“Hey, Lance?”
“Huh.”
“What’s going on?”
He looks up from where he’s closing a spiral notebook. “What do you mean?”
I just gaze at him with a look that says Please don’t play that game.
To his credit, he doesn’t. His shoulders slump just the tiniest bit as he lowers himself to a chair, his hands braced on his knees as he looks at the floor.
Oh…my…shit.
Shit.
I know that look.
That’s a dumper look.
Maybe I should sit down after all.
I sit beside him, although I leave a chair between us. So much for coming over for a little booty call.
“I should have told you earlier.” His voice is quiet.
“Tell me what, exactly?”
“I just…I’m not really feeling it, Parker.” And then I have to give him credit, because he does the brave thing and actually makes eye contact with me as he breaks my heart. “I haven’t been feeling it for a while.”
No air. There is no air in this apartment.
“Okay. Okay,” I say again, because damn it, there’s a lump in my throat. “So you, like, don’t want to do this anymore?”
Don’t want to do us?
He reaches out for my hand, his fingertips brushing mine. “It just hit me toward the end of summer. We’re so young, you know? You’re my first serious girlfriend. How do we know that this is it?”
Because you just know, I want to scream.
But…do I even know? I mean, hypothetically, if I’d shown up tonight and Lance had had a ring, would I have felt anything beyond panic?
“Is there someone else?” I ask quietly. I hate myself for asking, but I wouldn’t be human—or female—if I didn’t want to know.
“No,” he says quickly. “I mean, there is this teacher’s aide, and…I mean, I noticed her, but I didn’t cheat. I’d never ever cheat, Parker, you know that.”
I know I should be focusing on the no-cheating part, but all I really heard was the “I noticed her.”
He’s been noticing other girls? No, worse than that. A girl. Singular.
I mean, yeah, nothing had happened. But he’d noticed her.
It feels like there’s a big kitchen knife in my chest.
He squeezes my fingers. “I’m not ready to say goodbye to you forever. I just think we should take a step back.”
I blink furiously to bat away the tears, and his face kind of crumples in regret, but I stand and back away from him. “A step back? So, what, you can go play the field, and then come back to me if you decide I’m what you want?”
He meets my eyes, and I see that they’re a little bit shiny, too, and when he speaks, his voice is hoarse. “I feel like an ass, Parker.”