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“What, Sam?” Her arms are out. She’s frustrated and mad. “What do you want from me?” Her voice is raised, and there are tears in her eyes, but I’m not sure if they are for me or for him. A few spill down her face.
“I just want you,” I insist, trying to convince her. I can feel time running out.
Adrenaline is coursing through my body. It’s left over from the fight that never really got started with Chase and the war I’m waging to get Oakley back right now. I reach out to wipe her tears, but she turns away from my touch.
Chase’s truck rumbles as the engine starts down the block.
My ex-girlfriend shakes her head. “You don’t want me.” Her turquoise eyes shine with accusation.
I grip both her arms to make her listen to me. To make her see. I’m not used to working so hard to convince a woman that I’m worth the risk. They usually fall at my feet, so I’m out of my element right now.
Foreign words emerge from my mouth. “We were so good together, Oakley. We were so good. Don’t you remember?”
She takes a calculated step back, removing herself from my hold, and the world is suddenly colder. She wipes the tears from her own cheeks, her eyes flitting between both of mine as she studies my face.
“I remember, Sam,” she whispers, warming me all over again as hope surges.
It’s us, Oak. You and me. It’ll always be us.
She reaches up to rest her palm on my cheek, and it’s the first time in weeks—months—that she’s deliberately touched me. The familiar scent of her skin surrounds me.
“I remember everything,” she continues with a small, determined smile. “The good and the bad. But mostly … I remember the way your back looked as you walked away from me. From us. That’s the image I picture the most when I think about you and me these days.”
I can hear the defeat in her voice. The sadness for things lost. The exhaustion after the drama on the back deck. But the thing that grabs me the most is the resolve that’s lying there, along with all the other emotions.
And it hits me in this moment like a bolt of lightning … I’ve lost her.
She rises on her toes and kisses my cheek. Everything inside of me feels the goodbye hidden inside her kiss.
I swallow the lump in my throat as I watch her spin on her heel and start walking down the pathway toward campus, but I say nothing. What more is there to say? Madison falls into step beside her, slinging her arm across her bestie’s shoulders in silent solidarity. My eyes are glued to Oakley’s back as I watch all my expectations disappear with her petite frame around the corner.
My lip is bleeding. My knuckles are swollen. But it’s my chest that hurts the most. The ache is deep and heavy and unrelenting. I’ve never felt it before. The hopelessness. The emptiness. The lack of control. And I wonder if this is the way Oakley felt when I walked away from her all those weeks ago.
CHAPTER TWO
SAM
Over a week has passed since everything went down. I was numb for a few days after that night. Some would say I experienced a taste of my own medicine when Oakley rejected me. Some did say that. Others would call it karma. Whatever. I made a decision after a couple of nights of moping around and feeling sorry for myself. I decided to shrug off the loss and start living life. To take advantage of my status on campus. Exploit it even.
I’m a single guy—a hockey star and college athlete—in my prime. I needed to start living like it. So, I began to show up at parties. I began to appreciate the way alcohol dulled my senses, making it easier to cope with the loss of Oakley and the demise of my friendship with Chase. The more I drank, the more distant the drama became. I arrived at those parties alone, but I never left that way. And I lost myself in the soft, warm bodies of female strangers, leaving them behind the next morning. I’m learning that it’s easier not to care and not to get attached.
My social life is booming. If I’m being honest, it was both before and after Oakley. Probably even more so since we broke up. Even now, while driving down the highway, girls are blowing up my phone, wondering what I’m up to tonight. And I know of at least four huge parties across campus.
But my mom called and asked me to come home, which is rare. She wouldn’t say why, just that she missed me and wanted to see me this weekend. She basically wouldn’t take no for an answer. And I have a hard time denying her, which is why I find myself navigating the familiar roads that lead to my childhood home.
I flick my turn signal and exit the freeway.
Really, I could use an excuse to bail from campus for a night or two anyway. A safe place to recharge my batteries. I don’t want to think about Oakley anymore, and the house has been filled with tension between Chase and me since that infamous night of the fight—if you could even call it that with as fast as it was broken up. I’ve done my best to avoid him, and he must be doing the same because even though we are roommates, we haven’t come face-to-face more than once or twice. But there’s always that uncomfortable feeling that we might run into each other and the unpredictability of how either of us will react.
I heard from Mike that Chase and Oakley are officially together now. I’m dreading the day he starts bringing her to the house. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, knowing she didn’t want me back. And I’m practically choking from the fact that she chose Chase over me. Talk about salt in the wound. One of my best friends and my ex-girl …
I try to clear my mind as I park the car in the driveway of my childhood home a few minutes later. It looks the same as always. A ranch-style house with a brick facade. Dad keeps the yard immaculate since taking over my mowing duties when I moved to college. And it looks like Mom is preparing the flower beds for planting soon. There’s fresh soil spread out and several bags of mulch propped against the side of the house. If I stay too long this weekend, I’m sure she’ll recruit me to help her. Free manual labor.
I grab my duffel bag from the back seat and close the door, locking it as I walk to the front door. Mr. Cruise, our seventy-three-year-old neighbor across the street, is trimming a bush in his front yard.
“Sam!” he yells. “You home for the weekend?”
“Hi, Mr. Cruise. Just here for a quick visit.”
