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Chapter 44
Nera
Ihear the front door open and then Bellamy walks into my bedroom. She’s holding a Starbucks cup and hands it to me.
“Chai latte, your favorite,” she says, dropping into my desk chair and looking at me where I’m sitting on my bed. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine.”
I’m not fine. I feel like a walking, breathing exposed nerve. Everything abrades against me and causes indescribable pain. I yearn for the despondency and detachedness I felt a few months ago. I yearn for a time before I knew happiness, before I knew it could be snatched from me in an instant.
“Have you heard from him?” she asks.
“No.”
Ever since the boys threw Tristan out two days ago, I haven’t heard from him. It’s better this way. A clean break to match the swiftness with which he shattered my heart. I can move on now. I don’t want to hear his pitiful excuses anyway.
“I know it hurts now, but it’ll get easier with time.”
“If you say so.”
It can hardly get any worse. I miss him with every fiber of my being, even as I preach to never want to see him again.
I never expected this kind of betrayal from him and I can’t make sense of it, no matter how hard I try.
And I’ve tried.
I’ve spent the last two nights lying awake, punishing myself by reliving every moment spent together over the past few months, desperately trying to find a clue I must have missed that showed he was playing me.
There’s nothing.
Nothing that reveals the truth of his lies.
Now I’m left alone and feeling this way, thinking about how unfair it is that someone can come along one day and leave a permanent mark of their passage on a part of you that no one’s ever reached before and do so without you ever being able to remove it.
Sixtine bursts into my room next, her eyes finding mine.
“Did you hear? Tristan’s gone.”
“Yeah, he went back to London to see his mum. Family emergency.”
I hate that I know that. I hate that I’ve spent so much time wondering if it went well, if his mum is okay.
Six sits next to me on the bed and takes my hand.
“No,” she says. “He’sgonegone. He resigned yesterday. I heard one of the admins saying that Thornton is furious and desperately searching for a replacement to finish out the year.” Softer, she adds, “He’s not coming back, Nera.”
I look away, towards the window, blinking back the tears that threaten to make a reappearance. That news should come as a relief, not another blow, but it hits me like a tornado smashing into a fragile reed.
I’m disappointed in myself that I continue to let him hurt me. Clearly, I didn’t learn anything from his betrayal.
“It’s better this way,” I say, this time out loud. I’m happy when I manage to squeeze it out without my voice shaking too much.
I look down at the parking lot and a part of me searches for his car where it usually waits for me. The spot is empty and covered in deadly looking ice.
It feels like a metaphor for the end of our relationship.
