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Great.
Now everyone was going to be a witness to me getting screwed over. I didn’t stop to look or even acknowledge her. I just kept running. My desperation to get away was all consuming.
I reached my car and started it up as quickly as my fumbling fingers could manage.
I kept making the strangest sound I’d ever heard. It was half-gasp, half-cry.
Tears stung my eyes as I raced down the street. I saw Jude running down the sidewalk looking for me and?
??sick person that I was—I got satisfaction out of imagining running him over…just like he had done to me.
I drove home as fast as I could, but it was still the longest fifteen minutes of my life.
I tore inside the empty house and my tears finally began to flood. I gasped for air as I blindly climbed the stairs.
I fell to my bed, burying my head in my pillow and sobbed.
But then I began to think of Jude being in my room, and in my bed, and I had to get away.
I wrenched out of the bed and grabbed the pillow. I threw it across the room and something shattered. I didn’t know what and I didn’t care.
I ran out of my room and into Graham’s. It was one room that would never make me think of Jude, and I felt better in here anyway—like Graham was there to give me a hug and tell me it would be okay.
I sat on the floor with my back against his bed. I drew my knees up and wrapped my arms around them. My tears dripped from my chin onto my bare knees. I cried so hard that my whole body shook with the force. I hadn’t cried this hard when Graham died—then, I’d been numb, but now I was cut open painfully.
I’d known my feelings for Jude were so intense that it would tear me apart if something happened to us. But I hadn’t anticipated this kind of reaction. I’d hoped it would never come to this, but it had.
I’d been so stupid to trust him.
I wiped at my eyes, my hands coming away covered in streaks of black from my mascara.
The doorbell rang and my whole body stiffened.
I knew it was him.
It wouldn’t be anyone else.
But it was more than that. My body was just that aware of him. I was tuned into the feel of him and I always knew when he was near.
I rose with shaky feet. I took several deep breaths and almost didn’t go to the door.
But I needed to.
I took the steps slowly, dreading facing him.
When I opened the door he stood there, soaking wet from the rain. He shivered, water dripping off his nose and onto his chin.
“Tate,” my name was no more than a whisper on his lips, and his brown eyes were pained, “I swear to God it wasn’t what you think it was.”
My breath shook with barely contained tears. “It was exactly what I saw. I’m not stupid Jude, so don’t treat me like I am. I always figured you’d get bored with me and move on to someone else. I just figured you’d have the courtesy to break up with me first. I guess I was wrong.” Nodding my head towards the road, I started to close the door. “You can leave now.”
He slammed his hand against the door and pushed it open completely. He stormed around me and into my house. “I’m not leaving until I can get you to see the truth.”
I snorted at that. “I saw the truth, that’s why we’re here in the first place. And if you won’t leave, then I will.”
I didn’t have my car keys, but I didn’t care.
I walked onto the porch, down the steps, and into the street.
