My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 509

Chapter 509

“Even if it’s important?” he questioned.

“Especially if it’s important.”

Walker folded his hands, “So your solution is to say nothing.”

“Correct.”

“And you’re comfortable with that?”

I laughed again, “No. I want to tell her.”

Walker didn’t react.

I continued, “I want to tell her every time she smiles at me. Every time she touches me. Every time she calls me her friend,” My jaw tightened hard enough to hurt, “Especially then.”

Walker watched me carefully, “Why especially then?”

I stared at the wall because everytime she called me her friend, it felt like I was being skinned alive and the fact that she smiled while saying it.

She looked happy.

She trusted me.

And she had absolutely no idea what she was doing to me.

I rubbed a hand across my face, “Because she thinks that’s all this is. That’s the problem. She thinks she understands the situation. She thinks we’re friends.”

The sentence sat badly in my mouth.

“She says it constantly now. ‘You’re my friend, Raphael,'” My jaw tightened, “You’re my best friend, Raphael.””

The pressure behind my ribs increased.

“And every single time she says it, she looks relieved, like she’s solved something.”

Dr. Walker folded his hands, “And why is that a problem?”

I looked at him, “Because she believes what I told her. For months I explained myself to her..I told her I don’t experience things the same way other people do. I told her there was something wrong with me and now she accepts it.”

Something I could break.

“And I can’t even correct her,” the words exploded out of me, “Because her mother is dying.”

I dragged both hands through my hair, pulling at the strands.

“She’s exhausted, she’s grieving, she’s trying to hold together college, ballet, her sister, her family. And somehow I am supposed to walk into that disaster and tell her that every time she calls me her friend I spend the next three hours trying not to lose my fucking mind?” I shouted the last words.

My chest expanded sharply before I forced myself back against the chair. I tried regulating my breathing. It produced no measurable improvement.

“I can’t,” my voice dropped, “I won’t because she doesn’t need that right now. She needs stability and support. She needs a friend.”

I laughed quietly, then shook my head.

“The irony is almost impressive because I spent months convincing her I was incapable of feeling something. And now she believes me so completely that she never even considers the possibility that I might be standing three inches away from her trying not to tell her the truth.”

For a long moment, I just stared at the wall then I let out a slow breath.

“And for what may be the first time in my life…”

I laughed again, “…I am deeply frustrated that someone listened to exactly what I told them.”