Page 20 of Make No Mistake

“There’s something off about it all, isn’t there.”

I nodded and chewed. When I was done, I set the box down and pulled my notes toward me. “I know this goes against what other people are reporting, but my gut tells me this was random.”

“Do you think it will happen again?”

“I’m almost positive.”

He looked down at his food, and we ate in silence for a few minutes, both lost in our thoughts.

The hustle of the newspaper crew had died off about an hour ago, once everything had been submitted before the deadline. I’d decided to take advantage of the quiet and study here rather than back at the apartment where Aubrey would likely rope me into some sort of exercise with her.

“What are you working on?”

Before I could protest, he slid my notebook in front of him and opened to where I had dog-eared the page. The page where I had written my pros and cons list about Sean.

Definitely not what I wanted Jay to know about.

His eyes searched the page before meeting mine. “What’s this?”

I reached for the notebook, but he slowly lifted it away. I finally looked at him and sighed. “It’s stupid.”

“It doesn’t look stupid.” His eyes held concern. Not the anger I’d been expecting.

“Aubrey thinks I should reach out to Sean.”

His face revealed nothing. “Why?”

I tapped the table, trying to appear casual. “She thinks I need closure and talking to him would help.”

“But you don’t agree?”

“Obviously not.” I point at the paper with my single pro listed.

The corner of his mouth twitched like he was suppressing a smile. “Why don’t you want to talk to him?”

“I don’t think any good can come from it.”

He hesitated but finally spoke. “You’re still in love him?”

I immediately started shaking my head. “No! I’m smarter than that.”

“Intelligence has nothing to do with matters of the heart.”

That was definitely true.

“What I meant was, no I’m not. My heart was too broken to still be in love with the one that destroyed it.” I looked down at my food to give myself a moment to think. Finally, I looked back up at his waiting expression. “I’ll always love him. He was my high school sweetheart and my first love. There’s no way I couldn’t love him. I’ll always wish him the very best, but no. I’m not in love with him.”

He nodded once, then twice. “Good.”

“Good?” That was not what I’d expected at all.

“You know I always liked Sean. We were friends for years, but I never thought he deserved you. He took everything you offered him for granted. He took you for granted.”

I started to shake my head, ready to defend Sean, but he stopped me.

“It’s not something that’s easily seen from the inside of the relationship. You supported every single one of his dreams, but did he ever do the same for you?”

He waited for me to respond and took my silence as an invitation to continue. “How many late nights did you spend helping him apply to summer programs and internships? How many times did you have amazing, exciting news to share but he blew it off and turned it back to him?”