32. Maggie

Ihad stayed out in front of Tommy's brownstone five minutes longer than I needed to, watching him talk with Sutton. I don't know what made me stay there, but I think part of me was hoping I'd blink and Sutton would suddenly not be there anymore.

It would just be Tommy.

My Tommy.

Alone.

But every time I blinked and opened my eyes again, I saw the two of them talking with each other. I saw Tommy smiling about whatever Sutton was talking with him about, and I felt every shred of my recently repaired heart obliterating inside my chest.

Before I did anything embarrassing, I hurried back toward Mrs. Adams's car with tears in my eyes. A small voice in the back of my head warned me that driving right now probably wasn't the brightest idea, but all I wanted to do was get far away from Tommy.

I slid inside the safety of the car, feeling like the four walls were enough privacy to let a few tears slide down my cheeks. Somehow, seeing Sutton in Tommy's arms didn't feel like a complete surprise. It was almost the perfect twist of fate to let me believe my luck had started to change, to let me believe that I was finally worth finding love again, and then take all of that away from me in the blink of an eye.

Even though every part of me wanted to stay parked on the side of the road and throw myself a pity party, I didn't want to risk Tommy or Sutton coming around the corner to see me parked there like a fool. So I slid the key back into the ignition and turned the engine over.

To hear nothing.

I tried again.

Nothing.

My mouth dropped open in surprise at the sheer audacity that fate was testing me with in that moment. I tried the key one more time to make sure that this was really happening, and when the car stayed silent, I pushed my head back into the headrest of the seat.

"Are you kidding me right now?" I groaned up at the ceiling. "Can someone up there give me a break for once? Have I not been good?"

With no other choice, I pulled my phone out and dialed the only lifeline I could think of.

"Hey, girl! How's your day off?" Olivia's voice came over the line.

"I need you to pick me up somewhere. I don't care how long it takes." I didn't bother with any small talk. All I wanted to do was curl up into a ball on my couch and eat an entire tub of ice cream. The faster I could get there, the better.

"Where are you?" She didn't even bother asking me if I was okay, which was why I loved her. Her priority was getting to me first to make sure I was safe before she asked what happened. I gave her the address where I was before we hung up the phone.

As soon as I refocused on the quiet space around me, the only thing my brain could think about was Tommy with his arms around Sutton, and I knew that if I stayed inside the car any longer, I would surely explode into a mess of tears. Before I could watch Sutton in Tommy's arms for probably the hundredth time in the past five minutes, I threw the door open to Mrs. Adams's Buick and leaned against the side of the car. My breath was coming in heavily like I had run a marathon as I tried to prevent myself from experiencing any kind of anxiety episode.

I raked my hands over my eyes, sure that I had smeared my mascara but not really caring. All I wanted to do was pull these overwhelming emotions out of my body and distance myself from them as much as possible. But before I could attempt that form of exorcism, I heard the one voice I really was hoping to avoid.

Before I risked getting caught standing around the corner from Tommy's house with raccoon eyes and snot smeared on my shirt, I dove behind the trunk of the car with the hope that I could avoid being spotted. A few seconds later, Tommy walked around the corner with Sutton. The two weren't walking particularly close to each other, but they were both laughing at something that had been previously shared.

Envy raged within me. My heart desperately ached for me to be in Sutton's place, sharing a conspiratorial laugh with Tommy. I hated the fact that she was getting the opportunity to do that, and I hated the fact that I felt such a thing. Logically, I didn't have the right to be jealous over who Tommy shared any sort of emotions with, only because he had never been mine in the first place.

Their voices grew closer and I drew into myself, hoping to make myself as small as possible. The closer it sounded like they were, the more I slowly edged to slide around to the opposite side of the car. Tommy walked Sutton to what looked to be a rental car and opened the driver's door for her. She rolled the window down after she pulled the door shut, and luckily they were close enough that I could hear what she said to him.

"You deserve happiness, Tommy." Tommy dropped his eyes toward his feet and gave her a reluctant nod before he backed away from the car and gave Sutton enough room to pull away from the curb. My mind raced with the worst-case scenario.

Did Sutton convince him that he wasn't happy here in Chicago?

Did he want his old life back?

Was she what he wanted?

Was she the happiness he deserved?

A small part of my brain recognized the irrationality of the thoughts flying through my head, but they felt too consuming at the moment to ignore. A stupid tear snaked down my face, and I swiped at it with the back of my hand.

Tommy's eyes shifted over to me, crouching behind a car, clearly trying to avoid being caught.

"Maggie?" he called, walking closer.

I shot up and looked around, desperately wishing for Olivia's car to magically appear. But Tommy quickened his pace, seeing my resemblance to a trapped animal and not wanting me to bolt.

"When did you get here?" His questions kept coming, but my brain wasn't able to process any answers to them. Tommy's eyes shifted down to the keys dangling from my fingers and then to the car behind me.

"Did you drive here?" He was now a few paces from me and probably close enough to take in the smeared mascara and red eyes. "Are you okay?"

Luckily, it seemed like life had taken pity on me and given me a break. Olivia's car came to a stop next to me, and she rolled down the window to catch my eye. Without giving Tommy another look or even a response, I pulled open Olivia's door and dove inside. I heard him shout my name again as Olivia pulled away, leaving him disappearing behind us in the rearview mirror.

After a few minutes of silence, Olivia finally turned to me. "What happened?"

"His ex was here." I didn't add anything else. Olivia knew Tommy's history and she could connect the dots from prior knowledge.

"Are you two done?" The question made me pause. I thought about the contract that we both had signed.

Can we be done?

"I'm not sure we can be done," I told her truthfully. I didn't care that Monica wanted nobody to know the truth behind the origin of Tommy's and my relationship. All I wanted was to talk through my very real feelings for a boy with my best friend.

"What do you mean you're not sure you can be done?" Olivia asked.

I let out a breath before I looked back over at her. "I haven't been telling you the truth."

Olivia's eyebrows shot up in surprise. I was not the type of person who would lie or could lie very well, so the fact that I was telling her I had lied to her and she hadn't already suspected it was probably catching her off guard.

"My relationship with Tommy didn't start off real." The words felt weird coming out of my mouth, like my brain was finally registering what I had gotten myself into. Olivia didn't ask me to elaborate. The deafening silence between us spoke the words for her.

"The night the two of us left the club was innocent. I wanted to leave, and Tommy offered to take me home. When the paparazzi posted the photo they took of us, it didn't go over well with the PR team for the Cougars." Olivia turned south on Lake Shore Drive, driving toward my apartment. "Monica, the head of the PR team, gave Tommy only one option, which was to fake date me. She offered us a contract. Tommy would get to keep his job with the Cougars, and I would get a fat bonus."

Olivia coughed next to me, her eyes widening. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah," I told her. "Monica told us no one could know. I was too afraid of telling you and risking your job, so I kept it to myself."

"Maggie Redford!" she exclaimed. "Shut up! You hustler!"

A smile spread across my face at Olivia's outburst. I knew her mind was probably reeling. This was completely uncharacteristic of me.

"So what happened?" Olivia's voice was insistent, like she was now invested in the story.

"I caught feelings." I ducked my eyes down toward my hands, not wanting to see any disappointment on my best friend's face. "I'm pretty sure I'm in love with him."

"In love?"

"I was actually going over to his place just now to tell him, but when I got there, I saw him hugging Sutton James, his ex-girlfriend."

"Why is she coming out of the woodwork?" Olivia's support for me was exactly why I loved her.

"She must have decided she wanted Tommy again when she saw us at the ESPYS, but the reason we are in this mess in the first place is because of Tommy's reputation. So who's to say he hasn't been playing me the whole time?"

Olivia pulled up to my apartment, and the two of us got out to head inside. I was dreading having to tell Mrs. Adams that her car was stuck in Lincoln Park, but I was going to handle that later. Right now, I wanted to give myself time to grieve a relationship that may have never been real before I had to face her again.

"Were they just hugging?" Olivia asked as I unlocked my apartment door.

"That's all I saw."

"Are you sure it wasn't an innocent hug?" Olivia pressed.

"Olivia, are you serious?" I threw myself down on the couch and pulled a discarded blanket around me.

"Maggie, I need you to listen to me for a second." She walked over to sit next to me on the couch. "Even though I may not have been in on the whole charade, I know my best friend, and the girl I saw with Tommy Mikals was someone I hadn't met before. She looked alive. I also may not know Tommy very well, but the way that boy looked at you when there was no one to fool or cameras to capture something was like you were turning into his whole world."

It was like fate wanted to rear its head again because my phone went off and Tommy's name flashed across the screen. Olivia and I stared down at the phone. A small part of me wanted to pick up the call and hear what he was going to say, but a bigger part of me was too scared that he was going to lie to me again and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. The phone continued to go off for a few more seconds before the call went to voice mail.

Olivia reached over to take my hands in hers. Her thumbs rubbed up and down the back of my hand as she looked at me. "Babe, you have effectively blocked out every potential for a relationship in your life. This is the first time you did this on your own. You willingly got into this relationship with Tommy, whether it was fake or not to begin with. I think you need to give him a chance."

What she said was logical. Tommy deserved to either explain or defend himself. But I wasn't ready for that conversation. I knew I couldn't tell Olivia that though, so I nodded my head, pretending to agree with her in the moment.

"Listen, I really need some alone time right now," I trailed off.

"Of course." Olivia stood up, but not before wrapping me in a hug. "I'll check on you tomorrow."

I walked her to the door, giving her one more wave as she left. As soon as the door closed, I threw myself back down on the couch and flipped the television on. The previous movie I had been watching was paused and I clicked play, transporting myself into someone else's happily ever after and away from my own disaster.