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“I could come to your house? Would dearest Caroline like some sushi?”
“You can’t bribe my mom with sushi. She hates it.”
“I guess I’m gonna bribe her with her favorite pastries again then.”
“I guess,” I chuckle. “Come around five. Bye, loser.”
* * *
I snatch Emily’s car door open and climb up with as much enthusiasm as if I was sitting down on the electric chair. I push my backpack to my feet and the deepest sigh leaves my lungs. I don’t mean to be dramatic, I’m just exhausted. Exhausted and heartbroken.
“Another night crying?” my best friend asks.
“I can’t help it,” I reply, my voice stuck in my throat. My eyes feel puffy and my throat raw.
“Did you call him?”
I shake my head. The whole of January and beginning of February, I tried calling Jake so many times, I was scared he would file a restraining order. How is one meant to react to their first heartbreak? He promised me the world, he left me on my own.
I stopped calling on the fourteenth of February. Not because Valentine’s Day reminded me I was now single, but because it was Aaron’s birthday. I simply had something else to cry about and, suddenly, the school’s number one fuckboy breaking up with me didn’t seem so bad. The last birthday I spent with my brother, he turned eighteen, two months later he disappeared. He turned twenty-one this year.
I didn’t just have to deal with being left behind, with the realization that my and Jake’s relationship had shattered to pieces. I also had to deal with Camila, Beth, and the people who usually don’t care about me and suddenly did because I was Jake’s girlfriend. All those people, they now whispered things about me, probably started by Camila.
He didn’t just break up with her, he left Stoneview, how bad can she be in bed?
You should have improved your blowing skills, Goody, want me to teach you?
How clingy are you that he had to skip town so you wouldn’t follow him?
People can be mean. Breakups hurt. Aftermath hits hard.
“At least we’re not taking steps back, babe. It will pass, I promise you,” Emily reassures me. In all this, she’s the one constant in my life that hasn’t changed. My safety net, my unconditional love.
“How are you so…okay?” I don’t want to drag her down with me but I’m certain Emily is in denial. “You’re in love with Luke.”
It’s her turn to sigh. “I think I’m still too angry at him. At both of us, for letting ourselves fuck it up.”
There’s a long silence while we both think of our own broken hearts. Emily finally starts the car and we’re on our way to school for another day without Jake.
We end up having to park in one of the furthest spots from the entrance. This is what happens when you take too long sulking, you’re late.
Stupidly it makes me even angrier at Jake. Not only have I given him the power to break me, he also still puts me in trouble after he’s left me behind. He doesn’t even need to be in the same city as me to ruin my life.
Everyone is already inside, and we’re power walking across the parking lot when Nathan’s Porsche Cayenne drives onto the lot and stops at the drop-off, not far from the entrance. My heart plunges hard enough in my stomach to make me miss a step. I haven’t seen Nathan since that famous night at the Murrays. Since my birthday, two months ago.
Emily and I are close enough to the car that we can hear the shouting going on inside, not the exact words but the raised voices. They don’t even have a window open. The passenger door opens, and a furious Rose comes out.
“Fuck you!” she shouts as she grabs her bag. She slams the door multiple times, re-opening it every time just to slam it harder. “Fuck you. Fuck. You. Ugh.Fuck. You.”
“Shit,” Emily whispers, and I don’t understand why until I see that Nathan has come out of the car as well. He walks around, his face as passive as usual. His self-control truly is impressive. Which is why it makes it so much worse when he hurts people; he does it purely out of pleasure.
I still feel strange when I see him, there will always be leftover memories of when he was my sweet Nathan.
Memories of lies.
Nathan grabs Rose by the back of her neck so suddenly I don’t think she even had time to expect it.
“Go on, make your life harder, Ozy. Fucking do it,” he growls at her. She’s not scared though. She keeps fighting and tries to get out of his hold. Vainly.
