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So, for me to do what I did and carelessly use a moment with Noah to show my anger for the man he feared losing me to was just… fucked up.
I fucked up and I can’t take it back.
I hurt a man I’d do anything for.
I’ve never been so foolish.
All I want to do is call him, rush to his house, and spill my regrets at his feet. I want to beg him for forgiveness.
But I won’t. Not yet.
He asked for time, so I’m trying to give it to him.
It’s the least I can do.
Unfortunately for me, when I make it back to my room, picking up my phone for the first time in days, the other person involved wants the opposite of space.
A string of messages waits for me, every one of them from Chase.
With a deep breath, I open them up, the first being from the night he walked in on us.
* * *
12:05am, Chase: What the hell was that?
* * *
12:15am, Chase: Why aren’t you answering?
* * *
12:25am, Chase: Whatever, Ari. Hope you’re having fun.
* * *
1:47am, Chase: Can we talk?
* * *
Angry tears prick my eyes and I growl.
I hate this.
Everything is wrong and I don’t know how to fix it, so I do the only thing I can and engross myself in my studies, determined to, at the very least, end the semester with the best grades I’m capable of, all the while wishing that each hour passing will be the hour Noah calls.
But he doesn’t and it’s killing me.
Noah
* * *
This is fucking killing me.
In the three days since I watched Ari disappear inside her dorm, it’s as if I forgot how to function in a world where she isn’t with me, because even when she wasn’t physically, she was always still there, in the back of my mind, in the front of my mind. She was all fucking over.
But with each day passing, it feels like she’s slipping away a little more.
A little further.
Before, if I wasn’t with her, I was counting down the minutes until I could be.
Now, I sit around watching the clock tick round with no end. The hand turns and turns, tightening my chest like a wrench, stripping me of my threads and leaving me a gutted mess that can’t be repaired.
Everyone knows that the only way to fix a fucked-up bolt is to rip it from the stud, and I’m feeling that. It’s as if my heart is being torn out, straight through my bruised ribs.
I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking, asking her to think of him.
What if she did?
What if that’s it for us?
What if she becomes my greatest loss as I turn into her deepest regret?
What if my worst fears are the furthest thing from the fucking truth?
What if my baby is hurting, dying inside like me?
Slowly, and a little more each day?
Twice as hard each night?
What is she misses me, and all she wants is for my arms to wrap around her, for me to pull her in and tell it’s okay? That we’re okay, and that I love her with all I am and want her for all she is?
That right there is about enough to kill me.
The mere thought of being the reason behind her pain is too much for me.
I’m sick to my stomach, my muscles ache.
My head and my heart are at war, and I’m not sure either can win.
Because I did this.
I asked my girl to consider that maybe I’m not the one for her, knowing all the while, she is the only one for me.
I need my baby, and I can only fucking hope, she needs me just as much.
Chapter 35
Arianna
* * *
How five single days weigh like five years, I don’t know, but it does. Every minute is slow passing, every footstep in the hall of my dorm, triggering, my mind tricking myself that maybe, just maybe, it’s him on the other side. That his knuckles will come down with his knock and when I open the door, he’ll be standing there with a smile, but that never happens.
The anxiety alone made it too hard to stay home, so I’ve been hiding in the library, when not in class, and I forced myself to skip their game two nights ago, but as painful as it was, I did watch it on TV.
Mason’s pissed, I won’t tell him what’s going on.
Brady checks on me every night.
And Chase, he’s been calling and texting me twice a day, all of which have gone unanswered.
I don’t know why, but this morning, it all became too much. I woke with a heavy sense of desperation, of need, and I couldn’t help myself.
I called Noah when I knew he should have been free, but he didn’t pick up, so I sent him a message, hoping that would work.
