AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 1
“I’m breaking up with you.”
Jewel’s heart pounded as she stared at the text on her phone, imagining the tone of voice he might have used. In the quiet of the choir room at the elementary school, she blinked away tears, mouthing the words he didn’t have the damn courage to say.
“I’m breaking up with you,” she said out loud, putting the emphasis on the end of the sentence. She was pretty sure he sent the text in the middle of the day, figuring she wouldn’t even read it until after school was out. He should have known better. They’d dated for over a year. He knew she checked her texts when she could throughout the day.
She didn’t have much time to figure out what she was feeling or even come to her senses. Soon enough the kindergarten class would trudge into the music room and her head would be a ruckus of noise that would maybe drown out the stab to her heart. God, not even the courtesy to call or talk to her in person.
Jewel shoved the phone onto her desk and straightened her shoulders as she checked herself over in the mirror. She hadn’t even cried yet. What did that mean? Did she really want to be with him in the first place or was it just out of convenience? It wasn’t like the town was very big and she had all these options spread out before her. But fourteen months! She had poured fourteen months into that relationship and for what?
An “I’m breaking up with you.”
She glared at her reflection in the mirror. Dating in a small town hadn’t exactly been on her radar when she’d agreed to the teaching job there. She probably should have thought about that at some point. Dejected, Jewel combed her fingers through her short, nearly black hair, patted her cheeks, and took in a steadying breath. She still had four more hours left in the school day before she could crash her best friend’s house. Well, really before she could crash with this news.
She spun around from the mirror just as the door opened and the smallest kids in the school filed into her classroom. Plastering a smile on her face, Jewel forced her brain to forget the text and focus on the eager young minds in front of her. She’d gotten to know them rather well over the course of the last six months, and with spring looming on the horizon, their energy was bursting.
Jewel clapped her hands. “All right, are we ready?”
“Yes!” They all answered with resounding enthusiasm. Just what she needed, a distraction from the chaos in her own life.
The last few hours of the day slipped by in tedium, and the text message loomed constantly over her head. As soon as the final bell rang, Jewel plopped down at her desk. She grabbed her phone and stared at those traitorous words. Anger flared in her chest. The ass. The least he could do was call if he wasn’t willing to do it in person. Fourteen months was no quick relationship.
Grinding her molars, Jewel stared at the door to the choir room. She could leave. She could drive out to the farm, find him on the damn tractor somewhere, and lay into him with what she really thought of this text message. Without thinking, she grabbed her purse and keys. The walk through the busy but emptying hallways was staggering. That was exactly how she felt. Nearly empty.
When Jewel got to her car, she shoved it into drive and headed toward the center of town, which would take her to the highway north out of town, where her now-apparent-ex boyfriend worked with his father. Clenching her jaw, she stopped short at the single grocery store the town boasted. There was his damn truck. Growling, Jewel drove straight for the parking lot.
As soon as she stepped out of her car, Brady came out of the store. The clerk ran behind him with the groceries in the cart. Jewel leaned against the bed of his truck, one foot on the wheel with her arms crossed and a glare only meant for him.
“Shit,” he muttered, but it was loud enough she could hear it.
“Yeah, that sounds about right,” Jewel stated and raised an eyebrow in his direction. “I thought you might like the decency of doing this properly instead of being such a chicken.”
Brady’s chiseled jaw clenched, the muscles in his neck tightening. Oh, he had not expected this. It was perfect. She could catch him by surprise as much as he had her. Cocking her head to the side, Jewel waited for her proper break up to go down.
“Look, Jewels.”
“No. You don’t get to use that tone with me.”
The bagging clerk looked lost. Brady shook his head and pulled down the tail of the truck so the groceries could be put away. He turned to face her, the dirty ball cap sitting on his head shading his eyes so she couldn’t quite read him. “We should talk about this at your house.”
“You’re not welcome there.”
The clerk tensed. Yeah, it was probably a bad idea to do this so publicly because she would no doubt be the talk of the town for the next couple months while this petered out, but they were here, and she was doing this. Now.
“Jewels.”
“No.” Pulling her brow together, Jewel stood up as straight as she could next to his tall lanky frame. She may be short, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a force to be reckoned with. “You don’t get to text me I’m breaking up with you in the middle of the school day and leave it at that. I’m giving you the opportunity to break up with me the right way, to do this the way your coward butt couldn’t in the first place. I’m giving you the dignity of telling me to my face why you don’t want to be with me anymore.”
“Jewel, this isn’t the place.” Brady sighed exasperated.
Jewel snorted. He did always talk down to her, didn’t he? She shook her head at him. “No, say it.”
“I’m breaking up with you!” His voice rose in pitch, and she knew she’d hit a nerve. “That’s it. I’m breaking up with you. Are you happy now?”
“Happier than I was,” Jewel muttered. “And you couldn’t bother to take the time to talk to me like a civilized person?”
“No, because I knew you’d react this way.”
