Page 60 of Rush

He groans and his breath becomes erratic. “All those songs…You wrote them for me, didn’t you?”

This was a complete U-turn down the wrong lane.

I grit my teeth. “I wrote them forme.”

He lets out a bitter little laugh. “Sure you did…darling.”

And it feels like a knife twisting into my heart.

He misses me but breaks up with me?

Every unanswered question he leaves—feels like poison in my mind.

His claim over my songs, my story, my feelings that he trampled on.

There’s a pause, and I can hear the clink of glass and the sound of him swallowing. He’s drinking. One thing I’ve realized—Alex is a sloppy drunk.

“Elena… I fucked up. I know I did. But...but we were good, weren’t we? You and me? It wasn’t all bad...”

The pieces of my broken heart rattle in my chest, because, for a second, I’m brought back to—us. Every memory, every first, every touch.

We were good, for a time, but then there were the lies. The omission of the truth. The betrayal. The way he broke my heart without so much as a reasonable explanation.

And now whateverthisis.

“Alex…” I start, but my voice cracks, I try to swallow the lump in my throat, but it clings on tightly.

“Please,” he murmurs. “Just...tell me you miss me too, darling. Tell me it wasn’t all in my head.”

I close my eyes, my temper surging.

“You don’t get to call me like this,” I hiss, my words dripping with distain.

“You liked my photo, you miss me, I know it, please älskling, Ineedto hear it.”

The thought of the photo, the one I accidentally liked, him posing byherside.

She warned me, and I was stupid enough to get caught up in their twisted game.

It was a mistake.

I was the mistake.

I chose Alex because I thought he was the safe option, the right one. How stupid was I?

“No,” I cut him off, my pulse pounding in my ears. “You don’t get tomiss menow. Not when youchose her. Not when you humiliated me and left me alone without so much as a why?” My voice shakes. “Why Alex?”

He goes quiet on the other end, only the sound of his breathing lets me know he’s still there.

My eyes sting—not from tears, I’ve shed enough of those for him—but from sheer exhaustion. His half-truths twist inside my mind, nothing adding up, and I’m too drained from tonight to keep chasing the honesty he continues to deny me.

“I need to go,” I say, my hands trembling.

“Darling, please…”

But I hang up before he can say anything else.

The phone slips from my hand onto the bed, and I sit there in the dark, chest heaving, pulse pounding in my ears.