“How could you?” Oakley holds up her hand before I have the chance to reply. Voice breaking. Whispering. “Never mind. I don’t want to hear your stupid excuses. I just can’t believe you’d lie to me, Jamie.”
“I didn’t lie,” I start, trying to make her hear me.
“Letting me believe that you weren’t going is the same as telling me you weren’t… Same as telling me you l-loved me… When obviously that was a lie!”
I want to take her in my arms and cradle her against my chest. Wipe her tears away. Kiss her lips until she smiles again. But there’s no way she’s going to allow that.
“I do love you, Oakley. And I didn’t lie to you. I didn’t tell you that I’d decided for sure about the circuit because I didn’t want to ruin your birthday.”
“Well,” she says with a wobbly, tear-streaked smile, “I’d say you certainly managed to ruin it, anyway.”
After that, I’m not sure what there is left to say. We stare at each other, neither of us speaking. My throat hurts from trying not to scream that I was only trying to do the right thing.
Instead, I keep my voice as soft as I can. “I’ve never lied to you, Oakley. No matter what you think. But what about you?”
She looks at me, eyes narrowing slightly as she shakes her head. “What about me?”
“You’ve never told me what you finally decided, either.” I hate myself for sounding so mean, but I can’t help it. This night has been turned upside down and inside out. Just like my entire life. “What Phoebe said. About you waiting around for me. Did you decide for sure you weren’t going to New York?”
Despite everything I’ve told myself about how important the chance is for her, I can’t hide the hope in my voice when I start to think that maybe she decided not to go.
But by the way her chin goes up, lips pressed together in a thin, grim line, I realize that she isn’t going to tell me what I want to hear. The girl I love is gone, replaced by a robot that looks like her but could never be her.
“I’m going to NYU,” she finally replies. Her voice is cold and distant as she lets out a heavy breath. “And I never want to see you again.”
Before I even have time to process what she’s said, she turns on her heel and stalks away from me as if everything we shared over the last three years meant absolutely nothing to her. As if I meant nothing to her.
Eight seconds is all we get on the back of a bull… It took even less time than that to end things with the only girl I’ll ever love.
Chapter Five
OAKLEY
Have I slept, even for a few minutes? It doesn’t feel like it. I’m not sure if I was even able to fully close my eyes. They’re so swollen and sore, aching from all the tears I shed over the situation with Jamie.
If I did sleep, I tell myself, maybe that means everything that happened last night was nothing more than the worst of nightmares. But as soon as I wake up, it all crashes down upon me again.
Rolling onto my back, I stare up at my ceiling. Counting the seconds that tick along to the metronome of my heart. Hardly able to believe it hasn’t simply stopped, too broken to keep beating.
There is a real, harsh pain in my chest. I press my fingers to it and imagine bruises forming on my skin. Pulling down the neckline of my pajama top to check, I find only my bare and freckled skin. No physical evidence of my shattered heart.
Though it’s there, broken and dying in a million shards scattered around my chest.
How many tears can I possibly shed? Every bit of moisture in my body feels like it’s been squeezed out of me. My mouth is so dry that I can hardly swallow. My tongue feels thick. My teeth, slimy, and my eyes are gritty from lack of sleep.
Phoebe had wanted to come up with me last night, insisting that I shouldn’t be alone. I loved her for that, and for the way she’d come to my defense with Jamie. But I couldn’t let her stay. Couldn’t face listening to her call him names and being unable to defend him, knowing that everything she said about him was turning out to be true.
All the years of trust vanished faster than I can blink. I might have been able to forgive him kissing Savannah, maybe even convinced myself that his claims were true and she’d forced herself on him. She was the sort of girl to do something like that, if only so she could cause a rift between us as revenge for me warning my brother away from her.
Seeing her paw at my boyfriend—correct that—ex-boyfriend, was enough to make me want to puke, but it was the deeper truth lurking that really kept me tossing and turning all night. Jamie had decided he was going on the circuit, and he let me think he wasn’t. He’d left the decision of me going to school totally on my shoulders, knowing that I thought he’d be staying behind.
The love of my life had done his best to make it easy for me to leave him.
Maybe that was why he’d let Savannah kiss him. He couldn’t have known I was there to see it, but he might’ve given in to her as an excuse for why we should break up. I start sobbing again and pound my fist into the pillow. Over and over, until a feather drifts free and I fall onto my back.
What a coward! He’s made every moment we’ve shared over the past three years into nothing but a foolish dream that, apparently, I was the only one believing in. If he wanted to end things with me, he should’ve just done it, not made it so I had no other choice.
I think I could never be less hungry than I am right now, but then the wafting scent of fresh waffles tickles my nose. My stomach growls in response. I’m surprised by how suddenly ravenous I am.
