Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 124005 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 620(@200wpm)___ 496(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124005 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 620(@200wpm)___ 496(@250wpm)___ 413(@300wpm)
Her chin wobbles as tears track down her cheeks, and my heart cracks in two.
She nods as her eyes dart around, hands sliding up and down her thighs. Her voice is a broken whisper when she says, “Okay.”
The silence in the car is deafening. The click of her seat belt sounds like a gunshot. She makes a soft, desperate sound as she opens the door and climbs out.
I don’t try to stop her. Don’t chase after her. Don’t take back what I said, even though it hurts like hell to let her go.
She closes it and turns away, rushing up the steps to the front door, head bowed, hand at her mouth. She doesn’t look back, but I catch her reflection in the mirrored glass door.
She looks just as devastated as me.
CHAPTER 39
HEMI
Ican’t even hold it together long enough to make it to my apartment. My shoulders shake as I stab the elevator button, willing it to be empty when it arrives. Thankfully, my plea is heard, and I step inside to press the button for my floor. As soon as the doors close, I break, tears streaming down my face, a horrifyingly loud sob bubbling up from my throat.
It feels like someone just ripped my heart out of my chest. I can’t get the look on Dallas’s face out of my head—how resigned he was.
If I’m so uncertain of my feelings for him, why does this hurt so much? Why does it feel like I’m dying? Like there’s a gaping hole where my heart used to be? Like the best thing I ever had just slipped through my fingers?
It was too good to be true.
I’m grateful the hall is empty when I reach my floor. I’m crying so hard it’s a struggle to find my fob again through blurred vision. I finally manage to get inside and almost knock my roommate over in my rush to get to my bedroom so I can break down in private.
She has rings around her eyes from wearing her virtual headset. She tips her head up—she’s barely five feet, and I’m nearly five eleven. “Oh, hey. Oh wow, are you okay?”
“I’m okay, thanks.” I disappear into my room and slap a hand over my mouth, but it doesn’t muffle the anguished sob.
I grab a pillow to smother the sound. He just seemed so resolute, so certain that this was the right thing to do. Convinced there was no future for us. If I’d told him I was falling in love, would it have changed things? Would he have believed me?
Knowing him. Seeing Dallas as he is today and not a snapshot of a bad memory—he made me believe that maybe, just maybe, I could be loved forever. Worse, he made me believe it was safe to fall in love—to trust him with my scars and glass heart—that love wasn’t fleeting, love was patient and gentle. Now I’m alone again, with different wounds under my ribs this time.
I sob myself to sleep and call in sick the next morning. I can’t face the world, not like this. I’m a mess. And I can’t stop crying. I woke up in the middle of the night having soaked my pillowcase.
I try to avoid a call with my moms this morning, but it’s like they have a sixth sense for when I’m upset. After they’ve called three times in a row, I give up and answer.
“Is everything okay? I woke up this morning with a feeling,” Mom says.
I immediately burst into tears.
“Hemi? Sweetie? What happened?” Mom asks.
“Deep breaths, baby girl. Whatever it is, it’ll be okay,” Ma says soothingly. “We’re here to help however we can.”
“I-I-I—” I gulp air. “Damn it!”
“It’s okay,” Ma murmurs. “Take your time. We’re not going anywhere.”
It takes another minute for me to get my tears under control. “Dallas broke up with me, and none of it was really real—not the dating, not the engagement, and I’m sorry I lied to you, and everything hurts.” I’m sobbing all over again.
“We’re calling you back on video,” Mom says.
“I’m a wreck,” I blubber.
“Sweetie, we’re your moms; when you hurt, we hurt.” She ends the call and a second later starts a video chat.
Seeing their faces through the small screen only makes things worse. I’m a real mess. But once I get things under control, I sob/word-vomit the entire story, starting with my braid being lopped off by Dallas’s friend in grade three, my lost bike in middle school, to the prom fiasco, to the fake dating and the fake engagement, and finally to the real dating and the subsequent breakup.
“But you looked so happy together at the engagement party,” Mom says softly.
“I was. We were. I mean, apart from the fact that the engagement wasn’t actually a real engagement. The reunion was when things shifted. For me. He’s had feelings for a long time.”