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Garret: Hello?
Garret: What the actual fuck? You’re just going to ignore me now?
Garret: We’ve been together for over two years! You won’t even let me explain? Who are you with??
Garret: You’re overreacting. We were watching a fucking movie!
Garret: I watch a movie with a FRIEND and you go home with some guy? We’re fucking done.
Garret: I bet you’ve been spreading your legs for guys at NYU all along. I’ll make sure to have a great time with Shelly tonight. Fuck you.
The sides of my temples prickle with sweat, and I’m suddenly aware of the lack of fresh air on this train.
He’s mad.
He’s really mad.
And his comment about Shelly...I’m going to be sick.
Even though I’ve read through the messages twice, I can’t stop staring down at my phone. How could he say those things to me? Why do I feel like this is all my fault? Maybe jumping out of the car before he could explain was a little premature?
No.
I can let myself think plenty of things about this, but I won’t regret leaving when I did. I’m not the one who cheated. I’m not the one who broke us.
Even if his texts make me feel like I am.
“What’s wrong?” Aiden’s voice feels far away, and somehow these messages are so much louder.
“Claire?”
Garret wasn’t worried—at all. How could someone who’s done everything he’s done be the same person who said they loved and missed me a few days ago?
“Jesus, Claire.” I don’t even realize my hands are shaking until Aiden wraps his warm fingers around mine to tilt my phone toward him.
I can’t bring myself to look at him, so instead, I keep staring at the now glaring screen tilted away from me. I can’t make out the words from here, but it doesn’t matter. My memory has no problem displaying the six messages in the front of my mind like a damn PowerPoint. Blinking away the image and the burning threat of tears, I fixate on Aiden’s hand around the back of mine, steadying it as he reads. My fingers—and my phone—look small in the frame of his palm, and even though his hands are rough, there’s a gentleness to them. The way he cradles my hand in his so carefully almost makes the fact that he’s reading my private messages a little less rude.
Almost.
Lifting my gaze, I jolt when I realize he’s watching me.
Great.
Here it comes. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I know it can’t be good. He’ll say terrible things about Garret, or maybe he’ll tell me how stupid I am for dating someone like him. Bracing myself for whatever words are about to fly out of his mouth, I grit my teeth and blink back hot tears, burying them as deep as I can.
“Are you okay?”
His voice is so low that it takes me a second to register that he’s not berating me. I don’t know if it’s Aiden, or if it’s the fact that I genuinely expected Garret to be worried about my well-being, but something inside me flips. My emotions fall flat, and I’m surprised that I no longer wish Garret hadn’t cheated on me. I don’t wish we were still together. I don’t even feel like I miss him at this moment. Right now, all I can focus on is how wrong I was about him, and if this is the real him, I’m glad to be over a thousand miles away.
Finally looking up at Aiden, I’m met with deep, blue eyes that seem to comfort me and make me restless all at once.
21
Aiden
Those messages have me fuming. If Claire didn’t look like a flower pot half an inch away from falling off a windowsill, I’d probably take her phone and throw it out the window. But I don’t want to be the thing that smashes her into a million pieces.
“Um,” she hedges as she takes her phone back. She stares down at her asshole ex’s texts again before muttering, “I think so.”
