Free Deceive (Declan Reede: The Untold Story #2) by Michelle Irwin

certain that I had a lot to prove to her too.
    “Is everyone finished?” I asked. I was unable to shake the sorrow from my voice. Even though a few weeks ago I would never have considered the possibility that a date at McDonalds with a three-year-old in tow would be a good time, I’d actually really enjoyed myself.
    Both Alyssa and Phoebe nodded.
    “Did you want to go onto the playground?” I asked Phoebe, to delay the inevitable moment when we’d have to go home.
    She nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, please.”
    Alyssa took Phoebe out to the playground while I went inside and paid for the meal, for the staff member, and for the room. I’d never paid so much for McDonalds before; in fact I probably could have fed a family of four for a week for what it cost, but it was worth it. At least the night hadn’t been a total disaster, so I was happy.
    Before I joined Phoebe and Alyssa, I grabbed sundaes for all of us and another Coke for Alyssa and me to share. I smiled tentatively at her as I sat beside her on the parents’ seat inside the playground. She grabbed her sundae from me and I watched appreciatively as her tongue curled around the spoon to clear it of ice cream and chocolate sauce.
    Phoebe climbed through the holes and around the ladders all the way to the top of the playground. There was something almost joyous in her simple act of play. An emotion built within me that I couldn’t explain, a warmth that spread through my chest and lifted the corners of my lips.
    Alyssa’s hand was extended out onto the seat between us and before I realised what I was doing, I’d wrapped mine around it. She glanced down at our entwined fingers briefly but didn’t pull away.
    “I saw Ben today,” I said, mainly to fill the silence between us.
    She nodded, a sad look crossing her face. “How is he?”
    I heard the unspoken questions, the desperate urge she had to get acquainted with her old friend, Jade.
    “He and Jade are still together.” I wasn’t sure how much Alyssa knew, only that—from what Ben had said—she’d pulled herself away from them. “They have a couple of kids now.”
    She nodded. “Yeah, I know.” Her thumb began to brush a trail along the back of my hand. I closed my eyes briefly, relishing her touch and the simple pleasure she gave me.
    “He really wants to catch up with us both.”
    She nodded vaguely and watched Phoebe intently. “I want to, too. I just don’t know if I can.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Do you know why I stopped talking to them? Why I prefer to spend my time with Flynn?”
    Horrified by the overwhelming sadness in her voice, I shook my head.
    “When you left, well, everything reminded me of you. Like I said before, it wasn’t just a break-up . . . I lost my best friend. For a while, I tried to see everyone and pretend everything was normal, but it was different. We were no longer the awesome foursome. There was Ben and Jade the couple, and Alyssa the rejected one. I couldn’t face it. I felt like a third wheel all the time. And then I found out I was pregnant and I just . . .” She closed her eyes and blew out a breath.
    When she reopened them, her eyes had a hardness to them—as if she’d closed off the part of herself that felt the pain. I wondered how I’d never noticed the difference before. “And then Flynn came along one day and he was new. There were no ties to you. I could finally just be Alyssa, and not the one you left behind. It was refreshing.”
    I let go of Alyssa’s hand and put my arm around her shoulders. I wasn’t sure how she would react but she nuzzled into me as I squeezed her gently. I was beginning to see how much of a struggle it had been for her.
    When I left, I’d forged a new identity for myself. I was completely free of all memory of her, of us, and any time I found something that was a reminder, I ignored it or pushed it away. But Alyssa had been faced with our past every single day. Her entire support network was saturated