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She started sobbing softly in the background, and I had to put my phone on mute so she wouldn’t hear me cry.

The hole inside of me was so deep, it was all I was. I didn’t know how I’d live the rest of my life without her. And then I knew unequivocally that leaving Wakan wouldn’t change any of it. It wouldn’t get better somewhere else. Because you carry love with you. And the realization that I couldn’t escape this was so devastating, so overwhelming, I couldn’t breathe.

“I have to go,” she said.

Then she was gone.

I bawled into my pillow like a baby. And when I was done, I blocked her number so she could never do this to me again.

Chapter 36

Alexis

I’d cried all night.

Calling him made it a million times worse. I should have never done it. I’d just opened the wound, and now I was bleeding again. Hemorrhaging and I couldn’t make it stop.

I dug in my closet with red, puffy eyes for what I planned on wearing for the gala tomorrow. It was a sleeveless, floor-length silver ball gown with a full, puffy tulle skirt. I’d bought it at Neiman Marcus last year on a girls’ trip to New York with Jessica and Gabby. Just bought it, this four-thousand-dollar dress, for fun. No event planned, nowhere to go in it.

It occurred to me now how totally frivolous and ridiculous that was.

I was not the same woman I was back then.

I tossed it unceremoniously onto the bed and put the silver strappy heels I wanted next to it, picked out jewelry and set it in a little pile.

My makeup would be done and my hair would be swept into a dramatic updo with a tiny diamond tiara that Mom insisted I wear. It was a family heirloom from my great-great-grandmother. She had worn it to the fifty-year Royaume Northwestern anniversary celebration, so my mother thought it was fitting.

I’d put all this on and go through the motions at this party. I’d smile and meet people. But I’d be empty inside the whole time, and nobody would be the wiser. Nobody would know that I’d lost an entire town, the man I loved, and most of myself.

Someone knocked on my bedroom door, and I dragged myself to open it. Neil was standing there.

“What,” I said flatly.

“Briana’s here,” he said.

“Okay…”

“She’s making you a drink in the kitchen. I was wondering if I could talk to you. Just for a minute.”

I pressed my lips into a line and then pushed the door open, resigned. “Come in.”

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He slipped his hands into his pockets. “Tomorrow your parents are seating me at the head table with them.”

Which meant they were seating us together. Great.

I shook my head. “No. I’m not sitting with you like your date. I’ll sit next to my mom, you sit next to my dad.”

“Okay.”

I eyed him. “Okay? You’re not going to fight me? Force me?”

“Ali, I’m sorry.”

I shook my head at him, annoyed. “What?”

“I’m sorry for everything I put you through.”

I stared at him a moment before crossing my arms. “Which was what?”