Goosebumps peppered Farrah’s skin. She rubbed her arms and shivered from a combination of cold and dread.
“You didn’t go to dinner.” Blake unlocked his door, shoulders tense and jaw set.
“No.” Farrah followed him inside and sat down on the empty bed opposite his. Normally she would’ve curled up in Blake’s bed and waited for him to join her, but that no longer felt right.
Blake shoved his wallet in a drawer and tidied the books on his desk. He centered his laptop and lined up his pencils until they sat parallel to each other. Only then did he sit across from Farrah, his face shuttered. Only a few feet separated them, but they may as well be sitting on opposite sides of a canyon.
Farrah’s trouble radar inched closer to the danger zone. “We haven’t talked in a while.”
After her birthday, Blake disappeared off the map. He stopped going out, ate without the group, and answered her texts and invitations with curt excuses. She couldn’t find him in his room or, if he was there, he didn’t answer the door.
Farrah tried to wait it out. If Blake needed time alone to sort out personal issues, she respected that. She would’ve preferred more communication, but everyone handled problems their own way.
However, they were entering the third week of Incommunicado Blake, and she’d reached the end of her patience. Every second they had left in Shanghai counted, and they’d wasted millions of seconds.
Enough was enough. She wanted answers.
Blake rested his forearms on his knees and clasped his hands together. He stared at the floor like it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. “I’ve been busy.”
Farrah resisted the urge to throw a pillow at him. “With?”
“Classes. Bar plans. That sort of thing.”
That old refrain again. He sounded like a broken record.
Anger sharpened Farrah’s senses. She was tired of his excuses, of the uncertainty, and of feeling like crap because her boyfriend went AWOL. She wanted to know what the fuck was going on. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
Blake’s head snapped up. Pain and surprise flickered across his face before his expression shut down.
Despite her irritation, Farrah’s heart leapt at the sight of those beautiful blue eyes, then shriveled like a prune at the lack of feeling in them.
“Tell me the truth.” She forced the words past the lump in her throat. “You can trust me.”
The bigger question was, could she trust him? Farrah hated doubting him, but it was hard not to lose faith when the love of your life avoided you like you had the plague.
Blake’s shoulders hunched. Tension rolled off him in waves. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were as hard and cold as the walls surrounding them.
Farrah’s stomach plummeted.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was flat and empty. “I didn’t want to do it like this, but I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
Time stopped. Blake’s words swirled around her, threatening to drag her under yet refusing to sink in.
Farrah’s body reacted first, her heart slamming against her chest in double time while her brain struggled to process the implications of Blake’s statement.
“What?”
“It was fun while it lasted, but the year is almost over and I—I’m not interested anymore. I’m sorry,” he repeated.
“You’re lying.” He had to be. There was no way. No way she could’ve been so wrong.
The past seven months flashed throug
h Farrah’s mind’s eye like a movie playing at two times speed. Their first run-in in the stairwell. Their first kiss. Their first time having sex. The first time they said “I love you.” The secrets they shared, the places they explored, the nights they spent in each other’s arms.
She struggled to breathe. The air thickened into a dark, ugly ooze, making it impossible for oxygen to reach her lungs. There were so many thoughts running through her mind she couldn’t focus, so Farrah grasped at the easiest one to swallow.
Blake was lying. She’d looked into his eyes and seen the love there. She’d felt it. You couldn’t fake that kind of emotion.