“School’s important…” she said softly.
“So is life! So is love! When you have that degree that you don’t even want and you start wo
rking a job you hate, who is going to be by your side? What are you going to have outside of your work? Nothing, Emily! You’re going to have nothing! What’s the point in having the perfect grades, the perfect job, and the perfect perfectionist lifestyle if you have to do it all alone?”
“So, don’t let me be alone!” she pleaded again. “Come back to me! In a year, when I’m done with school, just come back to me.”
I shook my head. “I care about you, Emily, I really do. But I won’t put my life on hold for you. I’m not going to let you break my heart and then become the girl who just waits around for you. No, sorry, you either have all of me or none of me. And, right now, you’re picking none of me, right?”
She looked down at her floor, unable to even make eye contact with me.
“Right,” I said bitterly. “Good luck with your perfect life, Emily. I hope it’s everything you ever dreamed it could be.”
“It won’t be,” she said quietly, still unable to look up and make eye contact with me. “Not without you by my side.”
“Then I guess you’re really making the wrong choice.”
I walked through her door and shut it quickly. Not quite slamming it; I didn’t want to be completely disrespectful of her and Abby’s home, but it was sharp enough to make it clear I was storming off.
Even after she’d said we were breaking up, even after this whole conversation, I didn’t want to believe it was true. A big part of me imagined that she was going to change her mind. She was going to come out of her bedroom, ask me to stop, and keep me from walking out her front door.
She didn’t chase after me, though. She didn’t even open the door to her room. I was able to walk out that big red front door without any interference.
And tears welled up in my eyes when I thought about the fact that I wasn’t going to be walking back through it.
14
Emily
I felt like such a selfish bitch.
When I’d thought about breaking up with Kaitlyn, I’d thought about my heartbreak. I considered what it was going to feel like to have to live without her for a while. Hell, I’d even deluded myself into thinking it would only be a temporary thing.
And I never once considered how it was going to feel for her. Didn’t for a second think about how this break-up was going to tear her to pieces and how she wasn’t going to want to wait a year for me to finish school. I didn’t think about how having sex with her for the first time and then leaving was going to affect her. Nope, never thought about any of it, because I was a total and complete asshole.
How could I have done this to her? We had this great, intense, passionate relationship, and I’d just dropped a bomb. She’d probably been thinking we were going to be a long term-thing, like I’d been thinking, and I’d just pulled the rug out from under her.
I fell to my bed, face first, my head hitting my white feather pillow. I screamed into it, desperate to get all my pent-up emotions out. But in my drunkenness, I completely forgot about the fact that Abby was still home. A moment later, she burst into my room.
“Is everything okay?!” she asked quickly, followed by, “Where’s Kaitlyn?”
“She left,” I said bitterly, “and yeah, I’m okay…” I sighed. “I’m kind of okay.”
“Why’d you scream?” she asked as she wrung her wet hair into a towel.
“I just needed to get it out.”
“So, something has been bothering you tonight?” she asked.
“Something’s definitely wrong,” I told her vaguely.
She looked at me expectantly. “Well?”
“Well, Kaitlyn and I are through.”
“What?” she gasped. “But… how? You two seemed so happy tonight, and… oh my god, you poor thing, I’m so sorry. Did she give a reason?”
She clearly didn’t get it at first. “What? No, she didn’t break up with me, I broke up with her.”