I used to think Tru was soft. Weak. Maybe I was just scared of how strong he had to be to keep loving me anyway.
I buried my face in my hands. And then I did the one thing I swore I wouldn’t.
I let myself miss him.
Not the way things used to be. Not just the summer nights and the sleepovers and the stupid inside jokes.
I missed the way he looked at me like I mattered. Like I wasn’t just an unwanted son trying too hard to be someone he wasn’t. I missed being seen. Accepted. And now? Now he was gone, and I was still the asshole who couldn’t even saythank you.Couldn’t even sayI’m sorry.Or worse…I feel the same way.
CHAPTER 25
TRU
The thing about heartbreak is you can’t scream it out of your system. It’s a plague that infects your blood and rots you from the inside.
I movedthrough the next day on autopilot with my jaw tight and shoulders hunched against a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. I didn’t even remember the walk to class. One blink, and I was already sitting in my morning seminar, pen in hand, staring at a blank page while everyone else scribbled furiously. I copied the date and nothing else.
By the time I made it back to the dorm, my knuckles were stiff from the wind, and my throat burned from too many swallowed words.
Dare wasn’t there. Thank God.
I left the door unlocked out of spite, half-hoping someone would wander in and steal the tension that never seemed to leave.
The mirror over our tiny sink didn’t pull punches. My eyes were red-rimmed, skin dull, lips bitten. My hair had that just-woke-up look that wasn’t intentional. I didn’t bother fixing it.
I grabbed a hoodie—his hoodie, I realized too late, one of the few things he’d left on my side of the room—and pulled it over my head anyway. It still smelled faintly of him. Like old cologne and mint gum. It was strange to me how a scent could have the power to make youfeel, to make you burn.
For a moment, I pressed my face into the sleeve. Not to cry, just to remember. Just to feel something that wasn’t distance.
Then I pulled the hood up, wiped my palms on my jeans, and kept moving. Because that’s what I did—kept moving.
I couldn’t quit, couldn’t go home, and Amira was a hundred miles away at another school.
All I had was Dare. The guy who made me feel like I was almost reaching something I’d already lost.
How many times could a heart break over the same person before it stopped bothering to heal? I used to think the worst thing was losing him. But maybe it was realizing he never felt like he belonged to himself, either.
The dining hall hummed with low voices and the steady clink of silverware, but it all sounded distant, like I was underwater and everyone else was breathing air.
I sat alone at a table near the back, where the window’s smudged glass framed a view of the quad. I’d picked this spot for the light, not the company.
My sandwich sagged in the middle, untouched. The lettuce had wilted, the bread gone soft with condensation. It reminded me of how I felt—barely holding shape, a little too soft around the edges, like something that used to be fresh but sat out too long.
My phone chirped.
Amira:
Stop pretending like you’re busy. You’re not.
A second later, her video call popped up.
I propped my phone against the napkin dispenser and swiped to accept. My reflection blinked back for half a second—pink eyes, pale skin, mouth pulled tight—before Amira’s face filled the screen.
She was sprawled on her dorm bed in sweats, a clay mask cracking across her forehead, hair swept up in a messy bun that somehow looked intentional.
She squinted immediately. “Yikes. You look like a zombie that got dumped via text.”
I huffed a weak laugh. “Nice to see you too.”
