Just him.
Gray.
He doesn’t answer my question. Doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even try to make an excuse or apologize.
He doesn’t do shit, just backs away a little and props himself up against the kitchen cabinets, his jaw set and his eyes blank as if trying to block it all out. As if he doesn’t even fucking care.
I don’t understand it. I don’t even know how to begin to try to make sense of it. Gray, who just helped pay my likely astronomical hospital bills. Gray, who I’ve spent the last week of winter break with in his fucking house, because he wanted to make sure I was safe as I recovered from my fall. Gray, who’s just given me the best gift I’ve ever received, the only gift I can ever remember receiving.
He still doesn’t fucking say a word.
Was it for his own sake? Did he take care of me just so that he could send me packing, on my feet and stable, without having to worry about feeling guilty about it?
It’s the only thing I can think of. He wanted to make sure I was okay for his own damn sake, not for mine, so that he wouldn’t have to worry about me when he shoved me out. When he got me away, as he promised he would.
I’ve done this before—the hot and the cold with him, the push and pull. And as I bite my cheek against the hurt and rage simmering inside me, I decide I’m done.
I’m fucking done.
Maybe he never forgave me for taking Beth’s place after all. Maybe he never fucking will.
He’s obviously not going to say anything, and I’m done making excuses for him.
“I’m not dealing with this bullshit anymore. Fuck you,” I mutter, pushing myself up off the floor.
I wish it was an effort to pull myself away from him, to yank my clothes back on and storm out of the kitchen to my bedroom. I wish the numbness in my chest wasn’t already creeping through my body and taking over.
But it’s better this way.
It’s better if I stop fucking kidding myself. We played this game last semester. I thought it was over, but clearly, that was just round one.
In my room, I throw everything back into the bag Max packed for me, shoving it in roughly and haphazardly. Grabbing my phone and yanking the charger out of the socket, I order an Uber and stalk back down the stairs, heading out the front door. It slams behind me.
Just like that, it’s over. It’s fucking over.
How did that just happen?
How did everything come crumbling down so fast?
My heart and my head battle, and neither of them win—the only thing that wins is the cold. The numb.
I dig my fingernails into my palms, my body tense as I wait for the Uber to pull up. In less than five minutes, I slide into the back seat of a car and it pulls away, leaving Gray and his fancy-ass house behind.
I glance back over my shoulder just once as his house recedes in the distance, my heart constricting so hard in my chest that it feels like it might stop beating entirely.
Maybe I should consider this a blessing, but Gray was still in the kitchen when I left. He never even fucking tried to stop me. He just let me go, like that.
Which means he really wasn’t lying.
He truly does want me gone.
7
When we reach the Hawthorne Campus, I leave the driver with little more than a muttered thanks and grab my bag, throwing it over my shoulder. As he pulls away, I start the short trek across the campus to my dorm room. Usually at this time of day there would already be students milling around in groups on the quad, thanks to the mild California weather, but it seems like everyone is at home or vacationing for the break.
Not me.
I pull my phone out of the pocket I shoved it in and dial up one of the few contacts on it—Max. She answers almost immediately.