I guess it’s easy to fall headfirst for someone when you’ve been searching your entire life for someone to love you back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
MAEVE
Sunday, December 26th
Oh, I fucked up.
I fucked up big time.
After the cold shoulder from Tate on the way to the hotel in New Mexico, it clicked in my brain like a puzzle piece snapping into place. I should’ve never, ever gotten physically involved with him. I should’ve kept this civil, just two friends roadtripping across the country together for the holidays. Simple. Easy.
But it was easier for me. We hadn’t even fully had sex. I could shrug all this off because we didn’t gotoofar, to the point of no return. But it wouldn’t be as simple as that for Tate, not when I was his first kiss, his first… Oh, God. I was going to be the girl to crush him, no matter what I decided to do.
No matter what, I fuck up everything in my path. Everything I touch somehow spoils, like my hands are rotten, spreading their disease everywhere they go. He was tainted the moment he met me in that campus library, he just didn’t know it.
The farther we dive into…whatever this is, the scarier everything gets. The deeper my fear etches into my bones. Thethought of getting any deeper with him makes me want to run. It would be easier to do that than to give him the impression I can do something more.
What have I done?
The funk I’m in for the remainder of the car ride to the hotel, even while checking in, feels unshakeable. I try to swallow it down, to push it out of my head, but I just can’t. I’m sure Tate notices, too, because I can feel him looking at me every so often, and that somehow only makes me feel worse. Because now, he must think it’shisfault, when it’s mine.
Landon used to hate when this happened.
This is why I can’t stand being around you sometimes, Evie. You’re so negative.
Not everything is about you.
This is why I lose my patience. I wouldn’t get so angry if you’d just be normal.
His condescending voice replays over and over in my mind as I brush my teeth in the tiny bathroom of our hotel room, staring blankly at myself in the mirror. I think I’ve been brushing the same tooth the entire time without realizing it. Here I go again, unable to free myself from the vice grip that I question whether or not he’ll always have on me. Some days, I feel good, strong enough to stand on my own two feet, but then days like today… I feel like everything he ever told me I was.
When I finish changing for bed and step out of the bathroom, my feet padding along the cold tile to the carpet, I stop as I notice that Tate is nowhere to be found. The room is dark, aside from the glow of the TV, which illuminates the beds as it plays a crime documentary quietly in the background.
Where would he go?
Maybe he forgot something in the truck or went to grab a snack. Something completely normal and not worth getting anxious over. But as I crawl into the nearest bed, bundling downin the stiff comforter and pulling it up to my face, I can’t help but feel nervous. He’s been so quiet today. What if he just…doesn’t come back? I’ve been off today. Maybe that was his final straw, sending him running for the hills after all.
He wouldn’t do that.
I don’t know how long I lay there, just staring blankly over at the empty bed across from me, watching the TV flash different hues every so often along the sheets. I’m so lost in my own head that when the door to the room opens, I let out a startled gasp as I sit straight up in mere seconds, chest heaving as Tate walks back into the room.
His phone is in his hand, but that’s all I can make out before he slowly walks toward his bed, sitting down on the edge of it and staring at the floor.
“Tate?” I mumble softly, throwing the blanket off me.
He doesn’t answer; he doesn’t even move. His head hangs as he sits there, and I squint through the dim lighting of the room to check and see if he’s even breathing. His shoulders rise and fall just faintly. There’s a pit of dread that fills my stomach, making me scramble from my own bed over to him.
“Tate?” I repeat, the bed sinking down more as I sit beside him, looking over at his face in the darkness of the room.
He turns his head slightly, but doesn’t quite meet my eyes as he says, “That was my mom calling again…”
I frown up at him, shifting so I’m facing him now, my knee perched up on the mattress as I put my hand on his shoulder. “Did you answer?”
All he does is nod, just barely.
“What happened?” I ask gently. “What did she say?”
