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She doesn’t even pause.
She seems more upset now than the last time I saw her. The space between us has given me time to calm down, but it seems to have had the opposite effect on her.
Just my fucking luck.
Well, I’m not going home—not after how hard I’ve worked to get here. This is the closest I’ll ever be to her, so if I don’t talk to her now, it’ll never happen. She can go to class and do whatever she needs to do, but I’m not giving up.
I walk to the front entrance of the Steinhardt building and take a seat.
The only thing left to do is wait her out.
84
Claire
Class drags.
This morning, I wanted nothing more than to get back into a good headspace and focus on my studies again, but after talking to both Aiden and Garret, I just want to go home. I want to eat tacos with Violet surrounded by colorful duct tape and get on with my life. Class is about to end, and all I can think about is getting to the subway station as quickly as possible to do exactly that.
But when I get out of class, I find Aiden sitting outside the entrance.
It’s been almost an hour and a half since I walked away from him.
He’s been sitting here for an hour and a half.
Something softens inside me, but I’m determined to hold onto my anger. I don’t stop to talk to him. I keep walking, but he scrambles to his feet and hurries after me.
“Claire, please.” He catches up to me within a few strides.
Without looking at him and without slowing my pace, I say, “How stupid would I look if I forgave you? I already feel dumb for trusting Garret, and now it’s worse because I was dumb enough to trust you, too.”
“And how stupid would I look if I messed everything up over a misunderstanding?” he asks as he walks with me—uninvited.
I glance at him out of the corner of my eye because I have no idea what he’s talking about.
He sees that he’s caught my interest and starts talking faster. “There were texts on your phone that made me think—”
The blood drains from my face, and I stop in my tracks. “Texts?” If Aiden read about Garret wanting to rock my world, I’ll never recover. Then a second thought occurs to me, and I glare at him. “You went through my phone?”
“No!” He looks flustered. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Aiden Lewis flustered. Running a hand over his face, he says, “Listen, you were asleep, and your phone kept going off. I only saw what was on the home screen, but...”
“But what?” I demand.
“But that was enough to make me think you were planning on getting back together with him.”
Part of me wants to explain, but then I remember everything he did. He could have talked to me. All he had to do was ask me about the texts, and I would have told him the truth. But instead, he probably hooked up with his ex-girlfriend.
I want her here...which is more than I can say for you.
That memory alone brings my guard up again. Rolling my eyes, I start walking, but he cuts me off.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, he says, “I might have been wrong, but that’s what it looked like.”
Sidestepping around him, I head toward the subway station. “You couldn’t have been more wrong.”
85
Aiden
