Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 167204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 557(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 557(@300wpm)
My voice comes out in a strangled whisper, sounding like my throat is full of gravel. “You’re engaged?”
“Not exactly. It’s complicated.”
I shake my head. “Not really. It’s a yes or no question, Killian. Are you marrying her?”
My heart already feels ripped down the middle, but it wasn’t a clean break and one piece dangles from the other, held together by a single thread of increasingly fraying hope.
His silence is so loud.
If it’s a no, he would say that.
Silence can only mean yes.
I nod, my lips quivering as I try my best to hold it together, but my best isn’t good enough.
“Why would you do this to me? You made me fall in love with you. I thought you were mine.” I shake my head, backing up against the wall as tears blur my vision. “I’m going to be sick.”
My vision is too blurry as I slide down the wall to make out any clear details, but Killian strides toward me, and I close in on myself because I can’t bear him touching me.
“Don’t. Don’t you dare touch me.”
He stops short, standing in front of me. I can feel him looking down at me, but I don’t look up. I can’t look at him right now. It hurts too much.
“Please let me explain,” he says, his voice rough with emotion.
I shake my head. “There’s nothing to explain. And I don’t have anywhere to go. I don’t even have my car this time,” I say, bursting into an even more violent fit of tears.
“Brynn… I’m so fucking sorry.”
I shake my head, sucking in a breath and pushing myself up off the floor. “I have to get out of here,” I say between hitching breaths.
I turn around and walk into the bedroom, but as soon as I’m through the door, I don’t know what I’m doing in here. My head is a mess and everything feels so foggy.
The only reason I can think that I walked in here is for my toothbrush, so I go to the bathroom to grab it. Then I realize my brush is here, too, and all my other things. I hurry to the closet to grab my pink travel bag and then I come back and shove all of it in.
Killian comes into the bedroom, but I shove him out of the way and storm back into the living room.
I don’t know what I’m looking for.
Toast is in her bed, but she’s awake and alert since I’ve made so much noise.
I need to grab her food.
I go to the kitchen, doing my best to ignore the blonde goddess who’s going to marry the guy I’m in love with, but that suffocating thought just triggers another wave of not being able to breathe.
“Are you okay?” she asks quietly.
“No. That’s a very stupid question. I am not okay. I am homeless without so much as a fucking car and I just found out that everything I believed was a lie again and I just… I don’t know how much more of this shit I can take.”
She ignores the insult mixed in there and says, “The other bed in Addison’s room is still free if you need somewhere to go, at least for tonight. I can give you a ride if you need one.”
I sniffle, swiping the tears off my overheating cheeks. “I have a cat. Are cats allowed?”
“Not technically, but Addison isn’t allergic, so we can sneak her in.”
I nod woodenly, grabbing my granola bars out of the cupboard and shoving them in the bag.
I don’t know what else I need and to be honest, I don’t care. I just need to get the hell out of this apartment.
So I grab my school bag and Toast’s bed, and then I scoop up Toast. “We’re gonna go for a little ride, okay?”
She looks up at me curiously, then licks my hand because she sees that I’m upset.
Sloane doesn’t say anything else to Killian.
My old coat that he brought home earlier is bundled up on the counter near her, so she points to it. “Is this yours?”
I nod.
She grabs it, then she grabs the Zeta welcome kit Addison sent home with Killian earlier, too. “I know that’s yours. I packed it,” she murmurs.
We walk out without another word to him, and I hate the certainty I feel that out of all the things I’m leaving behind, my heart is the one thing I’ll never get back.
Tears well up in my eyes again, but I don’t fight them. There’s no point.
Sloane and I don’t have a lot to say to each other, anyway, so it’s no trouble to sit in her car quietly with tears streaming down my face.
I’m numb by the time we get to the sorority house. I follow Sloane and she scans in, then she holds the door to let me in, and I murmur a habitual, “Thank you.”