AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m right. I’m just... I’m right about this, Cara.”
“You’re leaving me with nothing,” she said, her voice frayed, wretched. “You’re leaving me with nobody. You have your whole family, and what are you leaving me with?”
“Cara...”
“No. No. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to try to make me feel bad for you. Or make me think that you’re doing the right thing, that you’re being all brave and self-sacrificing by doing this. You’re just being a coward. You’re ruining us. You are ruining the life that we could have. Because you’re scared. And I will not let you turn it into anything else. I know you too well for that. That’s the problem with breaking up with your best friend, Jace. I just see through it. Even if you can’t.” And then she did pick up her clothes. And she dressed, and she walked out of the house without a backward glance, and he felt like she had taken the entire world with her.
Butterflies and all.
Fourteen
She should have gone straight back to her house, but she didn’t. Instead, she went to the hotel. She went to the hotel, because it just seemed like maybe it would be a little bit more comforting than being by herself. Though, she didn’t think that anything could comfort her at this point.
As soon as she walked in, she was comforted by something. Maybe the presence of the raccoon. Maybe the presence of the orb. She didn’t know. Or maybe it was just that... She could lie to herself here. She could remember when they had been here last, and they had been full of dreams, and he had stood there and asked her to marry him.
Like they could have a future. A future that looked so different than one she had ever imagined for herself. A future that looked bigger, brighter and better.
She had always been alone. She had always been the one that people just didn’t love enough. And she knew that wasn’t fair. Not to herself. She knew it wasn’t fair to blame herself for this, not when Jace’s fears about love were about him. They weren’t about her. But it didn’t mean they didn’t brush up against all the tender places inside of her. That it didn’t feel jagged and wrong. That it didn’t make her feel lost and sad and all of fourteen years old again and somehow just not good enough. Just not enough.
Because if she was enough, couldn’t she make him... Change?
Couldn’t she make him see?
Couldn’t she make him let go.
He doesn’t want to let go. And if he doesn’t want to let go, nothing can make him. Nobody can make him.
She knew that was true. Logically, she knew it was true. But nothing was logical about heartbreak.
She paused at the bottom of the stairs. Jace had broken her heart. She was literally living in her worst nightmare. She had fallen in love with him, and he had rejected her. And he hadn’t just broken up with her... He had ended their friendship.
Of all the things she had ever worried about, she had never worried about that one thing. She had thought that it would be torture to be with him, and then have to watch him move on with other women, all the while at his side as his faithful companion.
She had never imagined that he would end the friendship completely.
She stood there. Waiting to fall to pieces. Waiting to fall apart.
And she didn’t see any glowing lights, but suddenly, she felt one. At the center of her chest, glowing within her soul. She waited to feel isolated, because Jace had been the only person that she’d ever had in her life long-term. The only one who was still here.
But she didn’t feel alone. Because her grandfather was with her. And maybe something else was too. Someone else.
Because whatever he thought, whatever he said, love didn’t end when someone died, and neither did they. Everything that they were to you was still there. And all the love that they had ever given you, and that you had ever given in return.
She knew that. It was why she was standing in this hotel. It was why she was here at all.
Her grandfather being gone didn’t erase the love that he’d given her.
And Jace ending things didn’t undo everything that they been.
She put her hand on her chest, and she felt like she might have a broken heart, but even within that... Even within it... She felt a rush of gratitude.
Because he couldn’t undo all these years.
He couldn’t take the love that he’d given her already and cut it out of her heart, take it out of her soul. Because it was part of her. Woven into the very fabric of who she was.
This was like a death.
But like death... It wasn’t really the end.
