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He slipped his hands from his pockets and cocked his head. “I miss you.”
“And it took you this long to figure that out?”
“Ella . . . ” He stepped closer, imploring me with the soft tenor of his voice. “It was always you. I’m just sorry it took me this long to realize it.”
I stared at him a moment longer when it hit me.
A laugh rumbled inside my chest. “Oh my gosh, she dumped you, didn’t she?” When his face paled, I snorted. “So let me get this straight. You cheat on me, lie to me about it, and then months later, after I left you and you didn’t so much as call, she dumps you, and you decide to show up at my house and try and get me back?” My jaw locked as I searched his face for answers, and I could see I was right. Everything I said was accurate. “You’re disgusting, you know that?”
“It’s not like that.”
“Oh, I think it’s exactly like that.”
“It was one time. It meant nothing.”
My eyes widened, and anger welled inside my chest like a geyser. “One time, huh? Because, if I recall, she said you had been together for months.”
“Okay . . .” He shrugged. “Maybe it was a couple times.”
I scoffed and glanced around me, wishing for a witness, someone to confirm I wasn’t hallucinating. That Adam really was this much of a douche.
“Is she still in your contacts?”
I could almost guarantee this was all a game to him, and next week he’d be texting her or showing up at her place doing the same exact thing he was doing to me now.
When he didn’t answer, I rolled my eyes. “Unreal.”
Reaching out, he started toward me, but I held my hand up, keys dangling from my fist. Any closer, and I feared I might stab him.
“I am so done. For so long, I wanted this to happen. I wanted you to realize how important I was to you and you’d come crawling back, pledging your love to me. But even if you were down on your knees, I’d be over you. Because you’re the most selfish person I know. You never really wanted me. If you did, you wouldn’t have hurt me like that. Or at least not lied about it. And clearly, you haven’t changed a bit.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose as if frustrated by my resistance when he should’ve expected it. “Ella, you can’t possibly tell me it’s over.”
“It’s over,” I said, my tone firm. Then I skirted around him and opened my car door even as he grappled for it in an effort to stop me. Tugging on it, I somehow managed to yank it closed before I shouted, “I swear to God, if you get in the way of me pulling out, I’ll run you over.”
When he raised his hands in surrender, I turned the ignition and peeled out of the drive, but not before I heard him scream, “I didn’t really want you anyway!”
The entire ride into school, I fumed about my encounter with Adam. How much it hurt seeing him again. How good he looked. How badly it sucked to hear him say everything I’d been wanting to hear but have him not mean any of it.
My chest ached as I pulled into the student parking lot, parked my car, and jumped out. I needed a distraction, something, anything, to take my mind off of Adam and the pain stabbing my heart like a shard of broken glass.
“Hey, Ella.” Mia came up beside me and groaned, completely oblivious to my distress as she said, “I should’ve ridden with you today. Carson was so obnoxious. You should’ve heard him on the way to school—” She glanced over at me and did a double take, then paused on the sidewalk and grabbed my arm. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just . . .” I trailed off, biting my lip in an effort to stave off the tears. At the same time, my gaze flickered to Barry walking with Penelope and Scarlett into the school, and my heart thudded painfully to life. He wore navy blue pants and a white polo shirt that showed off biceps I never knew he had. Even from where I stood, his hazel eyes burned through me beneath his glasses.
I’d been prepared to talk to him today about the kiss, or at the very least entertain some heavy flirting and see where things went from there, but now I wasn't so sure . . .
“Hello? Earth to Ella?” Mia snapped her fingers in front of my face, and I jerked to attention.
“What?” I blinked in rapid succession.
“I asked you what was wrong. Why are you being so weird?” She turned and scanned the stream of kids headed toward the front of the building, and her eyes zeroed in on Barry’s back almost immediately. “Ohhh. Barry, huh? Did you finally give up on hooking us up and claim him for yourself?”
My stomach churned as Adam’s face flashed in my head. “Yes and no.”
When she merely stared at me, waiting for more of an explanation, I added, “I’m done trying to match the two of you, but I’m also not claiming him for myself, either.”
“Why not? If he was so amazing and such a great guy that you thought I should date him, why not you?”
