

I should be glad he was smiling and winking at a girl rather than being sad. But as the girl currently secretly crushing on West, I was a little cracked around the edges.

Maggie was my peace in the storm.

His smile was the kind of smile that was so rare, you wanted to keep it. It made you sit around and think of things to do just to get that smile flashed at you.

A jolt shot through my chest as I sat there and stared at her. Was she even real? How did she say the exact things I always needed to hear? I was beginning to think she was my guardian angel. If there were such a thing. God sure had let us down, but maybe he’d sent Maggie to me to give me the strength and comfort I was missing.

“Boys don’t always make the right decisions. It takes years before they become men and wise up.”

“Just because I want something, doesn’t mean I’m cruel enough to take it. I’d never do that to her. She is just my friend. She will always be just my friend.”

He winked. I hated it when he winked at me. Mostly because I loved it when he winked. I hated that I loved it. Because friends did not get birds in their tummies over winks.

“Can I stay a while if we whisper?” Like I would tell him no. I never told him no. Even though I should tell him no. . . . It wouldn’t hurt him for me to tell him no, and he could stand to hear it more often. “Of course.”

I thought she’d gone and lived her hell alone. But in reality, she was still living it, and I could do for her what she did for me. Hold on to her so she never lost herself.

I had never been in love, so I had nothing to compare it to, but there was no question in my mind that West Ashby had become the most important person in my life. I was in love with him. I could be whatever it was he needed me to be. Even if that would always be just a friend.

There was nothing to say. In the face of sorrow and loss, no words could ever be adequate.

“Come on,” he said with a smile on his lips. I would have gone anywhere to get him to smile on a day like today.

I couldn’t help but wish we were something more. That West was mine. Because whether he realized it or not, I was his.

“You’ll survive and you’ll remember, but you’re never going to forget. One day you’ll be thankful for those memories. Thankful you don’t forget.”

This was going to be my undoing. This girl. She was going to claim me.

He was trying to survive. I was giving him a reason to survive. He was taking from me. But I wanted to give myself to him.

I held her while I looked out at the lights of Lawton below us, I let the first tear fall. For all that I had lost. For all that I had found. For all I couldn’t lose now but feared I would.

She had become my lifeline. I wanted to be hers. I wanted her to feel this way about me, too.

Standing up, I walked over to the mirror, then reached out and touched the girl there. She was older than the one I once knew. Her eyes held more strength and maturity. But she was happy. That was familiar.

I lost myself in his touch, and it wasn’t until he broke our kiss that I opened my eyes and remembered I wasn’t floating on a cloud.

I reached up and cupped his face this time. “Before you, I never smiled. I never laughed. I’d forgotten how. I was alone, and I didn’t know any other way. But you saved me. You make me feel appreciated, needed, wanted. You brought me out, and you gave me reasons to laugh again. Just seeing you makes me smile. No one could ever mean to me what you mean to me.”

He was wrapping himself so tightly around my heart, I feared it was too much. Too fast. But I wouldn’t stop it.

She had a family now. One she would allow into her world. Maggie wouldn’t be silent anymore.

“In life we often have to make decisions that aren’t easy. But it doesn’t mean they aren’t right.” “But what if they’re wrong?” I asked before I could stop myself. She let me go and moved to fix me a plate. “Then fate steps in and fixes things. You just have to trust it.”

had always been told my future was on the field and I could be somebody great. And I had wanted that. Until I found somebody who needed me. And I realized the only person I wanted to be great for was her.