Page 94 of Fundamentals of Chemistry

“How? You know what—it doesn’t matter.” He stalked back to his door, pulling out his own key, presumably to retrieve mine and not to hide out again.

I followed him back to his door. “I actually locked myself out because of you.”

“I’d love to hear how this is all my fault,” he grumbled.

“That’s not what I said.”

“Whatever.”

Anger bubbled in me at his dismissive and downright rude tone. “I came out in the hallway to try to talk to you. Though, I guess you couldn’t hear my knocking despite obviously being in there the whole time.”

He paused and his shoulders rose a fraction of an inch. He was busted. But he opened the door, grabbed my spare key from its hook, and tossed it to me in one smooth motion.

I barely got my hands up to catch the bit of metal—time that Jack used to pull his door closed and turn away from me.

“Hey!” I called after him.

He looked back at me when he reached the door to the stairs. “What else could you possibly need from me?”

I was taken aback by his harsh tone. It had been months since he had spoken so rudely to me, and even then, his words had lacked the bite they carried now. This wasn’t the sweet, playful, considerate man that I had fallen for. Tears stung in the back of my eyes, threatening to fall. But I had been waiting all week to speak to him. I couldn’t miss this chance.

I mustered my courage and took a step toward him. I hadn’t thought I was capable of being any more embarrassed, but then, my voice cracked when I asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

My heart fractured. “Okay,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. “So, then I guess this is it?”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation or room for doubt in his response. Our relationship was over.

This time when he pushed open the door to the stairway, I turned my back rather than watching him walk away again. Hopefully, I turned fast enough that he couldn’t see tears start to roll down my cheeks. Who was this girl—this girl that cried over a man?

My face stung as though he had slapped me. I thought crying was supposed to make me feel better, but I just felt wrung out.

I let myself into my apartment and flopped down onto the couch. I grabbed the nearest pillow and held it over my face while I screamed. I didn’t feel better. But now my throat felt just as raw as my emotions.

One thing still bothered me more than anything else. I still didn’t understand why. I had absolutely no idea what I had done to earn his ire. It must have been something awful.

Maybe if I could figure that out, then I could make up for whatever it was and reconcile. I loved him. That had to be worth fighting for. Though, as I considered that possibility, I dismissed it. Even if we could make up, this relationship always had an expiration date, and we were nearly out of time.

There was no point in reconciling. Not really. The most I could hope for was closure.

Without meaning to, this had become the most intense relationship of my life, and having it end so abruptly was jarring. There was an empty space inside me where he used to be. How had I let that happen? This was supposed to be a fling—something fun and mutually beneficial to pass the spare time. But somehow, he had become so much more to me.

Once the tears ebbed, I slunk into my bathroom. I used a concentrated acetone solution to scrub off the little turkey feathers that I had painted for Thanksgiving until I was down to my bare, natural nails. I perused my collection of polishes and none of them spoke to me. For the first time in as long as I could remember I left my nails bare. A little part of me wondered if TJ might be disappointed. But that was really the least of my concerns at the moment.

After stowing my nail kit, I glanced around my apartment wondering what to do next. I felt restless, but I wouldn’t go for a run, not while Jack was outside. I couldn’t bear to see him right now. Not yet.

I checked my email, but there was nothing new. I picked the Tessa Bailey novel I had been reading and flipped to my bookmarked page. My eyes scanned the same sentence three times before I slid the bookmark back into the same spot and closed the book.

After months with Jack, I suddenly felt painfully lonely. With nothing else to do, I pulled a fuzzy blanket over myself and laid down on the couch to watch TV. A while later when I heard footsteps in the hall and a door open and close, I didn’t even look up from where I lay.

***

“You look like death warmed over.” Ashley raised a sharp eyebrow as I slid into the chair across from her, coffee in hand.

“I didn’t have a great weekend.”

“Want to talk about it?”