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I click on the home icon and check for any other notifications. The first thing I see on my news feed makes my blood turn to ice. My hand shakes so badly the screen is hard to see, but I’ve already seen it. Motocross Weekly magazine has uploaded a dozen photos of a recent supercross after party. The very first one has just made all of the light fall out of my world.
I close my eyes, willing the image to go away, but it’s as burned into my memory as my own phone number. Ash Carter with Dylan Bakers and a beautiful blonde goddess between them, her hand wrapped around Ash’s elbow. Her eyes, all shimmery with eye shadow, give a smoldering love-sick gaze at my ex-boyfriend.
The lump in my throat grows to a lethal size and I have to tell myself to breathe, otherwise I might pass out from the heartache.
And it’s stupid, I know it is, but I do it anyway. I call Lincoln.
“Hana,” he says, by way of answering the phone. “What’s up?”
I picture the look on his face when he got to meet Mickey Mouse and I focus on that image, not the other one that’s ripping my heart to shreds.
“I do want to go out with you,” I say, but the words sound like they’re coming from someone else’s mouth.
“Awesome. Mike’s next Friday?”
“No,” I say, gazing out my window. My heart is pounding so hard it might bring down this entire house. “I don’t want to wait that long. Let’s do something tomorrow.”
“Okay . . . dinner?”
“No, sooner.” I swallow and my throat is on fire. “Coffee. Brunch. Let’s do brunch tomorrow morning.”
“We have work in the morning, Hana.”
“I’m the owner’s daughter. We can show up a little late.”
Lincoln’s voice changes, his smile apparent on the other end of the line. “Okay then. Brunch it is. I’m looking forward to it.”
I touch the curtain, pulling it away to where I can see the track in the distance. “Me too.”
Chapter 13
Though I haven’t read a single handbook for how to handle a breakup, I am almost certain that these books exist. I am even more certain that in these books, there’s at least one chapter called Stay the Hell Off Your Ex’s Social Media Accounts. This fact should be obvious, an easy way to not obsess over someone who is out of your life. But such common sense does not easily translate into action. I told myself repeatedly to say off the website, to power down my computer and forget it even exists. I thought about having Teig log in and delete Ash from my friends. I thought about a lot of things.
But I did the exact opposite.
I stayed up until midnight, scrolling through Ash’s racing fan page. He doesn’t have a personal account, and this page was created for him shortly after he became a professional racer. He manages it now, and he’d even downloaded the app on his phone so that he could stay in touch with fans better. Looks like he’s done an excellent job of staying in touch with the fans.
My mind races even as I stare up at the ceiling in bed. It’s seven in the morning and I’ve just woken up from another nightmare where Ash was making out with that blonde girl and I was forced to watch. I am exhausted, but I know I can’t sleep anymore. The images in my nightmares are worse than the ones in my daydreams. That girl was in every single photo from the party.
She was also in a few photos before then. After careful examination like some kind of crazed lunatic, I’d found her hanging out in Ash’s proximity at the last four events he went to for Team Yamaha. Even in a two-dimensional digital picture, the desire in her eyes is hard to miss. She looks like she wants him bad, and now it looks like she’s got him.
He used to be mine, and he’s not anymore.
He’s not anymore.
I let the shower water scald my back, tilt my head into the stream and wish it’d sear away my thoughts. Instead, it just steams up the shower until the bathroom is as cloudy as my mind. The glass shower walls sweat like the tears that roll down my face.
The worst part of all of my internet sleuthing is that I still don’t have any answers. That girl is definitely into Ash; her eyes look exactly like mine did in all of the photos we’d taken together over the months we dated. She holds onto his arm every chance she gets. She is always there. But none of the photos have them holding hands, fingers laced together like a real couple. There are no kissing shots or telltale signs of
a real relationship. Whatever goes on behind closed hotel doors, there is no real evidence in the photos online.
It’s the not knowing that’s killing me. I’m not an idiot, though. I know something is going on, and that means it’s officially time for me to move on as well. When I text Lincoln to make sure we’re still on for brunch, he insists on driving over to pick me up even though he lives closer to the café than I do. That’s a move that guys make on a real, legit date.
I swallow my anxiety and shake off the cloak of pretending that’s been draped over my shoulders for the last twenty-four hours. I am no longer hanging out with Lincoln as some kind of pretend way of seeing another guy. This is a real date, and I should treat it like one. I should get butterflies in my stomach and shaking eyeliner lines because I’m so nervous about looking good for him.
I sit back in my vanity, examining the black lines around my upper and lower eyelids. Perfectly smooth. Guess I’ll have to conjure up some nervous energy before he gets here.
Lincoln’s voice rises up the stairs the moment I leave my bedroom. I check the time on my phone—he’s five minutes early, and I still don’t have nervous butterflies yet. Maybe they’re all dead, I think sarcastically as I head into the living room. Teig and Lincoln are standing near the fireplace while Molly makes small talk about one of the family vacation photos on the mantle. Dad is already at work, so I’m spared at least one third of the familial embarrassment.
