“No, I’m not, but you are,” I railed at him. “You just want to lock yourself away with your pain and your guilt.”
“Maybe I do, but at least the only person I’m hurting is myself,” he said hoarsely. “Now get out of my house.”
I was sobbing uncontrollablyas I walked down the street. A cold rain had started, and the freezing droplets mixed with my tears, numbing my nose.
“He didn’t mean it,” I tried to tell myself. “He’s just hurt. You can try again tomorrow. People have fights. And he’s been through a lot. Give Grayson the benefit of the doubt. We’re meant to be together. Things will work themselves out.”
They had to.
I believed in the power of positive thinking, and I believed that Grayson was going to wake up tomorrow and realize he was wrong, that I did care about him.
Be a shining light in the world.
A guy was walking down the street on the phone, a little girl walking next to him.
“I love your coat,” I warbled to her.
“I don’t talk to strangers,” the little girl yelled at me.
Around me, several people stopped. The little girl stuck her tongue out at me, and her dad rushed her away.
“Do I look that crazy?” I sobbed.
Probably.
I clutched my umbrella. Yes, I’d stolen it from Grayson’s penthouse, but I was going to see him again soon, right? And then I’d return it.
A yellow cab pulled up to pick up a woman a few paces behind me.
I shrieked as I was splashed with dirty street water. I kicked a banana peel off my shoe.
“Can you watch where you’re going?” I yelled at the cab driver.
“Hey, calm down,” he yelled out the window. “It can always be worse, you know.”
I fumed. My feet squelched in my shoes as I hobbled toward my apartment building.
Briefly I thought longingly of Grayson’s giant bathtub. I would kill for a hot bath.
“He’s going to come to his senses tomorrow,” I assured myself. “He has to.”
Shaking off my umbrella, I slopped into the lobby of the apartment building.
“We need to get a posse together,” Grenadine was yelling as I looked around at the chaos.
Maria and her grandmother were sobbing and crying in their doorway.
Connie was berating Grenadine.
“It was because you let Lexi and McKenna move in. That was the final straw.”
“I can’t find my dentures,” Mo was saying. “I don’t know what happened.”
“Oh my god,” McKenna sobbed, running over to me. “It’s terrible.”
“What’s going on?”
“We’re getting kicked out.”
