“Even if you were fine, which you’re obviously not, it’s too late for you to walk home alone.”
I’m too spent to argue with her. I say flatly, “We broke up.”
“I know, I heard.”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
“I know.” She loops an arm around my shoulders and gives me a quick squeeze.
I have to admit, it feels good to have her beside me. I may not want to talk, but I don’t want to be alone either. We walk the whole way in silence, except for my sighs and sniffs, and by the time we get back to our room, I’m sobbing. Confused, furious, and heartbroken.
I want to throw myself, face down, on my bed and cry until I dissolve in my own tears, but Liv won’t let me. “Brush your teeth and wash your face. If you don’t, you’ll regret it in the morning.”
Numbly, I let her nudge me through my routine and tuck me into bed.
“I still want you to be Sweetheart,” I tell her.
Liv smiles. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I spendthe entire morning crying all over Liv while she patiently hands me tissue after tissue. We’ve just torn open a fresh box when Zander’s first phonecall chimes over my sobs.
“Talk to him,” Liv urges.
I silence my phone and toss it across my bed.
“Betts—”
“I can’t talk to him.”
“Why not? He wants to work things out.”
I stifle a groan of frustration. In her defense, making up with Zander is, ostensibly, the easiest way to end my grief. And since I haven’t explained to her why I broke up with him, she can’t know why getting back together is the last thing I want. In her eyes, Zander and I had a fight, albeit a bad one. For the requisite time we’ll sulk and cry, and then we’ll be a couple again, more in love than ever. A world without Zander-and-Betts is unfathomable to Liv.
It’s still unfathomable to me.
I tell her, “We can’t work things out.”
“Of course you can.”
I push myself up to a sitting position so I can face her eye toteary, swollen eye. “No, we can’t. It’s over. We’re all wrong for each other.”
“Okay, that is so not true.”
She thinks she’s appeasing and reassuring me, but everything she says rubs me the wrong way. “You don’t get it. I don’twantto work things out.”
“Okay, okay.” She’s humoring me, I can tell. She thinks once my anger cools down, I’ll come back to my senses.
Why does no one take me seriously?
“I mean it,” I say, sounding as firm as someone can who’s drowning in misery. “He says he loves me, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even know me.”
Liv’s eyes widen and her mouth clamps shut.
“He takes me for granted.” I pull at a loose thread on my quilt as I choke on a fresh burst of tears. “And he acts like he owns me.” It hurts to enumerate his wrongs, especially after I just shouted them at him last night. But I need to say them again. I need to sear them on my brain, because in all this sadness, I’m already starting to forget why I broke up with him.
“Well, yeah, he can be a little possessive sometimes,” Liv admits.
