I need fresh air. I need to not be here anymore. I need to know what the hell is going on.
I turn, and West is right behind me. “Are we breaking up?”
His head rears back in surprise. “If—if that’s what you want.”
“I want to move to New York with my boyfriend, but I guess that’s not an option. So it looks like you’re calling the shots. What do you want?”
His face falls. “I don’t think long distance ever works.” There’s a jagged edge to his voice that triggers something deep inside me.
I straighten. “Got it. Okay. You can leave,” I say woodenly. For the first time in my life, I’m too furious to cry.
“Mars,” he says, and then thinks better of it. “Jupiter.” It’s a bolt of pain straight through the heart. He grimaces as he rubs the back of his neck. “I thought we could still go out for your last night here.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“This isn’t happening the way I wanted it to.”
“Same.” My voice cracks.
He swallows heavily, his eyes lingering on my face for long enough that my chest shudders. He grips the countertop, his knuckles turning white, and he looks like he’s restraining himself. It’s chemical, this thing between us, and even when he’s breaking my heart, I want to let him step closer to me and drag his mouth over my skin. “This is the most exciting day of your life, and you deserve to celebrate.”
“You’re right,” I say. His expression turns hopeful. “And I will. Without you.”
His shoulders fall, but he leaves without argument, and it’s salt in the wound. He didn’t even fight for one last night.
I walk nearly a mile to Rishi’s in the dark; by the time I get to his house, I’m stone-cold sober in a way that requires immediate attention, because if I think about how West just torpedoed our future in five minutes, I don’t know what I’ll do. I let myself in the front door, and I’m early—the party is a dozen people sitting around a coffee table debating the ending ofBreaking Badover empty take-out containers. In normal circumstances I’d join the debate, but right now, I need a different energy.
“You didn’t need to wait for me to have fun,” I announce, one hand on my hip as I survey the room, looking for the nearest bottle. Rishi, Improv Connor, and a combination of English lit nerds and engineering nerds say hi, and when they ask where West is, I tip back a shot instead of answering.
“Couldn’t make it” is all I say, and I see Connor and Rishi raise their eyebrows at each other across the room. Whatever. Let them speculate. After twenty minutes and two more shots, I force the antihero conversation to a close and convince everyone that it would be the best idea in the world to turn the lights down and the music up. By the time Connor turns to me, I’m past the point of being pleasantly tipsy and have careened straight into drunk.
“Hey!” He tips his mouth closer to my ear so I can hear him over the music. “Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You seem different.”
I giggle even though it’s not funny. “That’s because I am.Can I tell you a secret?” I ask, and when Connor nods, I crook my finger, and he leans over the arm of the couch until our faces are close. The strap of my dress slips down my shoulder, and I see Connor’s eyes tracing the fabric. “Today, my wildest dream came true.”
“What’s that?” he asks, and I realize I don’t want Improv Connor to be the fourth person in my life to know about my book deal.
“I actually can’t say. Top secret.” I mime zipping my lips.
Connor pouts, so I boop him on the nose with my fingertip and am drunk enough that I don’t care how weird that is. “Lucky you, though. You’re the only one in this room who knows that today is the happiest day of my life.” Maybe if I say the words out loud, it will make them true.
“You don’t seem that happy,” Connor says. When I don’t respond, he goes in for the kill. “Why are you here alone?”
I shrug again and then leave to refill our drinks before the ghost of West ruins the mood. When I return, Connor’s arms snake around me and pull me into his lap, sloshing vodka soda across my thighs. He swipes his bare hands over my skin, and I relax back into his chest and let him. And when he leans in for a kiss, I’m so fucking miserable having the best day of my life that I kiss him back.
I know something’swrong before I open my eyes. And then Connor’s toenail scratches my calf under the sheet, and my stomach churns. Not something, buteverything.
I jump out of bed and knock over a glass of water that is sitting on the floor as I grab my dress with shaking hands.
“Mars?” Connor squints at me, his red hair sticking out in all directions.
“I have to go.” I need to get out of this room and this house and as far away from this mistake as I can.
I search under dirty clothes and discarded blankets for my sandals and eventually find one under the bed.
