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Jane: He’s freezing down there. It’s actually hailing outside.
Waiting, always waiting. He’s so scared to miss me that he would literally wait through a hailstorm. I closed my eyes and saw him at the bus stop, outside the theater, striding into the club in New York, and leaning against my building just last night. His eyes were always slightly nervous, but eager all the same. He said he would never stop chasing me. Unfortunately, this time I wasn’t going to let myself be chased.
I tapped a quick, final message:
Me: U can tell him I’m not coming back. Thx.
I powered off my phone and put it in my bag. Then I tucked my legs under me and pressed my face against the cold glass of the train window. I imagined Brandon’s face as Jane told him the truth. And silently, I began to cry as I finally allowed myself to feel the pain of what I was losing.
Forty-One
“Bubbela!”
My grandmother’s sharp, gravelly voice woke me from a night of thrashing around my bed, twisted up in dreams of mournful blue eyes and rainstorms. If I hadn’t known I was in Brooklyn, that word took me straight back to Flatbush. Maybe if I wished hard enough, Bubbe could take me back months, before this mess began.
“Get yourtuchusdown here for breakfast!”
Maybe not.
I squinted into the stale light that peeked through the blinds. “Go away, Bubbe!”
As I sat up, the mattress creaked loudly, as if it had had as hard a time with sleep as I had. I had a full day of studying ahead of me, considering I still had to catch up on the work I’d missed last week. With everything that had been going on, my focus was slipping, something I just couldn’t afford so close to the end.
Unfortunately, the small light on my phone that signaled messages was right next to my face. I had managed, with helpful distractions in the forms of liquor, music, and my dad, to ignore all notifications after I’d finally turned the phone back on.
Now, however, was a different story. With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I swiped the screen, which revealed five new voicemails, twenty-eight new text messages, and a whopping forty-three missed calls. All were from a certain frantic businessman.
I deleted all of the voicemails, knowing that if I heard the sound of Brandon’s deep voice, my resolve would melt faster than ice cream in August. The messages began innocently enough.
Brandon:Missed u when u left.
Then with more mischief:
Brandon:Was hoping to take u out for breakfast. Of course, you’d taste better.
When I didn’t reply, they became more inquisitive and frustrated:
Brandon:When do u think u’ll be finished at the library?
Brandon:It would b nice if u could actually check ur messages.
After he had been told that my trip to the library was a farce, they turned confused and frantic.
Brandon:what did i do?
Brandon:im freaking out here. pls call asap.
Brandon:What the hell, skylar? WHERE R U???
I scrolled through the hurt, the obvious frustration, the confusion. Jane hadn’t told him where I’d gone, but Brandon was too smart not to figure it out eventually. It was clear from the messages that he knew I was angry about something and determined to leave. I scrolled to the last one, which practically stopped my heart.
Brandon:I meant it, red. Never.
I turned off the phone again and pulled the covers over my aching head. His meaning was clear. He’d never stop chasing me. I’d done the right thing in deleting the voicemails—if I heard him say it aloud, I wouldn’t be able to ignore the part of me that didn’t want him to stop. But this was for the best. And more than that, it was good that I’d come here to remind myself of what I was protecting.
“Skylar Ellen Crosby!”
I grumbled again at the sound of sturdy shoes on the rickety wooden stairs. The door burst open with a loud thwack against the wall, and before I knew it, the blankets were yanked away by a pair of small, strong hands that belonged to an equally small, strong body.
