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Her brow furrows, teeth biting down on her lip. There’s a slip of understanding in her impenetrable gaze. “Do you want to talk about it?”

My shoulders lift almost imperceptibly. Sadie turns and closes the door. It’s hard to miss the giant letters spelling out KOTESKIY across her shoulders.

There’s a piece of me that will always envy her—that sees her relationship with Rhys and her genuine happiness as some achievement she doesn’t deserve. And maybe that’s cruel, but knowing I can’t have that, that I tried and still messed it up, haunts me. Sadie Brown was my friend, once upon a time. Now she’s a walking taunt about everything I wished for.

“Things have been rough,” I try, eyes ducked down as Sadie sits cross-legged on the end of the opposite twin bed. It’s their spare room, but with the gaming console in the corner and the scattered Star Wars toys and action figures, it’s clearly become Sadie’s little brothers’ temporary home. “My roommate hates me and got me thrown out of my dorm.”

Sadie rolls her eyes. “Want me to hit her?”

The dry tone of her voice makes a smile pull at my mouth.

“Maybe.” I shake my head. “I think I was just upset and wanted to forget for a while. It just feels like everything is spinning out of control.”

Sadie nods, chewing lightly on her bottom lip. “Yeah. I get it.”

I know she does. It might be the only reason I’m willing to talk to her about it.

“You can stay here as long as you need, but do you have anyone you can call?” Sadie asks. “I just don’t want you to be alone right now.”

For a moment, my mind flashes to blue eyes and a square jaw, fingers in my hair and a soothing, “Hey, P. You okay?”

I rush the thoughts away and sigh deeply, pressing fingers to my temple as I begrudgingly nod.

“Yeah. I know someone.”

• • •

“This has to be a joke.” Alessia’s smoky tone reverberates out of my phone speaker next to me on the bed. “I’m being pranked, right?”

“Very funny.” I shake my head, closing my eyes as I tilt my head back. “I need your help.”

Silence—for nearly too long, chafing at my skin.

“You’re cold-calling me after three years of ignored phone calls, texts—everything—and you’re not even going to start with, ‘Hello, Alessia? How are you? I’m so sorry I blew you off and made you think I was dead or worse.’” Her voice ratchets up higher with every sentence. “Seriously? God, Paloma, I—”

She cuts herself off with a muffled shriek.

“I’m cool, I’m chill.”

“Sounds like it,” I mumble, wincing when I hear another aggravated noise from far away.

“Let’s start this over in a way that won’t have me losing my job,” Alessia says, before clearing her throat and brightening her voice. “Hi, Paloma, dear! How can I help you?”

I roll my eyes but settle back.

There’s a giant lump in my throat that makes it difficult to swallow—and I never know if it’s a buildup of regret or self-hatred. Or maybe the tears I’ve never shed. That I’ll never allow myself to release.

Like the last dregs of fuel in a junkyard car. Sometimes that tight pressure is the only thing to remind me I’m alive.

I tell her quickly, almost clinically, about everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours—never mind that I know she’d far rather know what’s happened in the last three years. Even knowing there is no judgment I could ever face with Alessia, I’ll never force my demons on her like that.

“I need to find an apartment,” I finish. “It’s—Sadie is letting me stay in a spare room at her . . . friends’ house.” My head spins a little at the thought of my proximity to the one constant fixation of my otherwise tumultuous life.

“I can stay here again tonight, but I just—”

My voice chokes off into nothing, a flash of blue eyes and slightly sharp stubble against my freshly showered skin.

“Does it have anything to do with Ethan?”