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Hope wanted to spring to life inside my chest, but I knew better.A jaded soul took on wariness as a means of self-preservation for a reason.
Me:What time?
JJ:Eight.
A thumbs-up was all I had the energy to type.Dropping my cell to the couch, I once more slumped, hands rubbing my weary eyes.My stomach rumbled, but I couldn’t be bothered to get up and take care of myself.
I passed the fuck out and woke to find the sun had completely disappeared, leaving my windows dark except for the peek of streetlight around the blinds.My neck also had a fucking crick from the pit of hell.I’d ended up tipping to the side while asleep, my head hanging off the arm of the couch at a weird angle.
“Fuuuck,” I groaned, rubbing at my sore muscles.Grumbling, I stretched the best I could, patting around the couch cushion beside me for my cell.
What the fuck time was it?
I located my phone and swiped the screen to life.
It was a little after ten.
Ten.
I cursed again.There was no text from JJ.No voicemail to tell me he couldn’t make it at eight.He couldn’t even be bothered to let me know he was running late—by two fucking hours.
He’d stood me up.
Period.
Hardfuckingstop.
I waited for emotions to erupt, but shock reigned.
Was I really so unimportant and irrelevant as men I’d allowed myself to fall for made me feel?I wasn’t even a goddamned afterthought.A bump in the road, a passing moment of fun or release.
How emptiness could creep into a soul and fill it up, I had no fucking clue, but that was what happened.
An abundance of nothing.Thankfully, I’d been wiped out of fucks to give.
My insides were a dried out husk.Drained and simply…done.
Same as when Xavier had ghosted me, I blocked JJ’s number and once more tossed my phone aside.
I took a long, hot shower, soaking in the heat and the numbness that had claimed my mind.
Knowing my brother Jacob worked the night shift at the fire station, I rang him while rifling through my closet for my duffel bag.
“What’s up, baby bro?”he asked, but not as jolly as he would have been after telling me about Xavier’s engagement to Teddy a couple of nights ago.
A muscle ticked in my jaw at the memory of walking in on my ex and his new fiancé.“Anyone at camp?”
“No.Dad and I winterized it last weekend.”
“Good.I’m heading up there for a few weeks.”
“You okay?”
“No, but I will be,” I said, knowing that eventually I would get over having my heart stomped on for a second time.I hadn’t realized it had healed enough to be broken—but JJ had somehow found a way, and trashed it, he had.
“Want any company?”Jacob asked.
“Maybe eventually.”I tossed my bag onto my bed and made for my bureau.“But I need some time alone to decompress.Are those trees we cut down in the spring still there?”
