I slick my tongue over my teeth. “Dillon told me I was overreacting.”
Marisa goes still, her lashes lowering in a slow blink. “What?”
“He said I was overreacting, and then he told me that me giving up on us says a lot more about me than him. Because that’s what happens when you’re”—my voice cracks, the emotion bleeding through as I hear his words all over again—“nothing to everyone.”
A sharp gasp whistles through Marisa’s teeth. “He saidwhat?” Her blue eyes fill with unadulterated rage, each word trembling with emotion. “That…that…that—” She slaps a hand against the table, rattling our empty mugs. “I don’t even know what to call him!”
“I’ve been trialing a few different things,” I murmur, mouth twitching. “What aboutdickwaffle?”
Marisa lets out a muffled snort. “It’ll do for now.” She watches me carefully, her expression torn. “So you’re over, then.”
“I wish I could say a firm yes and just close that door, pretend it never happened. But—” I rub a hand over my chest, hating the ache that lingers there, but reminding myself that it’s only been three days.
“Feelings don’t work like that,” she finishes for me.
I nod. “I think I need to know why, and I hate myself for that,” I whisper, not quite sure why I’m telling Marisa all this. She’s easy to talk to and, instinctively, I believe she won’t run to Dillon the minute we part ways.
But I’ve been seriously wrong about people before, proof right in the embers and ashes of my relationship.
“He doesn’t deserve to explain when what he did was inexcusable,” I continue. “Who sits there and lets someone say such disgusting things about someone he loves? I would never…” I suck in a calming breath, trying to convince my heart to stick to a normal rhythm. “I would never just sit by while someone talked about him like that, especially when he knows about my history. My family. Heknowshow that would hurt me.”
“He didn’t know you’d hear it, though.”
“Do you think that matters?” I ask quietly, and she looks away, mouth downturned. “Should I stick it out with him, always wondering what he might be saying about me when I’m not there? I’d wonder whether that’s how he truly felt about me, never sure which Dillon is the real one. I’d always think he was lying to me.” I look at her pointedly, and Marisa’s face falls.
“I want you to know that I never, not even for asecond, harbored feelings for Dillon. And he doesn’t for me, either. That doesn’t excuse him not telling you about our history, but he wasn’t settling for you, Charlie.”
“I wish I could believe that,” I say quietly. “How am I supposed to trust him now?”
She opens her mouth, closes it, and then looks away, and I nod, knowing she doesn’t have an answer for me either.
Chapter 10
Dillon
There’s nothing but icy silence from Charlie, and yet, a week passes by faster than I can blink.
I’m not blocked. I still get her voicemail when she doesn’t pick up my calls. But she hasn’t responded to any of my messages, and she’s turned off her read receipts, so I don’t even know if she’s reading them.
I’ve been making it through each day with as much functionality as a zombie, even when everything around me carries on like normal. I’m drinking and eating, even when it all tastes like ash. I’m going to work every day, where my colleagues joke around me as usual, my mask so firmly in place they don’t see how lost I am. I’m stuck in a haze, watching everything from a distance, as if my life is happening to someone else.
It’s hard to believe that no one else can see that my world is falling down around me, crumbling like a sandcastle being washed away by the waves of the ocean.
The group chat has been blowing up, Bliss relentlessly trying to nail down whether we’re coming to some party in a couple of weeks—and not so subtly asking about what happened to Charlie at The Violet Wire. It’s hard to gauge her tone over the messages, but I swear, I can hear this malicious triumph, even if Bliss doesn’t actually know why she never came back from the bathroom.
In Bliss’s mind, it’s a victory, even if it is in a war that no one else is fighting.
Marisa has been oddly silent throughout it all, and even Jack is more aloof, onlythrowing out the odd thumbs-up response. I’ve been trying to convince myself that it is because they are just busy, but something significantly shifted that night—the final match, struck by Bliss’s blatant cruelty.
The blame doesn’t lie solely with her. Not really.
It has been seven days since Charlie moved out. I’m moping around the apartment, missing the scent of her cooking our usual breakfast—something we’d eat sitting at the kitchen island together, right before we headed out to the farmer’s market. It was close enough to the harbor that the brisk wind would twist through the stalls and tents but we never minded. We would buy our vegetables for the week, slowly picking our way through the rest of the stalls. Every time I caught sight of a ceramic owl, I would buy it, sneaking it into our bags when she wasn’t looking, ready to surprise her when we got home.
Like clockwork, we went every week, and it is tempting to go today, to pretend I still have some kind of normalcy—some kind of control. But walking through the throngs of people without Charlie at my side is too painful to even consider.
A knock at the door pulls me from maudlin thoughts, and I frown. I’m not expecting any visitors today, so it’s probably another neighbor wondering where Charlie is. And I can’t face the small talk or having to admit that she’s gone, so I don’t move. Instead, I settle deeper into the couch, eyes fixed on the TV screen, half hoping they’ll just go away.
Another loud knock dashes that hope.
