Then there’s his middle name. And all the things he said about his best friend fucking his ex… Just when Dia found out about Finn cheating. Wait, Finn fucked Brie? No, it wasn’t Brie. Dia said it was some random girl. Back to the point, Vee.
“R-Really?” I can’t seem to conceal the tremor in my voice.
“Positive. I should go through the book just in case he stashed some drugs in it or whatever it is punks like him do.” Lucille rounds the counter, her intentions as clear as they are terrifying. She thinks he used the book for some sort of drug deal.
She can’t open that book.
“I got it.” I hold my hand up like it’s a stop sign.
“Are you sure?” She slows down.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m already here, I’ll do it.”
“All right, then.” Lucille nods, unsuspecting, but doesn’t retreat to the front desk. I tread down the aisle, pull the poetry book from the lower shelf, and skip straight to page thirty-one.
The confession is exactly where he said it would be.
Written on a sticky-note.
I secretly think my ex-girlfriend has the conversational skills of wallpaper.
I bite back an inconvenient grin, overly aware that Lucille is watching me like a hawk, and angle my body to the right so she can’t see me slide the sticky note out of the book and shove it into my pocket.
“So?” Lucille asks impatiently.
“Nothing. Looks like he genuinely likes poetry,” I lie through my teeth and amble back to the front desk to resume sorting through the return pile as though nothing happened.
As though everything isn’t different now. As though I didn’t break our anonymity pact.
I hate it.
I hate it more than words can say.
But there’s no running from the truth anymore.
Zac is Xavier Emery.