“You’re not coming back?”
My eyes start to sting, so I close them. “I just can’t be here anymore. This isn’t working out for me.”
When she slides into my side of the booth, I open my eyes and look at her. She takes my hand. “Dee, I know you miss Joel, but—”
“This isn’t just about Joel,” I say, and it’s the truth. The past few weeks have been some of the most miserable of my life, but while part of my brain insists that it’s all because of a certain boy I can’t forget, the other part knows that’s not entirely true. It’s also because I’ve honestly been giving college my all, and the more seriously I take it, the more wrong it feels, like I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing or in the place where I should be. Over the past year, I’ve tried to quiet the voice, convincing myself that it’s just because I’m lazy or disinterested—because everyone with half a brain goes to college, right?—but it’s gotten to the point where I no longer care what the voice says because I just want to go home.
I want to go back to a place where subjects like math and biology don’t matter. Back where homework doesn’t exist and boys are predictable. Back where I can figure out who I am, because right now, the only thing I’m absolutely sure of is who I’m not. I’m not the same girl who accepted that college was her only option. I’m not the same girl who obsessed over Joel, or who let Aiden drool all over her, or who thought she could use Cody as a pawn to get what she wanted.
And I’m definitely not the same girl who blamed herself for what Cody did.
The girl I am now knows better. Even though there are days when I still think about that night, each time Cody’s face enters my mind, I become more and more sure that I didn’t deserve what happened. A kiss, even one that I enjoyed, does not equal consent. I was not to blame for what he tried to do to me.
It wasn’t my fault.
It took me a while to believe it, and some days, it’s still hard, but I know Rowan was right when she told me I did all I needed to do when I told him that one word: “STOP.”
Before that night, I was broken, and after, I was destroyed. It was a broken girl who turned Joel away when he told me he loved me, and a broken girl who watched him leave Mayhem holding another girl’s hand. I’m still trying to put myself together, but I need to be able to think to do that, and that’s the last thing I can do when every single breath I take in this town pulls at the fissures of my completely broken heart. If my future doesn’t involve college or the only guy I ever gave my heart to, I don’t know where that leaves me, but I need to figure it out.
“It’ll get better,” Rowan says. “Next semester—”
“My mind’s already made up, babe.” The corners of her lips start slipping into a frown, but my voice stays sure. “I’m moving back home at the end of the month. I already talked to my dad.”
Rowan shakes her head, her blue eyes welling with unshed tears. “What about me?”
I smile and smooth her hair over her shoulder. “You’ll be fine. You’ll stay here with Adam and finish school and be awesome, and we’ll visit each other. And we’ll talk all the time.”
“Dee . . .”
I pull her in for a hug, and she squeezes me close. When the server stops by to ask how we’re doing, she takes one look at us and gives us another few minutes.
“What will you do?” Rowan asks when she pulls away. She wipes her eyes and sniffs in the rest of her tears.
“Call Jeremy, see what he’s up to.” She chuckles when I bring up the name of the lifeguard, and I force a smile even though I’m lying out of my teeth. I have no interest in seeing anyone, especially considering it’s taking all of my energy just to crawl out of bed in the morning.
Last week, Rowan told me Joel got his own place, and I asked her to stop giving me updates. She told me she didn’t think he was seeing anyone, and I told her I didn’t care.
I’m happy that he finally has a place he can call home, but I don’t believe for a second that he’s been alone all this time, and I hate that some other girl is the one who got to sleep in his bed first. Or at all.
“I actually got an email from Van last night,” I say, showing Rowan my phone to distract us both. This will make her happy, and hopefully that will help me block Joel from my mind for another five minutes. If I take life five minutes at a time, maybe I’ll never need to think of him again.
“From Van?” she asks.
“He wanted to let me know he finally got in touch with his marketing people. I got an email from them half an hour later with a contract attached.”
“Seriously?” she says, her face lighting up. “You’re going to make T-shirts for Cutting the Line?”