Since You've Been Gone

“You can’t just leave people behind because you think it’s going to be too hard to commit to a friendship. You can’t live your life that way.”

It just gets hard, always being someone’s second choice.

He laughed softly and shook his head, and I leaned back to be able to look at his face, which was close to mine, closer than it had ever been. “What?”

“Just . . . you,” he said after a moment, with a faint smile. “Crashing a wedding.”

“Your idea.”

“I know,” Frank said. “But I was just thinking about that first night at the Orchard.”

“What about it?” I asked. I was trying to focus on having a conversation with Frank, and trying not to think about how close together we were, that he was touching my waist, that he was holding my hand.

“You just seemed so . . . diminished,” he said after a moment. “Like you were hoping nobody would see you.”

I kept my eyes on his, not letting myself look away. “And now?”

He looked right back at me as he gave me a half smile. “You’re the brightest thing in the room,” he said. He lifted his hand from my waist, and slowly, carefully brushed a stray lock of hair from my cheek. “You shine.”

My breath caught in my throat. People said those kinds of things about Sloane—not about me.

“What?” Frank asked, his eyes on mine.

“Just . . .” I took a shaky breath. “Nobody’s ever said something like that to me.”

“Then they don’t see what I see,” he said. I looked into Frank’s eyes and knew, without a doubt, that he meant every word. I started to say something when the chorus kicked in and Frank moved closer to me.