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Oh God.
I smother the whimper crawling up my throat.
“It wasn’t like that, and you know it,” he grits out, his dark gaze finding mine.
Why?
Why would he do that?
Go on another date with her and then come back and touch me like that?
It doesn’t make any sense.
Except, it does, if I finally accept that he’s not the boy I believed him to be.
God, I’m so tired.
So wrung out and dejected.
“I think I’m going to go,” I declare to no one in particular.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Elliot flinch. But he doesn’t try to stop me unlike the girls who all voice their protests.
“Breakfast is almost ready, you can’t leave yet,” Tally says.
“I’m tired and I have a bunch of homework to finish.”
She comes over to me and takes my hand. “You know, you don’t need to put so much pressure on yourself.”
“It keeps my mind busy.” I force a smile. “Thanks for last night, I’m glad you persuaded me to come,” I say. And I mean it.
But I can’t help but replay what Elliot said to me.
Maybe he’s right.
Maybe I did only agree because deep down, I can’t let go of my silly notion that there’s something between us.
Something real.
God, I’m such a mess. The way I let him touch me. Tease me. And make me break apart.
But for those few stolen moments in the dark, I was free. I wasn’t plagued by the paralysing loneliness I feel day in and day out. The constant ball of grief lodged in my throat.
Elliot’s touch—no matter how toxic—is like a balm to my broken, weary soul. It makes sense that I would crave that. Gravitate toward it.
It isn’t healthy. It isn’t right. But it isn’t entirely wrong either.
Is it?
“If you give me a minute, I’ll walk you back.”
“You don’t have to do that, I’ll be fine.” I wrap an arm around my waist, holding myself together.
It’s too much being here, with Tally and my friends. Their boyfriends.
Elliot.
I was a fool to think I could pretend. That things could go back to even a shred of what we all had before.
