AllFreeNovel
Share Us
When I turn into The Pen’s parking lot, my head is bent to look out of my window and up at the third floor of Nera’s building. The lights are completely off but it’s late. She could be asleep.
I park and slip out of the car in the cover of darkness. I slink over to the back of her building until I see her window. No lights coming through either. I look at the ground around me. There’s some gravel I can use. I pick up a handful and start pelting them at her window.
There’s no answer.
If she’s ignoring me, she’s going to get the spanking of a lifetime.
I pick up a larger rock and toss it, hitting the window pane square. It makes a loud, cracking sound but the window mercifully doesn’t shatter.
No light comes on either.
She’s not home.
Concern grabs me around the windpipe and squeezes. I walk back to my car, checking my phone once more. Still no notifications. The antsy feeling in my belly makes me almost nauseous.
Back in the car, my eyes are pinned on the door, watching and waiting for Nera’s return. I turn the heat on and sit back in my seat, getting comfortable. After a while, my eyes start to flutter but I fight the call of sleep. I’m not going to miss her.
I sit there well into the night, until I have to turn the engine off and the only heat I have to keep myself warm is the one from my own body.
She never comes home.
???
Chapter 38
Nera
Iend up staying at the hotel the entire weekend.
I don’t mean to. I fall into a light sleep where I’m tormented by happy memories of Tristan and I, each reminder a new stab wound to my heart. When I wake up late the next day, I don’t have the strength to get up and face the world. I won’t be able to hide my heartbreak from my roommates and I can’t explain it to them.
So, I stay. Despondency takes me and leaves me as nothing more than a living, breathing shell. I spend the next night flitting between fitful sleep and bouts of silent crying.
It was stupid of me to think he could ever really care about me. My own parents can’t love me unconditionally so how can I expect a random guy to, especially one who’s seen as much of my internal ugliness as he has, one who I’ve routinely pushed away for months.
The worst part is I know I can’t fault him for it. I’m the one who refused to let him in. I messed this up, Ifailedat this like I always seem to do.
And even if I had let him in, we’re in a terrible situation with no recourse. There is no happy ending in the cards for us.
The anger and hurt I feel eclipse the guilt, but just barely. Knowing he touched her and probably spent the night with her after I ended things makes me sick to my stomach. I’d throw up if I’d eaten anything recently.
On Sunday afternoon, I finally peel myself out of bed. When I turn my phone back on, I have dozens of missed calls and over a hundred texts. I don’t check any of them. I’m not ready to go back to my new reality just yet.
I order an Uber and wait for it on the steps of the hotel. It’s gloomy and gray outside, a perfect reflection of how I feel inside. I get in the passenger seat and stare silently out the window the entire way back to The Pen. There’s a mass in my throat that makes it hard for me to keep the tears in, but I manage as best I can.
The driver parks and walks around to the boot to help me. He bends and grabs my backpack then extends it towards me.
“Nera.”
Ice trickles down my spine and freezes me in place. When I don’t take the bag from him, the driver looks up, confused.
The voice is smooth as liquid gold, the stony authoritative tone wrapping like a physical touch around my nape and bending me to his will. With one word, he has my knees flinching and ready to kneel for him.
Our connection is out of control; for a moment, it clouds my anger at him.
What is he doing here?
I’m not ready to deal with this.
