I blink.
“Why do you do that?” I ask.
“Do what?”
“Change the subject.”
My voice is bitter, cigarette smoke lacing every word.
I pull my knees to my chest, curling smaller. Colder.
Because I fucking miss him.
Because a week ago I would’ve kissed him just for existing.
Now I don’t even know if I’m allowed to look at him.
“This isn’t about the cigarette, Blake.”
“Then what’s it about?”
I laugh.
It sounds like a bruise.
“You ask like you don’t know.”
“Because I don’t,” he says.
Another laugh.
Another wound.
He rolls his eyes, and for a moment, if we weren’t broken into a thousand unspeakable pieces, I’d drag him to the grass and let our bodies speak the words we can’t say.
“You walked out, Blake.
No goodbye. No warning. Just vanished.
And now dollface knows. Carrie knows. And she’s been up my ass with questions ever since.”
“She didn’t know?”
“No.
Not until you let it slip in front of her.”
I shrug, but my insides scream.
“Maybe that’s the answer right there,” he says, as if this isn’t gutting me. “Maybe the perfect couple just had too much pressure. Maybe it was too much to carry.”
He says it like truth. Like gospel.
Like a man who already rewrote the story.
“Maybe I was bored.
Maybe you changed.
