The Friend Zone (The Friend Zone, #1)

by Abby Jimenez

to live with a woman like that. He was a literature professor.” Mom had listened to him. He softened her. And when he died, she’d gone from difficult to impossible.

“Marrying your best friend.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “You marry your best friend, and at family gatherings you deal with your shitty relatives together. You laugh about it and have each other’s backs. Share looks and text each other from across the room when everyone else is being an asshole. And nobody else really matters because you have your own universe.” He held my eyes for a moment. “That’s what I want. I want someone to be my universe.”

He had this way of waking up dormant parts of my soul.

My heart was a neglected building, and every day I weathered a fierce storm that dripped through my roof, flooded my floors, and broke my windows, and the disrepair just made me weaker and closer to collapse.