Page 77 of While You Were Trending

“I’d popped a gummy because—well, you’ve met my mother. When she kept insisting that he wasn’t really getting married, that he’d set the whole thing up to trick me into realizing how much I loved him and how much I wanted him back, I—I just—between the gummy and all of the reasons I needed therapy, I started to believe her, and stars know all she’d do was encourage me when I said I was going to stop his wedding, so—so that’s what I did. I gave in to the voices telling me I needed to cause a scene, and I—well. You know the rest.”

I’m whispering so softly by the time I finish that I can barely hear myself.

“I still hear the voices,” I say. “I still hear them telling me to set fire to a trash can or to open my car door and intentionallyhit someone else’s car or to flirt with a hot hockey player because it’ll be good for ratings.”

“Do you set fire to trash cans?” he murmurs.

“No.”

“Intentionally damage other people’s cars?”

“No.”

“Flirt with hot hockey players?”

“That’s why I dated Alex.”

“Ginny.”

“I’ve been in therapy since I got here. Therapy, and—and finding healthy hobbies, and I don’t do gummies anymore, and I don’t do anything for the—for the attention now, ever, even if—even if I still hear it in my head sometimes.”

Declan’s quiet.

And that’s good.

It really is.

Hopefully this—this convinces him that I’m not worth his time.

If he still likes me.

He shouldn’t like me.

I don’t want him to like me.

I didn’t want him to hate me, and now I don’t want him to like me.

I just want—I want him to go away.

Because he confuses me and I don’t like that.

I know where that goes.

But I also want him to stay.

I’m a goddamn wreck.

“Junior year, I was part of the crew that trashed the university president’s house,” Declan says.

I suck in a breath. “You?—”

“Couple of my buddies took full responsibility because they didn’t want me to get kicked off of the team.”

“You don’t have to?—”

“Alex dared me to streak through the quad.”

“That doesn’t hurt anyone.”