I was caught off guard. Suddenly nervous and lost, yet still in a world of hurt. “I’m…”
I took a step back as he continued to move slowly toward me, his eyes never leaving mine. Dark and intense. “Say it.” I swallowed hard. “Say who you are to me,” he repeated.
“I’m… no one.” It was almost a whisper. A broken, small voice that belonged to the broken, small girl that I was.
He let out a frustrated breath from his nose and shook his head. His eyes never leaving mine. “See? You don’t know everything.”
We stood there, stubbornly staring at each other in all the pain. All the hurt. All the love that never was.
“What does it matter anyway?” I challenged. “You knew about it, and you didn’t tell me. End of story.”
He let out a breath and made one final move toward me. This time, I didn’t move.
“You’re right. I didn’t tell you,” he said. He was close now. Too close. His voice was firm and dark, and he towered over me with a power I had to fight not to cower under.
“I couldn’t, and you know why. It didn’t matter, though, because you were figuring it out on your own, just like I wanted you to. I wanted you to figure out that Enzo was a lying piece of shit all by yourself. I didn’t want any hand in that breakup because I wantedyouto do it. Foryou. I wanted you to do it because you wanted to—not because I made you.”
The intensity in his eyes was unbreakable. I knew exactly why he couldn’t—there were rules among us.Loyalty was defined by these rules. We made a silent commitment to remain faithful to them. E couldn’t give up his friends, one way or the other. He would never tell me about Enzo, just like he’d never tell Enzo about me. It was an honor we held ourselves true to. Although it was a legitimate defense, it held no significance. To me, E and I were different from the others. We had…something else. Something deeper. And after everything that had surfaced, I no longer cared about the unspoken rules of loyalty we had set. We were the only two following them, anyway, and even that had fallen into a gray area. I knew why he didn’t want any part of the breakup, too. He never wanted the end of Enzo and me to come back to him, because he saw the end of that as the start of us, and we couldn’t start on a betrayal.
Rain dripped from his furrowed brow down to his perfect lips. My head fully grasped the position he was in—stuck between his loyalty to his friend and his friend’s girl, who’d become more when she wasn’t supposed to. It didn’t matter what we were to each other, because on paper, in this circle, I would always be Enzo’s girl first. E knew it. I knew it. Enzo had claimed it before it ever was. It was something we could never get away from.
I could have chosen to understand, but I was too stubborn in my anger. Too swollen in my hurt of his betrayal to see anything outside of it clearly. I couldn’t have escaped it if I tried.
“Yeah, well. You ruined everything, so good job. You’re just like the rest of them.”
He didn’t respond, but I didn’t need him to. I saw the wound my words left on him there in his dark eyes.
I knew then that this was the end of me and E. It was written in the stone, the hurt in his heart, as was the hurt in mine, and there was nothing we could do about it.
I stormed off, and he let me. He didn’t try to grab me or hold me back. He just let me go, into the storm, and out of his life.
I got in the Jeep and pulled out of his driveway. I swore I’d never speak to him again. Swore I’d never speak to any of them again. Swore I’d forget it all—the music, the glances, the feeling of being known in a way I never asked for but secretly craved.
I drove and imagined that every mile would muffle the memory. Muffle the sound of my broken heart. Silence the love I never let myself feel.
But even as I swore him away, the depth of my heart knew I never could. He had already carved himself inside me, and as much as I wanted to scream at him more, I wanted to collapse into him and beg him to make everything okay.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t.
I drove away, heartbroken in a thousand different directions, knowing I had to leave behind the only real thing I’d ever known. Terrified I’d never find it again, or worse—
that I might.
Disc 2
The Roads You Don’t Take
Track 9
“After The Love Has Gone”
-Earth, Wind & Fire, 1979
COLLEGE CLASSES BEGAN after the worst summer of my life, and I was barely aware of them. I was a ghost drifting through lectures with nothing but a heartbeat and the forced need to breathe. Looking back, it was lonely and aching, but at the time, I didn’t feel any of that. I was completely numb.
Lara and Kasey had run off to the University of Illinois, and I never spoke to them again. I never wanted to. I didn’t know where E ended up, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t any college around me, and Enzo was being the menace he’d always been—reckless and irresponsible. Staying away from him was easier than I had imagined.
Home was quieter, too. It was just me, Ren, and Mom now. Kat had flown out to California to chase her big dream of making it in Hollywood, and my dad had fought one too many battles and lost, so he was out of the house altogether.
