“I’m fine,” he snapped back. “We need to talk.”
“Well, come inside?—”
“We need to end this. Now.”
“Wait, what?” I said, my voice quivering as panic filtered through me. I had just spoken to Jesse two hours ago, and he’d been fine—teasing me about what kind of panties I was wearing tonight and telling me to wear shorts loose enough for him to slip his hand inside.
We’d only been having sex for the past month, after about a year of doing everything but, and he loved exploring my body with his hands and mouth every chance he got. I’d get choked up whenever he’d say he wanted to “savor me” for the summer with a wistful gleam in his eyes, but he’d never given me any indication of wanting to break up.
Something was off.
What could have happened in the past few hours that now he couldn’t even stand to be next to me?
“A clean break. Now. It’s for the best. You live your life, and I’ll live mine. We’ve already dragged this out long enough.”
His jaw was tight as his eyes darted everywhere. He’d look at me for a second before turning away, as if it caused him pain to look me in the eye.
“Dragged this out?” I felt my eyes widen as I stepped directly in front of him, so he’d have nowhere else to look. “What is this about? Where is this coming from?”
“Where is this coming from? You can’t be that naive, Em.”
He raked a hand through his dark hair, disheveled enough to look like he’d been sifting through it for hours.
“You’re going to school six hours away. We’ll never see each other. That’s not a relationship. We need a clean break.”
“So you’ve said,” I spat out, crossing my arms over my chest. “But you can’t mean that.”
“I do! Go to Maine, play soccer, and have a nice life, while I figure out what the hell to do with mine.”
Jesse was going to major in IT at a school on Long Island. He didn’t know exactly what he wanted to do, but he’d been a computer geek from the day I’d met him. I knew he’d do something with technology and be great.
I also knew he loved me, but now I wasn’t sure—about him or anything else.
“Just come inside, and we can talk about this.”
“No. Even that’s too much,” he muttered, more to himself than to me. “I need to go.” His eyes were glossy when he lifted his head. “Ihaveto go.”
I swore his voice cracked as something I couldn’t identify flitted across his face. Anger, resentment, devastation, or maybe that was just the swirl of emotions racing throughme.
“No, you don’t,” I whispered, wanting to bring him into my arms but afraid to touch him at the same time. He stuffed his hands into his jean pockets, his biceps shaking as tension radiated off him in waves.
He backed away, slowly for the first few steps, and then almost sprinted to his car, jumping in and peeling away from the curb. The screech of the tires ripped through me, shock the only thing keeping me upright.
How stupid was I? How stupid had I almost been?
I shook my head as tears dripped down my cheeks.
I had been planning my life around someone who’d just thrown me and us away without even a kiss goodbye. Ten minutes ago, I would have given up everything just to stay close, but now, six hours away wasn’t nearly far enough.
1
EMILY
PRESENT
“This is the saddest thing.Why did we come here again?”
I turned my head at Sabrina’s huff as we headed into the catering hall.
