The term hardly did it justice, considering that Devon and I had been careening toward forever – until a week before college graduation, when he'd broken my heart along with my trust.
Making everything worse, I had officially met his parents the prior weekend at their estate in Bloomfield Hills. They were nice, but just a little snooty, and I'd had the distinct impression that they thought their son could do a lot better thanme.
His mom had kept calling me 'Marcie' – even after I'd corrected her.Repeatedly.And there'd beena lotof forks at dinner – too many for me to track without a little help, which noone had seemed eager to provide, not even Devon, who'd been seated on the far side of the table.
Wasthatwhy he'd dumped me?
Because I hadn't fit in?
I couldn't help but notice that his next girlfriend – Sierra the Centipede – had come from a wealthy family, too. Even back then, I'd wondered at the coincidence.
Birds of a feather and all that.
I heard myself sigh. "Yup, that was Devon, alright."
Tessa did a double-take. "Wait.TheDevon? The cheater?" She made a face. "I always hated that guy."
My brow wrinkled in confusion. "But you never even met him."
"Yeah, but I heard plenty. Delaney wassofurious. You should've heard her."
Ihadheard her. After Devon's betrayal, Delaney had spent nearly as much time ranting about him asIhad.
But these days I heard nothing from Delaney, not even through Tessa. In fact, this was the first time Tessa had mentioned Delaney at all. As for myself, whether out of pride or pain, I hadn't mentioned her either.
It was funny in a way. The one thing that connected me and Tessa was something that neither of us discussed.
Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with curiosity. "So…what's she up to?"
"Who?"
I stared.This should be obvious. "Delaney."
Tessa blinked like I'd just said something strange. "You don't know?"
I felt the color drain from my face. Judging from Tessa's expression, it was bad.Reallybad. I shook my head. "I don't knowanything. What's going on?"
Her eyes searched mine. "Seriously?"
In spite of everything, panic rose in my throat. "Just tell me, okay?"
"I can't."
I felt like screaming. "Why not?"
"Because," Tessa said, "I haven't spoken to her in months."
My mouth fell open. "Wait, what?"
"Yeah. She ghosted all of us like a year ago."
The news hit like a thunderbolt. "Really?"
Tessa nodded. "Yeah." She turned and looked toward the interior of the house. "If you want the truth, I was kind of thinking…" Her words trailed off into silence as she continued to stare as if searching for a ghost.
I leaned toward her. "You were thinking what?"
Her eyes returned to mine. "Well…I was kind of thinking she might behere."
