Simon reaches for me, and I yank my arm away too hard and fall back, hitting my head on a chair. He tries to help me up, but I smack him away.
"Don't fucking touch me," I snap at him.
Alec grabs my elbow and lifts me off the floor. "Cora, Christ, are you okay?"
His touch is cool and comforting and I know he's just trying to help, but I can't be here right now. Not with them, my so-called friends, the liars.
"I'm leaving." I stalk forward and grab my bag off the table. "Do not follow me." I enunciate each word harshly so they understand the severity.
"Cora!" June calls out as I turn my back to them.
"Let her go," Simon tells her.
"She can't go, she's..." But I don't make out the rest of what she says because I push into the crowd and shove my way through the bodies until I burst through the door and out onto the sidewalk.
The fresh air hits me like a ton of bricks, and I suck in a gasping lungful as the people standing outside gawk at me.
With my vision blurring and my chest tightening, I rush past them and stumble along the side of the building. Silent tears stream down, and I hate myself for cracking. This isn't what I do. I hold myself together at all times, never allowing anyone to see this side of me. The real me. The one that's falling the fuck apart.
"Cora," Alec calls out and rushes over, his strong hands reaching out to steady me. "Talk to me, babe, what's going on?"
I walk farther, desperate to get away from the noise of the Haven District bars, until I find a less noisy area. I slink down along the brick building and sit my ass on the hard sidewalk. "I can't do this anymore," I tell him.
"You don't have to, I'm here. I've got you." Alec kneels next to me and cups my hands in his.
I pull away. "You're..." I look up at him through my watery eyes.
He's so fucking pretty. Too pretty. Like he came out of a modeling magazine. He's perfect, and it pisses me off. Alec always knows the right thing to say, to do. Alec has his life together and will never understand the turmoil churning inside of me. He's meant for someone else. Someone who isn’t pretending to be fine, someone who isn't falling apart.
"I don't love you," I hiss.
"Cora..." The hurt is written all over his face and still, he remains next to me.
"I don't. I never will." I choke back a sob. "And you don't love me."
"You remember," he says.
But does it matter that I do? Every single word he said that night was etched into my memory like it had just happened. That his confession lives within me and will be something I carry to the grave. I replay it in my mind, the sensation that rippled through me when he said it, something I relive over and over—one of the few good moments I'll hold onto forever.
"I'm not leaving you." Alec holds onto my hands.
"I don't want you here," I lie. "We were a mistake."
"You don't mean that."
I hate hurting him but this is the only way I can get him to understand this is never going to work. We will never work. Because we were doomed from the start.
"You should get back to work," I tell him and pull one of my hands free to wipe at my nose. "Don't want to upset your employers."
"I don't give a fuck about them, Cora. You're what matters to me." Alec's chest rises and he sighs. "I'm going to make a phone call." He stands up and pulls out his phone, turning his back to me momentarily.
I think about running but know that I'm too drunk and too uncoordinated to make it far. His legs are significantly longer than mine, and all that would do is make me look more foolish than I already do.
Deciding against fleeing, I slide my phone out of my back pocket and blink a few times until I can see the screen more clearly. I push a sequence of buttons and press the thing to my ear; the ringing way louder than I recall it ever being.
A thick, gravely voice comes across the line. "Cora?"
I sniffle. "Can you come get me?"
