“You belong with them,” I repeated.
I’d tried to belong here on campus. I’d tried to make something that I could be proud of—from Samhain and then Ryan—but it was becoming very clear that I was forcing myself into a place that obviously didn’t want me.
“You belong here with your friends. With the girls who think it is okay to sit on your lap while people joke about me and others behind their backs. But I don’t. That’s not me. No matter how much each of us tries, I just don’t think we’ll ever quite fit. We’ll never be exactly what we want each other to be.”
“I want you, Lu.” His voice cracked. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” I said even though it wasn’t. I wasn’t. “I’m sorry too.”
“Lu!”
I needed to go. I needed to leave before I broke down in the sobs lurching forward inside of my entire body.
“Maybe you just need some time. For so long, to keep the peace, you’ve always wanted whatever it was other people wanted. Maybe you need some time to figure that out too. I’m glad that I could make you see that, but Lauren was right. Maybe you don’t know what exactly you want right now. But you will and …” There was no other way to put it.
I couldn’t handle another person, another thing important to me being stripped away when there was nothing I could do to stop it. I just couldn’t do it. If this was how I felt now after a silly party getting torn from me, how could I survive someone who would thrive without me leaving?
Because nothing was permanent. No one was.
“Since when would you ever listen to something she said?” Ryan was dumbstruck. “You need to stop this. I’m not going to let you do this just because you’re upset. You’re not being honest with me.”
“I am.”
“Then you’re hurting me,” he cried. Unlike me, maybe Ryan was the bravest out of the two of us after all because he let a tear drip down the side of his face and he didn’t push it away.
Well, right now, I hurt me too.
So, I turned away.
22
What did I do? What did I just do?
I was possessed. I felt like I’d just decided to jump off a bridge without testing how cold the water was first, and now, my body shook with the terrible aftermath. Only now, in the aftermath, I had no broken bones and was unable to scream for help because I knew no one would come running.
I made my way back onto campus. I turned this way and that, unsure of what to do by the time I nearly collapsed onto my knees on the sidewalk outside of the SUB.
My head felt so full and confused and ruined.
I could still see how Ryan had looked at me, so full of hurt …
What have I done?
My throat shut, choking me. I closed a hand over it, as if that would help when I was sure the same palm had reached in and ripped my own heart out of my chest.
I forced myself not to cry. Not yet. I wasn’t that far gone into whatever was going on yet. Whether or not everything was crashing down on top of me.
When I peeked inside the SUB meeting room, everyone was dressed in shades of black, white, or navy blue. Scanning over faces drinking tiny bottles of water, I found Vadika gently smiling, sleek and fascinating, until her eyes caught on me.
“Can you hold on for just a moment?” she seemed to say to the older man, waving her hand as if she’d be just a second.
The clicks of her shoes echoed louder with each step, but there was nothing else. Not the voices inside the room. The clanging plates serving tiny hors d’oeuvres were cast aside from the flurry happening inside my head.
“What are you doing here?”
“Vadika, just for a minute, I need to talk,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm.
“What are you doing here?” she repeated the question almost so sternly that I wasn’t sure if I’d answered her audibly the first time.
