Page 44 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 2

I was the shame he had to carry for losing a game.

“Avery,” he said, his voice increasingly higher pitched, thinner, weaker. “I was so glad when we lost. I swear. I was almost tempted to botch the game just so I had a reason to…”

“To get a consolation prize,” I finished for him.

He stepped toward me, but I pulled back. Nothing about my body language signaled that he could approach me. Nothing about my words encouraged him to keep trying.

I wanted to say things. I wanted to tell him that I had trusted him. I wanted to tell him that he was the first person I had ever truly opened up to. But why would I? Why would I waste my breath on this trickster?

My heart clenched hard. I didn’t know such pain was possible. It was a discomfort that exploded through my chest and it hurt everywhere. It hurt in my throat and in my stomach. It hurt my lungs to breathe and my heart to beat. “I’m done,” I said in as empty a voice as I could muster. Soon, it would crack. And I didn’t want to be here when it betrayed me. I didn’t want Grayson Reed to see me crumble.

I pressed the empty mask onto my face. I clenched my teeth and pursed my lips. I deadened my steel gray eyes.

Every little thing that made no sense to me finally fell into place. Why had he been so eager to score a date? To win a bet. Why had he asked my friends for my number like it couldn’t wait? To win a fucking bet. Why had he shown any interest in me at all? Easy. He hadn’t. I was a dare he had wanted to win. I had never been important. I had never been special in any way except that Spencer had picked me as a challenge.

I swallowed the thickening knot in my throat. “Don’t call me. Don’t text me. Don’t send shit to my place or I’ll kick your ass, Grayson. And don’t fucking ask my friends about me.”

“Avery,” he whispered, his eyes brimming with shining tears. Good. He felt the sting.

How far would it have gone? When would he have revealed that everything was a lie all along? On our fucking wedding day? On our fiftieth anniversary?

But my anger erupted in a different direction as I turned away from him. I was the stupid one. I was the idiot who daydreamed about our future. I had let myself fall in love with a liar and a playboy. He was no different than his treacherous friend.

I crunched the snow under my boots as I crossed the middle of the lawn, cutting the distance to the road in half.

“Avery, please,” he whispered, voiceless.

His feet shuffled through the snow as he surged after me, but I spun around. My eyes stung with the cold air biting me. I couldn’t explain why I tasted salt every time I swallowed. But I growled at him as he leaped after me and I grabbed his wrists as he stretched out his arms. The six-pack dropped out of my hand as I grappled with him. “Don’t fucking follow me,” I shouted at him. “Go away.”

“No,” he yelled back. “Avery. Avery, I’m begging you, just listen. It’s not what you…”

But I overpowered him in this brief skirmish. Whatever he was trying to do — hold me or wrestle me — failed. He slipped in the snow and I let go once I saw I was the last support he had. I stepped back, and Grayson stumbled forward, falling into the mound of snow. He flailed and struggled to his knees, stumbling again as he tried to follow.

That was how I left him. My vision blurred as a gust of wind picked up and whipped my face. I marched with my fists closed. It wasn’t until I reached the road that I realized I was out of breath. I’d been breathing so shallowly that my vision was narrowing.

The walk home was simultaneously the longest I had ever lived through and also only lasted an instant. Each step I made hurt, yet I was in front of the team house sooner than I was ready. I didn’t want to face anyone. I didn’t want to be seen, understood, and pitied. I didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for my stupid broken heart. I didn’t want anyone to tell me it would be alright.

Stupidity like this was incurable. I was a gullible guy who’d fallen for a liar and believed I’d been lucky. He had never cared about me.

Bitterness coated my tongue as I entered the house and walked straight to my room. Someone greeted me from the sofa in the common room, but I was too numb to reply. It was only when I shut the door behind my back that the numbness began to fade.

I wished it wouldn’t.

The pain assumed its place. The tingling left me and only aches remained.

My throat closed so tightly that I couldn’t inhale without wheezing. Even without the vicious wind, my eyes were stinging, and my vision was blurry. When hot tears spilled over the brink and streaked my cold cheeks, pure hatred filled me.

My gaze went to the single dry rose under my window. I crossed the room in a rage and grabbed the goddamn thing, slamming its dry petals against the desk. The petals fell off as I smashed it again and again, turning to flakes and to dust. The stem snapped in my hand and the remainder of the flower fell on the floor where we had made love. I stomped on it with one booted foot, pain shooting up my leg.

How could he have done this to me? Hadn’t I told him how badly I needed trust between us? Hadn’t I told him how much I needed to know his soul before I could give in? I had thought he was beautiful. I had thought his heart was beautiful, when all he ever did was manipulate and settle a score.

I turned my rage to the desk. It was cluttered with his goddamn cards and trinkets. Tears welled again in my eyes and poured down my cheeks, sobs rising in my chest. I shuddered with a desperate need to take a deep breath of air, but I couldn’t calm myself down. I couldn’t break free of the panic. How could I be so ignorant? How could I let us get this far and never see through his lies?

I swiped across my desk in a blind rage, carrying off all the cards, books, pens, and notebooks. I wiped it clean of his things and mine a moment before my legs folded under me.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had cried. I hated it. My voice was sore when it broke through my closed throat. My lower jaw was quivering when I gulped for air. My brow pressed hard against the carpet, and heat overwhelmed me. Sweat was breaking out on my brow and under my arms, so I fumbled to take my coat off.

This afternoon, I hadn’t admitted the most obvious thing of all to myself. I hadn’t admitted that I had fallen in love with him. But now, my future was bleak. My life lacked the drive he had given it. The home and the love and the joy that I had expected were gone and only now could I see all the places in my heart he had filled. Only now when they were empty and cold.