“Look, just because he isn’t actually dating someone else doesn’t change why we broke up. He checked out, he gave up on me long before I broke things off. Andbringing all that up again is painful. So, what happens if I do and nothing changes and he still doesn’t want me? He let me walk out that door and didn’t come after me. I waited up all night hoping for a knock on the door, or even a phone call, and got nothing.” Tears fill my eyes because that’s the part that hurts the most. The broken, abandoned part of me needed him to come after me and prove I was worth keeping. That I wasn’t defective or unwanted, as my brain likes to remind me on the rough days—the days when losing my parents feels all consuming.
“Honey, there hasn’t been a single second since that man met you that he hasn’t wanted you. I saw the way he chased after you in high school and he hasn’t stopped chasing you since. I don’t know what happened, but I know whatever thoughts you have spinning in that beautiful head of yours are wrong. He is not your parents,” she soothes, always able to read my mind and see the parts of me I work so hard to keep hidden.
She reaches across the table, grabbing my hands in hers. The feel of her soft palm gripping mine calms my racing brain and fills me with enough courage to keep speaking. The thoughts circle my brain, the pain from my parents an ever-present bruise that feels as if someone pressed on it. They abandoned me too—maybe not physically, but I can’t recall a single second they fought for me to stay in their lives. When I told them I wanted to go no contact, they didn’t even seem bothered. They acted as if my therapist was manipulating me into cutting them out of my life. Their inability to see me and the damage they did is something I’ve been trying to heal from since long before this all happened.
“I know, Mor,” I rasp as my voice cracks. “I just don’t know if I can handle it if this is it. If it’s officiallyover. These past few weeks, I’ve been walking around with the delusion that someday we will be us again. That I will wake up one day, and this nightmare will be over, and I won’t be walking around with this gaping hole in my chest. I know that I wanted to break up, but I just needed him to fight for me, to see the cracks already forming in our relationship and work on repairing them.” A sob wracks through me.
Morgan rushes to my side of the table and pulls me into her, cradling my head against her stomach. She strokes my hair as the tears continue to pour out of me. I grip onto her as I let all my emotions pour out of me.
When my breathing finally slows, Morgan brushes my hair from my damp face. “Okay,” she says softly. “What’s the next prank?”
The panic recedes, pulling a strangled laugh from my chest. Her laughter follows until we’re both a mess, clutching onto each other.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
kane
WYD Now – Sadie Jean
Iwhistle as I drive my truck back to my apartment. The glass microwave plate sits on the passenger seat, the sun hitting it now and then. I chuckle to myself, one hand on the steering wheel, wondering when Avery will notice it’s missing. Probably soon, given the sad mix of old takeout boxes and microwave meals that filled her fridge. My gut clenched when I saw it, and coupled with the state of her room, it leads me to believe Avery’s been struggling more than she’d ever admit to me.
Before I left, I placed a delivery order of fresh produce and simple ingredients Avery can use to cook for herself—and won’t require the microwave, for obvious reasons. She’s never been good at asking for help, which is why I made sure we ate together a couple of times a week, needing to know she was getting well-rounded meals. I used to make extras to pile in her fridge for lunches she could take to work, making sure she had something to eat on her busy days.
I don’t even want to think about what she’s been doing since the breakup. The thought sends another pang through my chest.
My phone buzzes in the cupholder as I pull up to the townhouse. I shift my truck into park in my spot, then grab it, expecting it to be a text from Avery about the missing plate. My excitement is immediately replaced with frustration when I find a text from my father instead—that somehow snuck past the Do Not Disturb setting I have our conversation on—reminding me of my required presence at the estate this Thursday for my mother’s birthday.
I sit back and release a big breath, clearing my head before getting out of the truck, plate in hand. I close the door and walk up the steps, waving hello to my elderly neighbor who seems to enjoy the early morning hours as much as me.
When I walk inside, I drop my keys and the plate on the counter, ignoring everything else and heading to my room. I shut the door behind me before lying down on my bed. I slept like shit last night on Avery’s floor, waking up with every little sound she made, worried she was getting sick in her sleep. I did help her puke three more times, holding her hair and singing to her softly.
As poorly as I slept, though, it also felt incredible being near her again. The unrelenting loneliness receded for just a few hours as I held my hand on her stomach. The gentle rise and fall of her breathing calmed me, feeling as if I was taking my first real breaths in weeks.
I glance over at the clock, noting that I have a couple of hours to get some sleep before my shift at the bar. The Sunday crowd starts mid-afternoon, which gives me time to get a few things done later.
I check my phone one more time, hoping for a message I’m not even sure is coming. When a blank screen stares back at me, I throw my phone next to me and roll over, letting sleep claim me before my racing thoughts threaten to bring me under.
“I’m telling you,she wanted me,” Marcus argues, looking at Grayson, whose shit-eating grin slowly takes over his face the longer he riles Marcus up.
The two of them stumbled in a couple of minutes after my shift started this afternoon, meaning they tracked my location to come to bug me.
Marcus insisted on all of us sharing locations, claiming it’s for safety reasons, but I think he just enjoys being a pest. The number of times I’ve gotten a text when I conveniently pull up somewhere for food asking me to grab him whatever he wants is astronomical at this point.
Although, I guess I should thank him for making us all share with each other because that means I can check up on Avery. Not in a stalker way, just to make sure her car isn’t lying in a ditch anywhere. I have gotten better at not checking it, though. The first couple of days, when I felt out of my mind not talking to her, I checked frequently—so much so that Marcus locked my phone in his room…and then proceeded to lock himselfoutof the room. I knew I had a problem when he resorted to such extremes. Now I check a couple of times a day, the need to reassure myself she’s okay sometimes the only way I can calm the rising panic that threatens to take root.
“She did not. She checked her phone at least ten timeswhile you were there. I just know she was calling in reinforcements,” Grayson says, taking a swig of his drink.
Marcus snorts. “Oh yeah, you’re so familiar with a girl needing a way out of talking to you, huh?” he goads.
With my own thoughts swirling in my head, I haven’t offered much to this conversation—though I’m clearly not needed at this moment.
“Oh, so you’re saying I can’t get any girls?” Grayson flips his hat around to face backwards, revealing his fresh buzz cut. It’s some weird baseball ritual—buzzed at the start of the season and not cutting it again until the season’s over.
“I’m just saying, you seem mighty familiar with what rejection looks like, given how sure you are that’s what it was.”
“You’re such a fuck. Of course I know what rejection looks like, I’ve had to watch you pining over Morgan for years. How is that going again?” Grayson teases on a drink, a smirk taking over his face when Marcus’s smile drops. I chuckle at their idiocy.
“It’s going wonderful, yeah just last week she let me sit next to her without gagging, so I would assume we’re just about to send the invitations,” Marcus replies sarcastically.
