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She walked away. So what the heck does this even mean?
“You clearly didn’t look closely enough.” Spencer sighs, pressing his thumb and forefinger against my phone screen and zooming in on the picture. “I’m assuming you didn’t look at her signature.”
Grabbing my glasses off of the coffee table, I slide them on and lean forward to look at the zoomed in area of the picture, the far-left bottom corner of the wall. Right underneath a cursive scribbling ofDanica Brewster, in thick, bold, black-painted strokes are the wordsI love you, nerd.
“Oh my God.”
Just like how it happens in the movies, my life flashes before my eyes. But not my entire life. Just the parts with Danny, since nothing in my life feels like it even mattered before her. Every time she smiled at me, every time she asked if we could put Legos together, every time we danced in the kitchen, every time she laughed at my punny math jokes, every time she touched me, every time she made me feel alive, and every time she looked at me with so much love lighting up her entire face that I can’t believe I never noticed.
“You’re an idiot,” Spencer mutters as I quickly snatch my phone out of his hand and hold it in my currently shaking ones. “You had a freak-out after dealing with that absolute nightmare of a human being she used to date, and I get it. But you lost your shit on the wrong person. You think she changed you, but you don’t even realize that strong, fun, wild part of you was in there this whole time, just dying to be set free. You just needed someone to bring it out of you. Someone to stop making you so afraid of hurting other people’s feelings, when they’ve done nothing but hurtyours. Someone who lets you be whoever the hell you want to be, because she loves you no matter what that looks like and just wants you to be happy, no matter what that takes. Wake the hell up, man!”
Spencer smacks me in the arm, and I smack him right back.
“I’m awake!” I shout, suddenly feeling like I want to hurl this phone across the room and hurl up whatever might be left in my stomach since I last ate something. “How areyouthe voice of reason about love right now?”
“I don’t know. I think maybe someone roofied me last night.” Spencer shakes his head in confusion.
If there was any humor left in my system at this point, I would laugh. But there’s nothing inside me right now except all the regret in the world about the things I accused Danny of last night and the fear that I screwed up so badly I will never be able to make it right. Every time I close my eyes, all I can see is the look on her face when she realized I doubted her,again. I hate myself for hurting her like that. I hate that I let myself forget I’m not a weak little kid anymore who just takes everyone’s crap. She gave me that power. She gave me that confidence, and I just let it slip right out of my hands. I hurt the one person who never made me feel like I wasn’t good enough.
Why didn’t I see what was right in front of my face? She was telling me she loved me before she even painted those words on that wall, and I ignored it because I was afraid of getting hurt. I didn’t see it, because I was too stuck in the past. She trusted me with her heart, and I didn’t take care of it. I just crumpled it up in my hand right in front of her face and tossed it in the trash, and I feel sick just remembering the look on her face when she kissed me goodbye. Like she believed in me, and I let her down. I’ve spent my entire life making sure I never did anything to hurt anyone, and in the blink of an eye, I suddenly became the one doing all the hurting. I became the heartbreaker instead of the heartbreak-ee.
I turned into the bad guy.
My phone starts ringing in my hand, and I groan when I see it’s Dottie calling me. I’m sure by now she’s probably heard about what a jerk I was, and she’s calling to tell me off.
“You need to get your tush to city hall right now!” she whispers loudly into the phone as soon as I put it next to my ear. “There’s a storm brewing, and your girlfriend is right in the middle of it.”
Hearing Dottie call Danny my girlfriend gives me hope that news hasn’t made it around the island yet that I’m an idiot, and I quickly jump up from my couch when I hear shouting in the background.
“What’s going on? What’s happening?” I race into the kitchen and grab my golf cart keys off the hook and then fly past a confused Spencer, who stood up from the couch when I did and started following me.
“That pompous dipshit who was at your dad’s place yesterday is here, and Danny is ripping him a new asshole.” Dottie laughs.
Spencer shouts after me as I run out the front door, but I ignore him, not even bothering to close the door behind me. All I see is red, knowing that man is anywhere near Danny, and everything I should have said to him and done to himyesterdayis flying through my head so quickly I can’t see straight.
“This is fun, but she might need backup. Or at least someone stronger than me to hold her off of him before she catches a charge and you both have fancy mug shots.”
When I end the call with a promise that I’ll be there as quickly as possible, Spencer hops into my golf cart as soon as I start pulling away from the garage.
“What are we doing?Jesus,slow down!” Spencer shouts, grabbing onto his arm rest as I peel out of the driveway, taking the turn too sharply and running right over a shrub by the street.
“I’m going to kick that mean guy’s ass,” I growl, slamming my foot down on the pedal.
“Oh no,” Spencer mutters.
“—a piece ofshit, and you need to get the hell off this fucking island!”
I fly through the doors of city hall with Spencer right behind me, both of us pausing right next to Dottie by the welcome desk. Some of my anger withers away as soon as I see Danny, so beautiful and fearless as she stands across the room with her back to me, and her head held high. She’s a few feet away from Asher with her hands on her hips, definitely ripping him a new asshole, just like Dottie told me.
“Where’s Dad?” I whisper, glancing around the lobby at the five other employees standing quietly against one wall, eating this whole thing up, as Danny flings a few more insults at Asher.
“He had a meeting. It’s a shame he’s missing this.” She glances at me, looks me up and down, and then frowns. “Why do you look like shit and like you slept in your clothes? What did you do?”
“It’s fine,” I reassure her under my breath. “I’m here to fix it.”
“Sorry, folks!” Asher laughs, glancing around the room at the city hall employees. “This is why you shouldn’t mix business with pleasure, am I right? Ex-girlfriends are…” He pauses to bring one hand up by his head, swirling his index finger around in a circle by his temple in the universal sign for “crazy,” and my anger starts to brew all over again.
No one gets to call her crazy but me, dammit!
