“Twenty-one,” I say quietly. If I wasn’t still so in disbelief over what happened last night, then perhaps I’d wonder why the hell Rachael is going out for lunch with him. Ever since Trevor broke up with her during spring break, she’s drilled the idea of being independent into herself. That mindset clearly hasn’t lasted long. “Where’s Tiffani?”
“I don’t know,” Dean says as he climbs onto the bed next to me, lying on his side and propping himself up on his elbow, “and I don’t care.” He reaches for my waist, placing a cool hand on my hip as he pulls my body closer to his. His lips immediately find their way to my neck as he trails slow, soft kisses along my skin. “I’ve missed you,” he murmurs, voice low. He shifts his body across the mattress, pressing his chest to mine as he delicately runs his hand up and down the side of my ribs and moves his lips to the corner of my mouth.
He kisses me gently, just as I remember, but I can’t kiss him back with the same tenderness. I can’t bring myself to kiss him at all, because out of the corner of my eye I can see my Chucks lying on the floor. They remind me of Tyler. Of course they do. He gave them to me. He wrote on them. He told me not to give up, yet that’s exactly what he now thinks I’ve done. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to make it clear to Tyler that I haven’t given up, that this is all only temporary, just until Tiffani leaves New York. I’m not sure how I can fix any of this.
Frowning against Dean’s lips, I run my hand through his hair and gently push him away from me. “Not today.”
Dean glances up at me with wide eyes, confused. “What?”
My eyes find their way back to my sneakers. The faded white material, Tyler’s scrawled handwriting along the rubber. It’s entirely irrational, but an idea springs to my mind. It’s an idea that only Tyler will understand. “There’s something I gotta do,” I tell Dean. Without even a split second of hesitation, I shove the comforter off me and swing my legs out of the bed, reaching straight for my backpack on the floor.
“What?” Dean says again, sitting up on the bed as he stares at me, as though he can’t believe I’ve just turned him down. For starters, I just woke up. Second, I’ve been sleeping with his best friend. Third, I’m telling him the truth soon, and I think sticking around here and making him believe that everything is fine is quite literally the worst I thing I could do. “What do you need to do right at this moment that’s so important?”
Still wandering around in my underwear, I scoop all of my belongings up from the floor, my bag and my phone and my Converse, and make for the bedroom door. “I can’t tell you,” I call over my shoulder. I head into the living area, darting straight into the bathroom. I hear Dean follow behind me. I lock the bathroom door before he can catch up.
“Eden,” he says through the wood, knocking once. “What’s going on? Is this about what happened last night?”
Ignoring him, I rush to pull my clothes out of my bag again, this time not in the darkness of the middle of the night, and I scatter them all over the bathroom as I try to piece together an outfit from the random items of clothing I managed to grab when I was leaving. I don’t want to hang around, so I don’t even shower, just freshen up. I spend five minutes in total pulling myself together, and once I’ve slipped on my shoes I zip my bag back up and swing the strap over my shoulder.
When I open the bathroom door, Dean’s leaning against the frame. He instantly jumps back, his eyes full of panic as he takes in the expression on my face. Ever so quietly, he asks, “Have I done something wrong?”
“You haven’t done anything wrong, Dean, and that’s the problem!” I groan, shaking my head at him as I squeeze sideways past his body. I’m so angry at myself right now, so furious that I seem to be taking my rage out on him. I feel my heart shattering at the worry in his eyes. It’s so hard to know that I have to hurt him soon, because he’s the one person I never, ever want to hurt. He deserves way better than me.
I’m waiting for him to reply, but he doesn’t. It’s like he doesn’t know where to even begin when it comes to figuring out what I’m thinking right now, and I can’t bring myself to look back at him as I leave the suite. I just pull the door shut behind me and keep walking, and the further along the lobby and the further away from the suite I get, the more my attention shifts from Dean to something else. My current motive and mission. My irrational idea.