“It’s not what you think.”
“Would you like to know where she is right now, young man? She’s with a boy, a nice, kind boy who is not going to shatter her heart into a million pieces.”
“Mom,” I heard in the background, Grace’s voice. “Is that him?”
They said something I couldn’t hear, there was a rustling noise, and then Grace was on the phone.
“Don’t call here,” she said coldly. “I mean it, Harry. How many fricking phone calls do I have to ignore before you get the point?”
She hung up and there was nothing I could do but stare at my bedroom wall.
My hands were shaking and anger dripped hotly through me like lava, infusing every part of me.
This was it. I’d tried to explain. I’d tried to make it right.
But some people were just too damn stubborn.
I put down the phone and looked up at Gemma, who was sitting next to me during the whole phone call, staring at me through her glasses in that way I could read so easily.
My sister hated hearing me like this.
Sad, pathetic, desperate.
Heartbroken.
“It’ll be okay, bro,” my little sister said. “You don’t need her.”
***
“That’s rough, mate,” Nick sighs.
We’re silent for a while, watching as more cars file into the lot, as green-clothed Harry Hadley representatives approach the cars to greet them and help with the bags. It’s like a first day at university, the hustle and the bustle.
I only realize I’m clenching my fists when I feel the taut skin of my hands pulling over my knuckles.
New beginnings, that bullshit horoscope told me.
But I’m not interested in that.
“I want revenge,” I growl.
“Mate, what?” Nick mutters. “You’re not going all serial killer on me here, are you?”
“No, of course not,” I say. “But she ghosted me and since then, I just haven’t given a fuck. I can’t be with a woman more’n two minutes, they just bore the hell outta me. And off she’s gone, having the time of her life. Does that seem fair to you?”
Bitterness twists and touches my nerves, making me feel hot and ready for a fight.
I don’t tell Nick how I’ve been following Grace’s blog obsessively these past few years, especially eagerly awaiting her video blogs where she demonstrates the latest home workouts, her yoga leggings clingingly temptingly to her finely-formed legs.
I don’t tell him about the pride that swelled my chest when I saw she’d secured Transcendent Fitness, one of the biggest sponsors in the game. Or the way my hand trembled on my computer mouse when I saw that they’d dropped her.
“What sort of revenge, boss?” Nick asks.
“I’m gonna make her fall for me, like I fell for her … and thenI’mgonna ghosther.”
Nick laughs quietly. “Damn, mate. She really must’ve messed you up.”
“It’s only fair,” I mutter.
