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I bite my lip. ‘I bet even Cassie is in college now.’ Last I saw of Cassie Sinclair, she went completely off the rails after Demi died, blanking everyone until she eventually dropped out of school.
‘Nope.’ He starts on the other hand. ‘She has a kid with that Brad dude.’
‘The guy she met on Tinder?’
He nods.
I vaguely recall sitting across from her and Demi in a coffee shop and overhearing them discussing Brad. When he didn’t show for Chapter One Festival, I automatically assumed they didn’t hit it off, but clearly, I was wrong.
‘How do you know that?’
‘Dave told me.’ He shoots me a secretive smile, and I can’t help but return it. He remembers the time I forgot Dave’s name and called him Dale for an entire night.
‘You still talk to him?’
‘Mmm-mhm. And Greg. Brian went off to Bangor University to study law, but he checks in every few months.’
I just assumed falling out of friendship with people was a passing of time, but it comes down to effort, I guess. How much you truly wish to keep someone in your life. But when you feel yourself changing, the people you thought would be your friends forever just aren’t your people anymore. Sometimes I miss what Cassie and I had—the random sex stories, the pranks on other students, her outfit advice and her company. But I’m not that person anymore. We just grew apart as we evolved into two different people who wanted different things, and that’s okay.
Chase sets down the tweezers and lifts my chin with his finger. ‘And for the record: it’s better to be twenty-five with a degree than twenty-five without one. Time moves on, regardless of what we do. Even if you sit there and think about all the ways you can’t do something, the sun will still rise tomorrow, and you’ll still be older than you were the day before. Isn’t it better to nourish that what your heart wants?’
But my heart wants you.
As soon as I think it, the distance between us seems a hairsbreadth. A distance full of possibilities. Almost as if he senses it, his lips part, and he stares at me, his finger under my chin suddenly searing my skin. My own breathing hitches when a faint blush reddens his cheeks—and then he clears his throat and looks away, but I’m still holding my breath as we gather my things.
The air in the car is charged. I’m not sure if he feels it, but it sings through me, making my heart race.
I can’t believe I actually told myself I was over Chase Maverick.
As if I could just stop loving him, despite the miles between us.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Sweet Sort of Torture
Itake the next week off work.
My boss isn’t thrilled at my giving her such short notice, but she can’t make me work if I declare my time off an emergency.
And it is, I suppose. The cramps have been getting fewer and further apart, and I’ve nearly stopped bleeding altogether now. I still feel sore and tender, like a walking bruise, but the codeine has helped. The tablets shove me in such deep sleeps I don’t even dream, but last night was the first without the painkillers, and I woke up gasping from a nightmare.
I haven’t heard from Archer at all—but that’s probably because I haven’t switched my phone on yet. Chase was right: social media is toxic. Even with my phone stuffedinto the drawer beside the bed, I still roll over each morning to check it. Over the years it became habit, and I didn’t realise until now how difficult a habit it is to break. But Thursday morning I made myself just stare up at the ceiling, willing away every urge to lunge for the abominable device, before throwing open the curtains to welcome in a beautiful winter chill, and the pressure that I have to be doing something constantly slowly faded with the day. It’s the first time in a while I actually took time to shower, to smell the assortment of soaps on the little shelf—lavender and jasmine and lemon and peach. I slowed right down, feeling each moment: the marble beneath my bare feet and the warmth of the fire and salvaging the exquisite fluffiness of the princess cakes I made with Eloise.
I find it helps whenever I get the urge to cut. Since that day in my apartment, it seems I burned that bridge between knowing how good it felt to self-harm and not knowing. I forgot how relieving it felt, that serene release in a rush of breath. My palms clam and my heart pounds and the world turns distant, but I ground myself, giving myself five minutes to see and hear and touch and smell—but that five minutes turns into ten, to twenty, to an hour, to an entire day, to nearly a week.
Eloise helps. Unlike me, she has to be doing something. All the time. Every minute of the day. Miley pops in most days to drop her off, and I watch her for a few hours while she goes to the studio or gets her hair done or naps or whatever it is she does. Being around Eloise is freeing: we play hide and seek, and I stifle my laughter as I hear her count ‘One, two, fwee, nineteen, sixteen…,’ and we bake more cakes, and we draw, and we watch silly cartoons, and by Thursday the lyrics to "Wheels on the Bus" go around and around in my head.
Chase spends his days operating a temporary mobile mechanic van, decked out in overly-expensive toolboxes and ramps and whatever the rest of the crap is called, so I don’t see much of him. When he gets back, I’m usually asleep on the couch, but when I wake, there’s always a blanket thrown over me so I know he’s home.
He leaves for Provence in two weeks. I’ve no idea what I’ll do then. The thought of going back to Archer terrifies me. I can’t go back to that life of constant worry and fear, back to a man I don’t love and never will. But why am I so afraid to leave? Is it because I know he’ll try and find me? Because it’s easier to be with him than it is without? I can’t start anew. Move away and begin a fresh life. With what funds? The thought of leaving Em hurts, but I know she’d want me to be happy, even if it means I have to leave her.
If I go to college, I won’t be able to work full time, which means I won’t be able to afford rent and bills and food. As much as I hate to admit it, I need Archer for that extra bit of financial stability. But he’d never let me go college.
I scrolled through some of the available courses and found a few I liked the look of, and although I’d be entitled to extra endorsement to help with living costs, it still wouldn’t be enough.
I’m never going to college. I’m going to be with Archer forever and Chase is going to move on and I never will. Not from him.
If two years apart can’t quench what I feel for him, no measure of time will.
