Max frowns. “Did you manage to find a place before you left?”
I nod. “I found a cheap month-to-month place for now.”
She makes a face. “Sounds skeevy.”
“Better than the alternative,” I sigh, snagging my bag off the carousel, “I can’t afford to keep staying in hotels, and all of the apartments in my price range seem to have no vacancies.”
“You could move out here with me,” she cajoles, grabbing my bag from me and leading me outside.
I snort. “Like I could afford it, it’s ten times more expensive to live out here, even if Iamsplitting with you.”
“You could find a job that actually uses your degree instead of wasting your talents,” she shoots back.
I hold my hands up placatingly, laughing. “Ok, ok, I’ll think about it, I promise.”
She tosses my bag in the trunk and we get into the car. “But seriously, are you holding up ok?” she asks.
I nod firmly. “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
“And everything else? No more headaches, no more dizzy spells?” she looks at me worriedly.
“Not for a while, no,” I say.
I find myself subconsciously reaching for a spot on the back of my head. Carefully concealed under the top layer, there’s a spot where my blonde hair is only about an inch and a half long, in the places around the scar where it actually grew back.
Max reaches over and pats my leg. "Don't worry," she says, "By the time I'm done with you, you won't even remember his name."
"Whose name?" I ask, a smile beginning to curl the edges of my lips.
"Attagirl!" Max crows.
I grin, but the truth is that I've barely given any thought to The Asshole since The Incident. It was freeing to be rid of him.
But being single again had me thinking about… Him.
Adam.
My "One that got away."
Adam Olsen had been my high school sweetheart, but then he had gotten an incredible scholarship at a school I couldn't afford, and being split across the country had ruined us.
But I'd never really moved on. I had tried, but no one compared. And so I had ended up in a string of awful relationships, with the latest being the worst.
I don't know how to share my heart with anyone else when he still has a hold on it.
"Earth to Lacey," Max chants, startling me from my brooding thoughts, "You alive in there?"
I blink and smile. "Yeah, sorry, just zoned. Guess the jet lag is hitting me."
"Well, we'll just have to pump you full of caffeine, then!" Max quips cheerfully, "Because there isnostopping us today."
"There's never any stopping you," I shoot back, half laughing and half groaning at her energy.
But true to her threats, she pumps me full of energy drink and the two of us spend the day on a mad tear through town. Manicures, pedicures, and Max drags me through a dozen or so of her favorite shops.
By the time I collapse onto her fold-out couch, I'm so exhausted I'm sure I'm going to crash immediately, but my brain stubbornly refuses to shut off.
My thoughts are drawn right back to Adam, and I think back to the last day I ever saw him, a week after I turned eighteen and the day before he left for school.