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I was still shaking my head back and forth, looking at him in horror. This wasn’t happening.
“It was meant to be that you won the scholarship. It’s for the best that I didn’t. Because I wouldn’t have been able to use it anyway.”
“You touched her,” I choked out in a horrified whisper. “You touched me and then you touched her. Or did you touch her and then still…” I let out a sob. “In what order did it happen, Kyland? Tell me!” I screamed, hot tears finally starting to fall.
“I, what?” he asked, looking confused.
“Did you betray me with her before or after you took my virginity?” I voice shook. I was trembling all over now.
“Does it matter?” he asked.
I slapped him across his face. Hard. Deep hurt flashed in his expression for a second before he met my eyes. Good. I wanted to hurt him to his core right then. Just like he’d hurt me to my core. Just like he’d destroyed me with three words: Because Shelly’s pregnant.
I beat at his chest with my fists. He never raised his hands to push me away or to stop me. He just let me hit him—again and again and again, his face, his chest, his shoulders. This couldn’t be happening. I choked out another sob, feeling sick and dizzy. I fell back against the wall again and cried out my misery and confusion, the very last piece of my stupid, unguarded heart crumbling away.
He stood, looking down at the floor, his hands in his pockets, a drop of blood dripping from his lip where the cheap metal ring I was wearing on my right index finger must have cut him. I watched that drop of blood fall to the floor as if in slow motion and splash on the hardwood right next to the ridiculous list I’d made, both lying there, the last remnants of us. My eyes moved slowly to his face. It was filled with sorrow. I wanted to spit on him. He’d done this. How dare he feel sorrowful?
I drew my shoulders back, gathering myself. Kyland finally raised his eyes to mine, red rimmed and pleading me for something. Forgiveness? I’d never give him that.
“You leave Dennville,” he said, his voice raspy. “Leave here and don’t look back.”
I regarded him for a second, suddenly feeling strangely empty, numb. “You’re the biggest disappointment of my life,” I said. “I’ll never forgive you—not as long as I live.”
He nodded as if that was the best idea I’d ever come up with. “Good,” he said, and then he turned his back on me.
I walked on legs that felt like they were made of jelly to his front door. I picked up my backpack and the scholarship packet I’d left on the floor, and I walked out of Kyland Barrett’s house and out of his life, leaving behind the man I’d been stupid enough to give my whole heart to, the one who didn’t want to love or keep me, the one who had betrayed me in the cruelest way possible. The pitiful words I’d begged him with echoed in my mind, shameful and humiliating.
I didn’t go back to my trailer. I went into the woods, not bothering to push aside the tree branches that slapped me in the face as I walked, causing small, burning cuts across my cheeks. The pain brought me out of my fog, and again, I recalled Kyland’s words. Because Shelly’s pregnant. I stopped by a vine of wild honeysuckle and vomited on the forest floor. And then I walked, all the while clutching that scholarship to my chest like it was a lifeline—because now, it was. I didn’t know how long I walked, but even in my half-shocked state, my body knew right where I was and eventually, I’d circled back around to my trailer.
That night my sister rocked me in her arms like I was a baby and she was a mama. I was still so shocked and heartbroken I couldn’t even cry.
The very next day I went to the principal, Mrs. Branson, and asked her if there was any way I could move to San Diego immediately. Mrs. Branson knew my home situation and I’d made it seem like I couldn’t stand it one more minute. She probably thought I was all over the map, trying to reject the scholarship one minute, and begging her to help me use it as quickly as possible the next. The truth was, I couldn’t live in the same town as Kyland Barrett after that day—not for any longer than I had to.
Mrs. Branson told me I couldn’t move into the dorm, but it turned out she had a niece who lived there and she called and asked if I could stay with her for a couple months until school started. Her niece very kindly agreed, and so I went home and numbly started packing up my few belongings in preparation of leaving the only place I’d ever known. I’d never even set foot out of Kentucky, and here I was about to board a plane for the first time and fly to California. And yet somehow, the excitement of that didn’t penetrate the emotional stupor I was still in.
