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“Tatum,” he called through the door. “Please, don’t do this,” he begged. He sounded so torn up, but I couldn’t open the door and comfort him. I couldn’t tell him that it was okay and make all of this go away.
The fact of the matter was I realized now that I needed to get stronger on my own and I couldn’t do that with Jude.
I wanted to believe that Brooke had kissed him and he hadn’t meant for it to happen, but I knew what I saw and right now I was too upset to think logically.
Love made you crazy, and I was the craziest of them all.
“Tate,” he cried, hitting his fist against the door again and again.
I didn’t move for hours, and neither did he.
He stayed outside the door waiting for me to open it up—to change my mind—but I never did.
Eventually I heard the sounds of his footsteps on the stairs of the porch.
I forced myself to stand and I looked out the window, watching him get in his truck and leave.
My heart broke all over again as I watched the taillights on his truck disappear down the street.
How had one of the best days of my life turned into the worst?
Chapter Twenty Six
Somehow I’d managed to get myself upstairs and climb in bed—Graham’s bed, because I wasn’t planning on going back in my room anytime soon. My mom probably would’ve snapped out of her…well, whatever strange in-between state she was in…and had a conniption if she’d seen that I had disturbed the shrine my brother’s room had become.
I was curled up in his bed, crying my eyes out, when Rowan found me.
“God, Tate, look at you,” she sighed, standing beside the bed.
“How’d you get in?” I mumbled. My eyes were puffy and it made it hard to see her clearly.
She shrugged and crossed her arms over her chest. “Trent happens to come in handy for lots of things, like picking locks.”
“Lovely,” I grumbled.
“What the hell happened?” She asked, sitting on the edge of the bed by my feet.
I rolled onto my back and blinked bleary eyes at her. “Jude didn’t tell you?” I asked.
“When I went to talk to him he was too busy destroying his room to answer.” She sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “I’m sure whatever it was, was silly and you two can work past this.”
“He kissed another girl.” Rowan’s eyes grew wide at my words. “Or she kissed him. But does it really matter?”
“Of course that matters!” She gasped. “If she kissed him, it wasn’t his fault, Tatum.”
“But why didn’t he push her away?!” I cried, reaching over to the nightstand for yet another tissue. I was pretty sure in the past twenty-four hours I’d used up nearly every tissue in the house.
“Maybe he did and you just didn’t see,” she countered.
“It felt like I watched them forever.” My lower lip trembled. “How would you feel if you saw Trent kissing another girl?”
Her lips thinned and she looked away. “I understand where you’re coming from, Tate, but don’t throw away something so great because of a misunderstanding. Life’s too short for that.”
I turned away from her and stared at one of the bookcases in my brother’s room. It was covered with books, pictures of his friends and even some with me, and all his sports trophies. “I need time.”
“Yeah, but how much time?”
I rubbed my eyes. “I don’t know. Until it stops hurting I guess,” I mumbled, wrapping my arms around the pillow and hugging it to my chest.
