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Chapter 19
Cornell swung his gym bag into the front seat and started the car. He tried not to frown at his phone, void of any other message from Ali apart from her last apologetic text.
Maybe she’s home now, he thought. He couldn’t hang around the empty house any longer than he already had, couldn’t sit and wait for her and look at the box of Twister sitting on the living room couch. So he spent an hour at the gym, pushing weights until his muscles ached with almost as much fatigue as his heart had been carrying around.
Cornell’s phone shrilled as he turned out of the parking lot.
“Hey,” he said, trying to mask the relief in his voice. “I was just thinking about you.” And wondering if you’re okay and trying not to have a complete panic attack. “Ali? You there?”
“I need you to come get me.” Ali’s voice cracked.
Cornell stopped at the exit of the lot. “Are you okay?” She’s not okay, you fucking idiot. How many times had he asked her that over the past month? But Ali would tell him yes, like always.
“No,” she said quietly. “I’m not.”
Cornell’s heart sank. The pain of hearing such a strong person breaking made his breath hitch.
“Where are you?” He accelerated, certain she must still be in Dallas, debating if he should call Tara.
“In my office.”
Cornell slowed, making a U-turn. “Two minutes.” He drove past the parking lot of the gym, down to the campus’s main entrance, seeing Ali’s car in its normal spot outside Brady Hall.
Ignoring his name called out from across the lot by a few players, Cornell threw his car into park and sprinted into the building, running down it’s dark halls and into the even darker computer lab. Her office door was closed, and Cornell knocked before he pushed it open, afraid to startle her. “It’s me.”
The faint light of an ending day through the narrow window didn’t allow Cornell to see much. But he didn’t need to see Ali—he heard her sniffling. Stepping around her desk, he dropped to the floor beside her as she sat with her knees to her chest, arms folded over them, rocking back and forth.
“Baby,” he whispered, trying to calm his racing heart and silence his heavy, short breaths from both his panic and his sprint. “I’m here.”
“I made a mess,” she stuttered with a pained voice, not looking at him.
Cornell inched closer, only understanding when his knee slid across something on the floor what Ali meant. His hand reached out, realizing the small rectangular pieces of paper were photos—her photos, the focal point of her office, of all her hard work.
Oh, Ali…
If it were possible for Cornell’s heart to sink lower, all the way down to the tips of his toes, it would have in that moment.
Cornell carefully pushed some of the crumpled pictures to the side and took her hand. “It’s okay. Come on, let’s get off the floor.”
Ali allowed him to help her to her feet, and he guided her to the small couch in the corner. “I made a mess,” she repeated, wiping at her face with the sleeves of her hoodie.
Cornell had to muster a new kind of strength to stop himself from wrapping his arms around her. “I’ll fix it,” he said hoarsely. I’m going to fix it all for you. He looked at the empty waste basket under Ali’s desk and cringed at the thought of throwing them away. Glancing back at Ali, he watched her stare down at the carpet as she resumed rocking.
He began opening the drawers of her desk until he found a small tote bag and dropped it back to the floor, collecting the photos quickly and stuffing them in, refusing to toss even the ones ripped down the middle. I’ll deal with them later. They don’t belong in the trash. Graham does.
Cornell returned to Ali and squatted down in front of her. “See? Don’t worry. All done,” he said. She was still silently crying, and Cornell reached out, tucking a loose strand of hair away from her face. “Don’t worry—”
“I don’t want to work here anymore,” she said softly.
His gut tightened. Don’t let him take this from you, Ali.
“I hate him,” Ali growled, still not looking at Cornell. The grit, the anger, the defeat in her voice was something so foreign, that if Ali wasn’t right in front of him, Cornell might not have believed she was the one speaking.
I swear to God, I’d kill him for you if I could.
His eyes drifted to the bag beside him, to the contents inside. He wanted to feel angry—enraged—that Graham had made her feel so impossibly low. But all Cornell felt looking between the crumpled photos and Ali quietly sobbing was profound, aching sadness. Because Graham didn’t just make a bad memory. He began to rob Ali of good ones too.
“That’s basically what she said. Good memories. Focus on them. Make them. But I don’t just feel good with you. I feel better.”
