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I was single.
And would be forever.
I drove home in silence, preferring the elevator music of my own self-deprecating thoughts to the stupid love songs I knew were waiting to mock me on the radio. Maybe love was a crock of shit, exploited to sell pop songs and greeting cards.
Maybe Ken had been right all along.
Just as I pulled off the highway and onto the back roads near my parents’ house, an annoyingly cheerful scale of beeps breached my cone of silence.
I dug my phone out of my purse, expecting to see Knight’s name flash across the screen. Or maybe it was Zach, calling to make things even more awkward than I’d already made them. But, when I pulled my phone out of my purse, the name spelled out in black digital letters belonged to someone I wanted to talk to even less.
I sighed and hit the Talk button. “Hello?”
“Hey.”
Nope, not Zach. Just somebody who looked like Zach. A harder, colder, more infuriatingly stubborn Zach. With a much better last name.
“I just listened to your voicemail.” His voice sounded…neutral. Like it always did. Calm, cool, and collected. That was Ken. He couldn’t even show emotion in the midst of a breakup.
Probably because he doesn’t love you anyway. Remember?
I sighed louder. “Can we not do this?”
“Do what?”
“You know. Have the whole fucking…breakup talk. You made it clear how you felt this morning, and that’s fine. Let’s just…move on.”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. What did I make clear this morning? I didn’t even talk to you this morning.”
“Are you really gonna make me say it out loud?” My cheeks flamed with mortification. “Fine! I know you fucking suck at relationships, so let me spell it out for you.” I said the next words slowly and with ample condescension, “I told you I loved you…and you didn’t say it back…so therefore…I am breaking up with you.”
I turned off the heater in my car and cracked a window, suddenly far too warm.
“Brooke, I was fucking asleep.”
Brooke. The sound of my legal name on his overly formal lips made me see red.
“Don’t give me that bullshit!” I snapped. “You were so not asleep. You heard me, and you fucking panicked. Let me explain to you how relationships work, Ken. Either you fall in love or you break up. And if you don’t love me after six months, then—”
“I never said that.” Ken’s voice was softer than usual. Remorseful even.
“Well, you never said you did either.” I let my words hang in the air, a plea for Ken to remedy the situation.
I was giving him a second chance to say what he’d been unable to that morning, and for the second time in a single day, he broke my heart instead. I drove with the phone against my ear and bitter, hateful tears in my eyes as I relived Ken’s wordless rejection all over again.
When the weight of his silence finally became unbearable, I said, “I’m real glad we had this talk.”
Then, I hung up on him.
