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"Now I don’t knohy the fuck you just went off on ht nohat happened to put you in thehis closed fist underin those hypnotic eyes again "Paisley, you don’t cry for anything Tell me who hurt you"

You It’s always been you Tears continued to fill ain

A broken exhale left him when I stepped away and climbed intoWhen did that change?"

When I realized I’ve been-- And that’s when it hitfor soover at my best friend, and the man who had held my heart for twelve years, I wiped away tears and answered siust 30, 2013

Eli

I HUNG UP and threw the phone against the recliner before falling onto ? Paisley and I usually didn’t go , and that was if ere busy It’d been a week since the night at O’Malley’s and she hadn’t returned any ofshe ith Kristen last night, I would have already filed a h ht I didn’t even kno to explain what had happened with her One second we’re watching the ga not to pass out fro her hardest not to cry, and yelling and cussing atwith that picture One, Paisley hates Guinness with a passion, and thinks German beer should be the only beer consumed Two, I’ve seen her cry two times in all the years that I’ve known her and rerandpa passed, and when Johnny Gallo tried to ruin her publicly after she gave hi I wished she’d saved for someone who treated her like she was his world Three, she has only yelled at ot her first car We had covered her car in Post-it notes, but only after we’d finished Saran-wrapping the entire thing And four, I have never once, in the twelve years of knowing her, heardanother trip to her aparttone, and I launched across the space from the couch to the recliner

"Pay?" I answered, and exhaled a heavy sigh of relief when I heard her voice coh

"Hey, Eli"

"How’ve you been, are you okay? Goddamn, Paisley, I don’t even understand what happened last weekend"

"Language," she whispered, and a large smile crossed my face "Do you think--uh, do you think we could talk?"

I was already going for my keys on the counter "Of course, I’ to a halt, I paused for a few seconds before rollingto see you"

"Can you meet me at Grind?"

"You haven’t answered my calls in almost a week, and you want to talk about last weekend in a coffee shop? Are you serious?"

She sighed, and when she finally answered ht, when?"

"I’ out my door "I’ll be there in fifteen"