“Son,” Paul laughs. “You didn’t have to. No one feels this shitty about someone unless they love them.”
The suffocating emotions that I’ve been working so hard to suppress fill my head and my chest and everywhere else—my body feeling heavy and weary. Honestly, I’d just like to sleep for a while and forget.
“I’m going to have to let you go,” I tell Paul softly. “I have packing to do.”
Paul sighs, sounding weary himself. “For what it’s worth . . . I’m sorry, Noah. Truly.”
“Yeah,” I mumble. “So am I.”
I hang up without saying good-bye, immediately downing what’s left in my glass and shutting my eyes tight to focus only on the burn as it goes down. If I could go back—I would have never touched her. I would have never let myself know how soft she is, how warm . . . Maybe I would even go back to the beginning and tell her that it was a ridiculous idea, this plan of ours. I would face the board and take my punishment and that would be the end of it.
Except . . . I wouldn’t know what her laugh sounds like. I wouldn’t be able to recall the way her nose wrinkles when she’s thinking. The sweet softness of her scent that haunts me, even now. I wouldn’t know her, and I feel like that would be an even greater tragedy than losing her, to never know her at all.
I don’t remember getting to my feet, but I feel my body carrying me down the hall toward my bedroom before I even realize where I’m going. It only takes seconds to fall into my bed, to press my nose to the sheets and breathe in deep. It’s still there, almost as strong as the day she left it, and scenting her feels almost like touching her, like she’s brushing back my hair or sighing in my ear. It makes everything better. It makes everything worse. It makes the reality even more crushing, because I know I will never touch her again.
I roll away from my bed as fast as I can, pushing away from the mattress like it’s burned me and cursing myself for coming in here again when I promised myself I wouldn’t. I stomp toward the bedroom door, only to pause just inside it, turning back to glance at the sheets as memories of having her there beneath me taunt me in vivid recollection, making that suffocating feeling inside almost unbearable.
I close the door behind me, making myself another promise not to come back even while knowing I’ll probably break it. Again.
Time for another drink.
25
Mackenzie
“That’s it. We’re getting drinks tonight.”
I blink, remembering where I am, noticing Parker grimacing at me mindlessly stirring my soup. “What?”
“I actually cannot sit here and watch you space out like a depressed zombie for another day.”
“I’m not depressed,” I lie, frowning down into my soup as I stir more aggressively.
Parker rolls his eyes. “You’ve been giving me ‘Anne Hathaway in Les Misérables’ vibes for the past week, Mackenzie.”
“I don’t understand that reference,” I mumble.
“Well, I can’t help it if you refuse to culture yourself.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I’m serious. You’re making me depressed. I’m worried about you.”
My brow knits. “I’m seriously fine.”
If seriously fine means crying myself to sleep like some downtrodden heroine in a romantic comedy after being viciously dumped counts as fine, that is. But Parker doesn’t need to know about that.
“Whatever. You don’t have to cry on my shoulder or anything, but you can admit that you’re hurting.”
“What’s there to hurt about? It was a fake relationship.”
“Most people don’t take heat leave with their fake relationship,” he accuses. “And they don’t call me crying from outside a café because their fake relationship broke things off.”
“I wasn’t . . . crying.”
He rolls his eyes again. “Right. Sure. Regardless—We are getting drinks tonight.”
“I don’t really feel like going out,” I protest feebly.
“Well, I don’t really feel like watching you wither away in front of me because of that asshole.”
It’s strange; my first instinct is to defend Noah, even now. To tell Parker that he’s not an asshole, he’s just delivering all the things that we expected from the beginning. Why is that? Maybe it’s because I had (quite literally) just opened myself up to something more, to trying out something real—only to have my entire heart stomped on in an old booth of a café I used to really enjoy. Which is a double whammy, because now I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back.
“I’m sure it’s just some hormonal bullshit,” I offer. “It’ll pass.”
“Mackenzie,” Parker sighs. “You can feed that shit to someone else, because I know you. I saw you with him that day when you were going into heat. I don’t know what the fuck happened between you two when I wasn’t looking, but something changed. And it’s okay to admit that you’re hurting.”
I say nothing, setting my spoon on the cafeteria table before running my fingers through my hair, which I didn’t bother washing today. Come to think of it, I’m not really sure when I last washed it.
“Just come out with me,” Parker urges. “We can forget about men for a night.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” I grumble. “Your relationship is going just fine.”
“And I will be happy to make up several shortcomings to bitch about over cosmos.”
My lip twitches despite it all. “Fine. Whatever. We’ll go for drinks.”
“Perfect,” Parker says happily. He checks his phone. “I have to go back. I’ll meet you when you get off?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He leaves me sitting at the table alone, and my soup remains woefully untouched, my appetite nonexistent. Is this what it feels like to be heartbroken? I’ve successfully avoided the feeling romantic-wise for almost the entirety of my adult life, and now that I’m experiencing it firsthand, I would be happy to give it back.
I’ve gone over that day at the café again and again in my mind, trying to pick it apart and find sense in the way that Noah had been so eager to pursue something more with me days before ending things entirely. By all accounts it makes absolutely no sense, but the aloof expression on his face as he’d told me it was over, that it wasn’t the right time for him and me . . . it left little room for doubt.
And what’s more confusing is how deep it stings, how much the hurt of it lingers like a wound that won’t heal. I had been so confident that I could keep things casual, that I could explore his body while keeping a tight hold on my heart—so why does it hurt so much?
Deep down, I know the answer. Of course I do. I think I’ve known it since the first time he touched me, but I’ve been so desperate to keep him at arm’s length that I’d somehow managed to push Noah directly into my blind spot. I held him where I couldn’t see the way he was carving a place for himself inside my heart.
And now I’m experiencing the fallout, all alone.