“How – ?”
“Just leave me alone, Dax,” Jenna cuts me off. “Please.”
The plea in her gaze makes me fall silent. I let her go, my gaze glued to the floor as I listen to the sound of her footsteps walking away.
How is it that she’s walking away from me again, and again, I’m unable to do anything?
Seething in frustration, I grit my teeth and bang my fist against a wall. The sound thunders throughout the empty room. Afterwards, I press my forehead to the cold concrete, taking deep breaths to reel my temper back in.
But good God, what am I going to do about Jenna?
Chapter Four
Jenna
“What am I going to do with you?” Emily complains as she sits on the edge of my bed.
I came home to find her having taken care of everything like she promised. The laundry is done. Shanna is asleep in her crib. My dad is content watching the new TV. Even dinner is already in the works.
What would I do without her?
I wish she’d leave me alone now, though, since I’m exhausted from that argument with Dax. But Emily shows no signs of heading out the door.
“I let you go out with that candy of a man, thinking you’d have fun and come back happy, but you look even more miserable than when you left,” she says. “What’s your problem?”
I sigh. “Fine. I’ll tell you.”
If it makes this conversation shorter.
“Dax Bender is my ex,” I blurt out.
Emily’s eyes grow wide. “No way.”
I nod.
She gasps. “You’ve chewed on that candy? And you spit it out?”
I frown because I no longer find her comparison amusing.
“You’re making me sound like I’m some kind of monster,” I tell her.
Emily ignores me. “I bet he must have been mind-blowingly delicious.”
I roll my eyes. “Emily…”
“What? Don’t tell me you didn’t have a taste of him. You two fucked, right?”
I don’t answer. That is the last thing I want to talk about right now.
Emily pokes my arm. “Tell me.”
Damn, she’s persistent.
“Fine. We fucked. It was good. Then he left. End of story.”
Emily frowns. “Why did he leave?”
I frown back at her. “You do know I’m mad at you, right? If you hadn’t shoved me out the door, I wouldn’t be so miserable right now.”
“Well, if you had told me Dax was your hot ex, maybe I wouldn’t have shoved you out the door,” Emily counters.
“Really?”
“No,” she confesses.
I thought so.
“I’m curious as to why you never told me about him, though,” she says.
“Because he’s in the past,” I answer. “Because he’s a part of the me that no longer exists, a part of my life that’s already gone.”
“Are you sure?” Emily asks me. “Because something tells me you’re not over him.”
I let myself fall on top of my bed and stare at the ceiling. Great.
“How long has it been since you two broke up?”
“Ages,” I answer mechanically.
“Let’s see.” She touches her chin. “You came back here… just last year, so you broke up before then. One year.”
Why does she have to be smart at times like this?
“Wait. Did you break up with him because – ?”
“I didn’t break up with him,” I cut Emily off. “He left me. I already told you that.”
If she’s asking me all these questions, she should at least remember the answers I’m giving her.
“All the more reason for me to believe you’re not over him,” Emily says.
I lift my head. “What?”
“He was the one who wanted it over, not you,” she points out.
My head hits the mattress. “It doesn’t matter.”
“But it does. Tell me, did you ask him not to end it? When he said he was leaving, did you ask him to stay?”
I refuse to answer.
“You did, right? You didn’t want the relationship to end.”
“But he ended it anyway.”
He walked out the door and left me crying in my underwear with my heart all over the place.
“And now he wants to start over,” Emily says.
I look at her. “And I should just let him? Why? Because he said sorry? Because he’s good-looking?”
Emily lets out a deep breath. Then she lies down beside me.
“You’re hurt, Jenna. Believe me, I get it. I still remember the first time my heart got broken. I got so sick I ended up in a hospital.”
I arch an eyebrow at her. That happened?
“I didn’t think I’d ever recover,” Emily continues. “But as it turns out, I did. So will you.”
She grabs my hand and squeezes it.
I shrug. “Maybe. But not yet.”
“You know what else I learned?”
“No.” But I have a feeling she’s going to tell me.
“It’s easier to heal when you let someone help you with it.”
“You mean someone else, right? Not the same guy who broke your heart.”
“Who knows? Maybe he’s not the same guy.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know if I can take that risk, Em.”
“So what? You’ll run away from him forever?”