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But then, as all great friends do, she listened while I cried. I cried over a lost job opportunity, and I cried over my stupidity. And the worst part of it all? I cried over him. I knew my tears were misguided. After all, I barely knew the guy. But the simple fact was, Alexander Stone stirred up emotions I managed to keep buried for so long. He had made me feel alive again and put a little crack in the walls I had so carefully built around myself.

And I hated him for it.

After my ordeal with Trevor, I had vowed to myself I would never again show that kind of weakness, and I had since mastered the ability to ignore the opposite sex as much as humanly possible.

How could I have been so dumb?

My thoughts drifted back to my time with my ex-boyfriend, and I couldn’t stop the bitterness from creeping up inside me.

I had met Trevor Hamilton my freshman year of college. We were the stereotypical couple you read about in books. He was the wealthy, popular boy on campus, and I was the new girl, struggling to find my place in the vast city of New York. I had fallen for him practically overnight.

However, unlike the storybooks, we didn’t have a fairytale ending. Trevor was a different man behind closed doors. He was controlling to the point of obsession. He told me what to wear, how to style my hair, and where to shop. He even went so far as to write down a schedule for me, planning my time and activities down to the minute. He took charge of every aspect of my life, slowly forcing me away from my friends and family. Sometimes it felt like I couldn’t even breathe without his approval.

When I looked back, I knew I was partly to blame. I allowed Trevor to do it. I ignored the warnings from my friends. I assured my troubled conscience he was a perfectionist and that was the reason he was so controlling. I told myself he loved me and only wanted what was best for me. I became a victim to the adage—the one that talks about love making people lose their sight, oblivious to the realities surrounding them.

I had been as blind as a bat.

At least until that fateful spring day when he had called me to cancel our plans for the evening. He had said he was sick. I figured he must have felt pretty bad to cancel on me, especially since Trevor never allowed any deviation in my schedule. I thought it would be nice to surprise him with homemade chicken soup.

As it turned out, Trevor wasn’t really that sick at all. I ended up walking in on him doing the horizontal tango with some scrawny-assed blonde.

In an instant, my whole world shattered. As hard as I tried to forget that day and the terrible weeks that followed, I remembered it like it was only yesterday. The yelling, the screaming, and the violence would forever be burned into the deep recesses of my brain. It had altered my opinion of the world and all the people in it, ultimately changing who I was.

It was the day turned my heart to stone.

Allyson, the only friend I had left, was there to pick up the pieces. She came home to find me a crumpled-up mess on the floor and worked tirelessly for months to make me see things for what they really were. It took me a while to come around, but eventually, I was able to see I didn’t really love Trevor and what had happened wasn’t my fault.

I knew now I had just been in love with the idea society jams down everyone’s throat—companionship wrapped in a white picket fence was the key to happiness. I couldn’t think of a bigger lie.

All men are bastards. I don’t need that headache.

I went to the sink to dump my now mushy cereal into the garbage disposal. I was dwelling too much on my disastrous history and had lost my appetite. I needed to remember my restraint and not give in to a small moment of weakness. I had given up on fairytales and pipedreams for a good reason. I’d be damned before I would let history repeat itself.

I just needed to get rid of one little problem—Alexander Stone. He was consuming my every waking minute. I fought to extinguish all thoughts of that extraordinary and complex man from my mind, but Allyson’s words at Murphy’s rang in my head.

Not every guy is like Trevor.

But my hardened heart said Allyson was wrong. They were all like Trevor, every last one of them.

Assholes.

Alexander had only proved himself to be the same as the rest. I should never have let him get to me. It was time to toughen my resolve. I had done it once before, and I could certainly do it again. I just needed to find a distraction.

I glanced over at the pile of bills on the kitchen counter, my first student loan payment sitting amongst them. A review of my finances and a job search would certainly be enough of a distraction, and it was long overdue.

I went over to the counter and began sorting through the overwhelming pile, trying to figure out how I would make ends meet with my salary at Wally’s.

After an hour of crunching numbers, panic began to set in as I stared at the homemade spreadsheet in front of me.

I was severely in the red.

I reworked the math three more times to make sure my figures were correct, but the result was the same. I would have to make some major cutbacks if I didn’t find a better-paying job soon, and selling my car was inevitable.

It doesn’t matter—I hardly use the beat-up old Ford anyway.

Parking in this city was so damned expensive and difficult to come by, and public transportation had ended up being more accessible. However, a prickle of tears stung my eyes as a wave of nostalgia came over me at the thought of giving up my first car.

I’m being stupid—it’s just a car. I’ll sell it if I have to.