Girl In Pieces Read Online Free Page B

made her sound…”
    “Perfect?”
    “… driven . And not even a real red head.” Julie brought two mugs of hot chocolate to the couch and forced one into my hands. “Typical type-A personality. I bet she’s a Leo.”
    “She doesn’t sound very, um…” I tried to search for the right word, but my one night hadn’t been enough education to make me not sound like a bumbling domination newb. “Obedient?”
    “Right? That’s exactly what I said to Tyler. I asked him why someone like Josh would spend his time with a woman who didn’t sound particularly subbie. He said she was a great performer and very successful at most things she put her mind to. He said she didn’t seem submissive because she wasn’t, strictly speaking. She’s a switch.”
    “I have no idea what that means.”
    “It’s ok, I swear I feel like I need flash cards sometimes when Tyler and I talk.” She blushed and quickly hid behind her mug. “From what I understand, a switch is someone who goes both ways. They enjoy both topping and bottoming, depending on the partner and scene. She bottoms for Josh. Has for a long time I guess. But Tyler doesn’t think they’ve ever been in a relationship. Just friends.”
    She bottoms for him.   Those words sounded so intimate and important. She was his   in a way he hadn’t wanted me to be. How could I compete with that? She wasn’t just some flakey girl with pretty hair and a tiny waist. She was talented and driven and established. She was a grown up where I was still more or less a child. I ate popcorn for dinner, gorged on ten hour Doctor Who marathons, and mainlined coffee during all-nighters. She had a convertible and I had a monthly bus pass. What a joke.
    I swallowed and leaned back into the cushions, white-knuckling my hot chocolate. “Has…has Tyler talked to Josh since the party?”
    “Yes. A little.” Julie hesitated. “He told Tyler to mind his own business and hung up on him.”
    “Does Tyler know you’re telling me all this?”
    “Of course.” She smiled. “I told him that no bond was stronger than the one between girlfriends and he’d just have to live with that. He said he was telling me all this because he already knew that and his loyalty was to my bestie as much as it was to me.”
    “Wow, shit, he is perfect. I think I’m kind of in love with him.”
    Julie looked into her mug, the smile fading as quickly as it had appeared. “Yeah. Me too. Kind of.”
    “It’s ok if you do.” I softened. “You can tell me. I want to know.”
    The little space between us filled with steam and the aroma of melting dark chocolate shavings. “It’s hard to know what I’m feeling for him. About him. The things we do together are so intense - like being stripped down to the bone and rebuilt, one stitch at a time. I feel grateful and I feel love and affection for him, and then fear too and crazy worry. Like, he can’t be this perfect can he? When does he get to the heart breaking moment because it can’t keep feeling this fantastic.”
    “You know,” I said and touched her wrist through her bangles. “There doesn’t have to be a heart breaking moment.”
    Julie rolled her eyes. “Of course there does. You’ve known Josh your whole life and he did it in one night. I’ve known this guy for like five seconds.”
    “The difference, though, is that Josh and I should never have crossed that line.”
    She squinted and frowned at where my hand touched her wrist. I pulled away and slipped my fingers back in a death grip around my mug. “You don’t really believe that. Oh my god, you really believe that, don’t you?”
    “I have to.” I stared into my mug and watched the dark swirls circle the last of the melting chocolate. Like a dozen tiny, sinking ships. “Or else I’ll absolutely lose my mind.”
    “Kat, you need to talk to him. You need to confront him and find out why he did what he did. This is Josh we’re talking about. There has to be a reason.”
    I shook my