42
chloe
“I hateto be that girl, Chlo, but are you sure you don’t want to just take another day off? I’ll skip class and call in sick. We can do whatever you want to do, or not do anything at all.”
“No,” I cut Savannah off with a swift shake of my head. “No. I’ve been in my shell for days. Having something to do—someone else to help, will force me to stop crying, and I—” I pull my lips between my teeth when my voice cracks and take a breath. “I just don’t want to cry anymore.”
Savannah sits beside me on the couch with one hand holding her head up in her lap and the other comes to rest on my shoulder.
“Do you remember when my mom died?”
Other than a swallow, I don’t move.
“You gave up everything for me,” she says, rubbing circles along my back. “There wasn’t a day that I was alone because of you.”
At that point in my life, Savannah was the only person who truly had my back. She understood me in a way that I didn’t even understand myself yet. I loved her and her family, and I would have done anything for her. When she was sad,or scared, or mad at the world, I just wanted her to know that she wasn’t alone.
“This is a very different situation, Sav.” My heart may feel shattered, but comparing a breakup to the death of a parent seems laughable.
“I know.” She nods. “But I say it because you have a habit of overextending yourself.”
I don’t argue, because she’s right. I throw myself into anything and everything, if only to remind myself that I can and do excel at pretty much everything. Right now, I should be spiraling. I should be remembering the only other situation where I wanted something and came out feeling not enough. I wait for the doubt to creep in or for the voices to tell me that I wasn’t enough again.
But it doesn’t come. Instead, I’m met with a silence that’s quiet and heavy. It’s the loss of the love that I chose.
And it hurts so much worse.
“I’m going to be late for tutoring.”
“An eighty-nine?! You killed that.” I smile my first genuine smile in days at Oliver.
“Couldn’t have done it without you,” he says, pulling back his laptop, and closing the screen.
After two hours of back-to-back tutoring, the old me would have tried to sneak in a meeting with Mrs. Lawson to plan my next move, or hurried on over to Creekside to fit in twenty minutes of volunteer time. Today, after Oliver schedules a session with me before finals, and offers me a bag of cookies his girlfriend made, I pull out my own laptop and open my manuscript.
Now doesn’t exactly feel like the best time to be doing this, considering the thoughts in my headhave been so loud, I can barely hear myself think. But I’m done waiting for everything to be perfect.
If anything, the last few days have taught me that even when everything feels perfect, you’re one afternoon away from it all going to shit. And while that might be the case, I’ve also learned what it feels like when you want something bad enough and it works out. When everything is right, and not just because you’re good at it, but because your heart is in it.
“Chloe.” I twitch at the nasally drawn out way Nathan says my name. It’s worse than a knife scratching a plate. “How ya feelin’?”
Part of me wants to continue to ignore him, but the pacifying tone of his voice did what it intended and it caught my interest. The idea that Maverick would tell Nathan we were dating only to get him jealous enough that he would make a move and finally decide he wanted to be with me, wasn’t a well-thought-out plan. But the thought of him telling Nathan we broke up, doesn’t even seem feasible.
“I’m sorry about the job position.”
I open my mouth, but his words register and I’m taken aback. “How did you find out about that?”
“John is a close family friend,” he says.John.Not the Department Chair or even Professor Peterson, like I know him, but John.
“After the way you left things last time I saw you, I didn’t think you would tell me how it went, so I went to talk to him and found out for myself. Because I care.”
Ignoring the annoying way in which he saidcare, I focus on all the other stupid shit he said. Of course, he sees it as the wayIleft things. Not the way he tried to corner me when I told him I didn’t want to talk, or the vile way he spoke to me prior to that, but the way I left things. Following that up with the fact that he went behind my back to talk to a professor about me? Is that even legal?
My confusion must be showing because Nathan pullsthe seat out across from me and sits down. “I was bummed for you, but I mean, you can’t be that surprised.”
When I don’t respond but watch him, waiting for him to continue, he rolls his eyes as if I’m inconveniencing him. “When you’re dating the university’s biggest fuck up, eventually that’s going to bite you.”
My heart beats once and then twice. I can hear the blood pounding between my ears as Nathan continues to talk, but all I hear is Maverick’s voice in my head.
