Always Yours by Amicia Bianchi (best books to read fiction TXT) 📕

were still together. Some people were of the opinion that Emy most likely didn’t know who the father was, stating Emy’s lack of loyalty and apparently loose morals for justification. Others believed that the father didn’t want anything to do with her after she ended up pregnant. Whatever happened, when it was apparent that the father wasn’t going to be around, she had no problems using Bryce. She had to have known that he was still hurting yet she continued to make it harder for him to get over her. She kept him around because he was willing to help in any way that he could. "Help", which more often then not, involved buying things for the baby and, at times, he'd go over to help take care of her child yet she didn’t want him back and seemed to only want to make him jealous. I hadn’t rooted for them to be together but I definitely didn’t approve of what was going on either. I just couldn’t see how someone like that could be a good person but maybe she had changed over the years. However, that wouldn’t explain why his description of her back then would apply to her now and be so accurate. Since the incident on my birthday, which was the most recent thing, how could I fully trust that she wasn’t still trying to usurp me and get me out of the way so that she could have Bryce to herself.

 

Although skylar had claimed she wanted us to get along before basically leaving us to our own devices, I'm sure she was assuming we'd be miserable and hadn't anticipated that we'd start becoming friends. It seemed Skylar felt that forcing us to work together was bad enough of a punishment so she left us be and didn't feel the need to linger around but instead was keeping her distance. Despite having been the one to encourage us to learn to work together, get to know each other, and “get along” I don’t think she’d counted on us actually becoming friends. Since we had to work together I was willing to overlook my discrepancies with her past behavior and focus on the fact that she probably turned over a new leaf so that we could have good working relations during our assignment.

 

At first, I could see myself saying ‘hello’ to her if I saw her after this was over but as far as telling her personal stuff I didn’t think I was ready for that. Eventually she changed my mind on that too. Even though I had my misgivings about the past, from up close Emy was a genuine person and easy to talk to, that I couldn’t deny I held back because I wasn't sure which was actually her.

 

She seemed cool and fun to hang out with so I figured that we could be friends but I hadn’t seen her as a close friend or anything, since we weren’t on a level of really talking about personal things with each other. However, one night even that began to shift as we ended up talking about Skylar.

 

“You've said before that you're not getting anything out of this, so why are you doing it?” I finally asked her one of the questions that'd been plaguing my mind for a while.

 

“You aren't the only person who Skylar has wedged herself into their business, who she gives her “assignments” to,” she sighed. “I can understand your situation and how hard it can be, to be kept away from someone you love,” she then became silent for a moment, lost in thought perhaps over whatever it was Skylar had over her or maybe it was her grandmother, I couldn’t tell which. “I'd rather not go into detail about my situation, as I'm sure you're not itching to tell me your whole story either.”

 

“No, sorry,” I confirmed, “no offense or anything, you’re-” there were enough people already who knew about what had happened and what was going on. I may be becoming more opened to Emy through our shared suffering but it still seemed a bit wounding to tell Bryce's ex-girlfriend about our relationship, especially things I don't even have the courage to tell him yet. In addition, It still wasn’t entirely sure of her intentions.

 

“No, no. None taken, I can understand your hesitation completely,” she offered a sympathetic smile, “it's not something you easily tell everybody. It hurts,” she said getting that far away look again before refocusing her eyes back on me. “But that’s probably why we’ve ended up at this stage.”

 

“I don't get why she's doing this, what does she get out of it?” I complained bitterly.

 

“For me, I'm not sure. In your case, I think it's because she has a thing for Bryce. I don't think she'll ever admit it though,” she informed me.

 

“How do you figure that?” I wondered.

 

“I've seen a particular look flash in her eyes whenever she sees him. It's usually gone before you can really tell what exactly it's all about but something about it is definitely off,” she confided.

 

“I'd thought she couldn't stand him,” I voiced my thoughts on the matter, thinking back to the times I'd unloaded my frustrations with Bryce on her only for her to continue murmuring against him, even now.

 

It was as if she thought he was the devil and if I let her, I'm sure she'd try to convince me that he could never make me happy. Although we hadn't talked about him since before the funeral and I haven't been seeing much of her lately.

 

“It also seemed like she was trying to get close to him after Bryce and I broke up. And I'm pretty sure I've caught her on occasion looking a tinge green while she looked at the two of you. It might just be that what she can't stand is the two of you being together,” she continued.

 

I thought about this new possible piece to the puzzle, turning it over in my mind. Emy had paused.

 

“For the record, I’m not interested in Bryce,” she announced, “as far as I’m concerned, he’s a great guy who finally deserves to be happy,” she had a conspiratorial look on her face that said she knew something that I didn’t. “We’ve been friends a long time, even before we started going out. The same way he wished me well after we broke up is what I wish for him. I hope that the two of you are just being stupid and nothing too bad is going on. I do apologize for what our relationship must have looked like to you but we definitely don’t feel anything romantic for each other. Hopefully, the two of you can stop be stubborn and just be happy.”

 

“Oh, thanks,” I could tell that she was telling the truth.

 

“My advice would probably be to ignore the things in the past that you feel Skylar and myself have done wrong to you. I don’t know what all Skylar is thinking but I think a part of her might not like seeing anybody finding happiness together despite showing or saying that she has any intentions to want to help…” she hadn't said much but the look in her eyes spoke volumes. “Despite our misconceptions of the past, let’s move forward, and anything that I do, going forward, take it that I mean well,” she tried to insert jokingly to lighten the mood a little.

 

In that moment, I felt like our budding friendship was cemented. Although we'd been warming up to each other lately, it was a testament to the fact that she must trust me. She may be an honest person but there was a certain degree of vulnerability about her as she'd spoken. That vulnerability and sincerity reminded me of Bryce.

 

I felt bad because I realized the day of my birthday Emy was probably trying to warn Bryce about what Skylar was doing. The predicament we were in now could have been avoided if she’d gotten to tell him what was going on. However, she didn’t get a chance to because of me.

 

“But, you know, we're not the only ones. There are others like us too,” she went on, pulling me out of my sad thoughts.

 

“What?” I asked, not sure I'd heard her correctly. “What do you mean?”

 

"Others"? There are "others"?

 

“Skylar is the type of person who gets around but no one realizes it or what’s she’s really doing. For instance, did you think you were the only person she talked to? It may come as a shock to you be but she is the type of person who's friends with people that you didn't even know she talked to. I happened to notice what happened at the pack meeting the other day. You know why your friends were so surprised? Because they all talk to her but when they saw her with you they realized that they weren't the only one she had, just like you. Although, I daresay that they still haven’t figured it out amongst themselves that she’s friends with each of them too,” she huffed a laugh, shaking her head.

 

It does appear that way.

 

“Although she’s been here for years she still has ‘new kid syndrome’ and she doesn’t seem to have any friends. At first glance, you might get the impression that she may just be a loner, she doesn’t like attention and prefers to fade into the background. As you talk to her more she comes off as nice, even appears to care about others and their problems. She's easily befriended yet you never see her hanging out with a group, even if she’s actually friends with everybody in the group. She’s truly stealthy, I’ll give her that,” she informed.

 

“If nobody knows about anybody else how do you know so much?” I inquired, needing clarification.

 

“Because I’ve been around long enough,” she answered simply, “and I guess perhaps I’m ‘lucky’,” I was almost afraid to ask her anything else as she comes off as someone who’s seen her fair share.

 

“How many "others" are there?” I pressed on anyway because I felt I should know at least this much.

 

How can she be getting away with doing this to people?

 

“It’s not every “assignment” that you work with a partner, as you probably know. So I don't know, I haven't met all of the others. But on behalf of them: welcome to 'the network’.”

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Publication Date: 07-29-2015

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