by Jamie Howard
Glancing at my phone, I flip back to the rest of my messages. Clark’s name catches my eye and I pop over to our last conversation. I haven’t meant to ignore him, but with everything that’s been happening and how supportive Kyle’s been, texting him has been a pretty low priority.
Like I said: I’m a crappy friend.
Holding the phone up above my head, I send him a quick message.
Me: Hey there, stranger. How’ve you been? I miss our chats. I’ve got so much to fill you in on.
Seconds after I press Send, Kyle’s phone vibrates on the nightstand.
That was … weird.
I try and shake off the bad feeling that’s snaking through my veins. It’s just a strange coincidence, that’s all. My gaze darts back to his phone, and the urge to get up and check it is almost unbearable. I force myself to lie still. Last time I went snooping on his phone, even if it was accidental, there was a huge misunderstanding. I’m not going down that road again.
My phone vibrates in my hand and I’m so startled that I drop it on my face.
Son of a—
I shake off the brief burst of pain. As soon as I’ve got my phone back in my hands, I scan my screen, hoping that it’s an answer from Clark.
It’s not. It’s an enormous message from Tara that I’m too distracted to read right now.
Pushing back up, I glare at the nightstand. I know if I don’t settle this right now it’s going to eat at me all day. Alright, there’s a simple way to resolve this.
I type out another quick text to Clark.
Me: You won’t believe what’s been going on with my family and Kyle.
My thumb hesitates over the Send button. I stare at the nightstand as I press it.
Kyle’s phone vibrates again.
Before I can stop myself, I’m off the bed and his phone is in my hand. Or, one of his phones is in my hand? There are two of them on the nightstand.
My gaze lands on the screen of his phone and the floor vanishes from beneath my feet. Or at least that’s how it feels. A sharp pain shoots through my knee, and that’s when I realize my legs gave out on me.
My stomach curls in on itself like it’s trying to find someplace to hide, and it feels like someone’s forcefully ripped my heart out of my chest, leaving nothing but a gaping hole behind. The tears are there too, but I think I’m too shocked to even feel the grief that’s trying to overpower me.
My finger shakes as I trace over the four letters that have completely shattered me—Lois. The phone’s locked but the name is still there. My mind flashes back to all the things I opened up to him about—my family, my confession about not being good enough for Luke, every single embarrassing, private thought I had about Kyle. My entire body flushes as I remember all the things I said to him.
How could he do this to me?
The shower turning off snaps me back into the present.
I have to get out of here.
His phone tumbles from my hand as I leap to my feet and throw yesterday’s dress back on. I shove my phone into my purse, and curse under my breath as I try to strap on my sandals. The second they’re on, I’m sprinting through the bedroom door.
My hand touches the cold metal of the doorknob and freedom is inches away when the bathroom door squeaks open.
“Haley?”
Even hearing him say my name hurts.
I glance back at him over my shoulder. He’s got a towel wrapped around his waist, and water slides from the tips of his wet hair, down his neck and across his bare chest.
Whoever said there’s a thin line between love and hate couldn’t be more right. And I think I just stepped over that line.
I clench my jaw and shake my head, too furious, too devastated to even try and find the words. I can’t be here another minute. I can’t look at him another second. The entire building seems to vibrate as I open the door and slam it behind me, leaving Kyle or Clark or whoever the hell he is staring after me. In the end, he’s only one thing to me—a liar.
Chapter 38
Kyle
I stare at the door, the sound of it slamming still echoing around the room. My heart rate punches it into another gear, but my feet haven’t gotten the memo yet. They’re cemented to the floor.
It feels like a three-hundred-pound linebacker is sitting on my chest, and that’s when I remember—I need to breathe. I suck in a breath and finally convince my legs to get moving. I sprint to the door and throw it open, one hand clutching the edge of my towel so I don’t flash any of my neighbors. The hall is empty, silent. I stand there for a full minute trying to process what just happened. Finally my brain comes back online—clothes, I need to put on some clothes. I’m running again, this time back to my bedroom. And that’s when I catch sight of my phone lying facedown on my carpet, and my legs quit working again.
No. No. Please, no.
I scoop it up and right there on the front is Lois’s name.
How could I be this stupid? I grip my phone so tightly in my hand that the case bites into my skin. I was so swept up in the moment this morning that I didn’t even think to move my phone. Hell, I almost completely forgot these texts were even still on the damn phone.
Anger boils up inside me at my own idiocy, and without really thinking about it, I spin around and punch the wall. The pain radiates through my knuckles and into my wrist almost immediately. Fuck.
I try to shake out the pain, wincing at how much it hurts.
Well, if leaving my phone out for Haley to find didn’t get me nominated for dumbest person on the planet, this should probably clinch it.
Ignoring the incessant throbbing in my hand, I raid my dresser, yanking out whatever underwear, shirt, pants, and socks I find first. Pausing only to grab my keys off the counter, I sprint out of the building and straight to my car.
Hold on—Haley rode with me. Where’d she go?
Shielding my eyes, I scan the parking lot, but she’s nowhere to be found. I keep my eyes peeled the entire drive to her place, but she’s not on any of the sidewalks either. We don’t live far from each other, maybe five minutes by car, so theoretically it’s possible she walked the entire way while I was trying to get my shit together. It’s also entirely possible that she’s somewhere else. Somewhere I can’t find her. Somewhere she doesn’t have to listen to my explanations or apologies.
Well, I guess there’s only one way to find out.
Hurrying up the stairs, I skid to a halt outside her door. My hand hesitates in the knock position, hovering in the air. The realization that this could be the end of us slams into me so hard that I almost stumble backward.
Please don’t let this be it.
Chapter 39
Haley
I managed to get the door closed behind me before my legs gave out completely. My lungs burn from practically sprinting home, my feet ache from how relentlessly I pounded them into the sidewalks. I let my head fall back against the door, trying to keep myself together as the world crashes down around me.
Just breathe. You can do this. You’ve done it before.
The door vibrates behind me as someone knocks on it.
“Haley? Are you home?” Kyle shouts.
I press my knuckles to my mouth, fighting back the sob that’s struggling to get out.
“Please.” Something thumps against the door—his hand, his head. “If you’re there just say something.”
I move my hand just far enough to let the words squeeze out. “I’m here.”
“Can I come in?”
My eyes trace a path up to the doorknob, and I glare at it like it’s the enemy. I should let him in, give him a chance to explain¸ and then ask him to leave. I should. But I can’t. I can’t look at him without falling apart. I can’t be around him without wanting to be wrapped up in his arms. Even after everything, I’m afraid that I’m too weak to share the same space with him.
I draw my knees up to my chest. “No.”
“Please, you have to give me a chance to explain. It’s no
t what you … no, it’s probably exactly what you think.” His footsteps fade away and then come right back at me. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I never meant to lie to you, I just didn’t know what to do.”
“Were you ever planning on telling me?”
He hesitates, and every second that ticks by seems like one step closer to the end. Finally, when the silence is so thick I’m almost choking on it he says, “No.”
Something scrapes against the door, like he’s sliding down it.
I run my tongue out over my lips. “Were you ever going to stop texting me?”
“Yes.” His response is immediate, out of his mouth almost the second I’m done asking my question. “You’d been texting so infrequently I thought it would all just stop. I was so happy, so freaking happy that I almost never thought about it.”
“How long?”
“Haley…”
“How long have you known?” I practically spit the words out of my mouth.
I can hear his sigh even from the other side of the door. “Since the night you locked your keys in the car. You texted me to tell me how bad your date was, and then you sat in my kitchen and told me—”
“The same story.” I press the heels of my hands into my eyes as a few warm tears manage to sneak out. My mind replays every single one of our conversations and my heart takes a step backward every time I remember all the things I shared with him without even knowing it. “You knew, at the mall, at the wedding, you knew how I felt about you the entire time.”
“Yeah.” The door groans as he leans back into it. “I did.”
“Is this just some kind of sick game for you? Is that what this is?”
“No!” The volume of his voice skyrockets, but I can’t tell if it’s because he’s shouting or if he’s facing the door now. “This was never a game to me. The only reason I texted you back in the first place was because I was lonely, and it was nice to just talk to someone without you knowing me at all. I could just be myself. And then after I found out who you were, who I was actually texting … I only wanted to be there for you. It was never my intention to mislead you.” He sighs again, and there’s another thump. “But then I fell in love with you and every scenario I played out in my mind where I told you the truth, they all … well they all ended something like this.”
I try to see it from his point of view, but I can’t. The only thing I can think, the only thing I can hear or see or feel, is the pain of his lies. Running my hands over my thighs, I stop at my knees and squeeze. “You lied to me.” I huff out a laugh. “It’s ironic, right? How just last night I was telling you how bad a liar you are, and in reality you’ve been lying to me almost since you met me.” He tries to cut me off, but I don’t let him. “I’m so humiliated. Embarrassed. Hurt. I told you personal things. Private things. And I can’t wrap my head around the fact that you would do that to me.” The words pour out of my mouth, slipping straight from my brain through my lips.
The thought that Kyle, Kyle, would do this to me is so unexpected that the force of it is that much stronger. With Luke, even though I tried to ignore it, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel coming from miles away. Then, I just stuck my head in the sand and pretended that it wasn’t happening. But this blindsided me. Never in a million years would I have thought that Luke and Kyle are similar, and yet here I am again.
I shake my head and then drop my cheek to my knees. Hugging my arms around my legs, I try to curl myself tighter, hoping it might help me hold together the gaping hole in my chest. My tears seep out slowly from the corners of my eyes, running over the bridge of my nose and trickling down the curve of my calf.
I can’t believe I’m right back where I started.
“Haley?” I barely hear my name through the thickness of the door. Half of me wonders if he’s hoping I won’t answer him at all.
“Yeah?”
“Is this it?”
A sharp, stabbing pain slices through me, and I have to bite my lip to keep a wounded sound from escaping me. I swipe at my cheeks with the back of my hand. “I can’t be with someone that I can’t trust.”
Something rustles on the other side of the door, and I can tell from the way his voice drifts down to me that he’s standing up again. “Is there anything I can do to make this better?”
Right now there’s only one thing I can think of.
“I want you to leave. And I don’t want you to come back.”
“Alright,” he says, his voice thick with tears. “But before I go, I want you to know that these past few months have been … everything to me. If there’s one thing out of my mouth that you can believe, let it be this: I am so in love with you. It was all real for me.” Then quietly, “I’ve never felt anything more real in my life.”
Listening to him break does something to me. It feels like a dam is breaking or all my defenses are failing. Tears rush to my eyes, blurring my vision. I try to breathe through the sobs, but it seems like there’s not enough oxygen in the world to satisfy my lungs. My hands hurt from how hard I’m clenching them around my legs, and my head throbs until it feels like it might burst.
I’m not sure how long I sit there, wrapped tightly around myself on the floor. All I know is that by the time I pull myself together, the hallway is empty and Kyle is gone.
Chapter 40
Kyle
“Kyle!”
Bang, bang, bang.
I tuck my pillow tighter over my head, trying to block out the pounding my door’s getting.
“KYLE!”
Bang, bang, bang.
Pause.
Bang, bang, bang, bang.
“I swear to fucking God, man. Either you open this door in the next sixty seconds or I am going to break it down.”
I shift onto my side, peeking out from underneath my pillowcase.
“I’m not kidding. And hey, then you’ll have to pay for a new door, get new locks installed, replace your keys. That’s assuming I don’t seriously hurt myself trying to get through this thick-ass door.”
With a growl, I roll out of bed and stomp across my apartment.
“Then of course I’d probably lose my scholarship because I fucked up my knee or something, and then I’ll have to drop out of college, and—”
I unlock the door, then flop down on the couch, dropping my feet onto the coffee table. Sometimes I really wish I were an only child. This entire week has been one really long string of those sometimes.
The door opens slowly, just far enough for Brian to stick his head through the crack. His eyes do a quick sweep around the place like he’s expecting to find a bomb or a rabid squirrel inside or something. Stepping inside, he shoves the door closed with his shoulder.
“Damn,” he mutters. “You look like shit. What are you even wearing? Is that a T-shirt from the high-school science fair?”
I glare at him and swipe a hand through my hair, not caring that it’s probably now sticking up in a thousand directions. “What do you want?”
“You don’t answer my calls or texts. You bail on family dinner, which, by the way, gave Mom another check in the Scrabble win column.” He sinks down into the leather armchair. “What the hell is going on?”
I grit my teeth together. I’ve spent all week trying to forget. To stop my brain from thinking. Except the only wall I’ve managed to build up in my mind to keep back the thoughts of Haley is made from the flimsiest cardboard, so even Brian’s semi-innocent question sends it crashing down.
“We broke up.”
“You and Haley? No way. Tell me you’re kidding.”
“Not kidding.”
“Shit.” He leans forward and pokes the pizza box that’s taking up half of the coffee table. Lifting the lid, he snags one of the leftover slices of pepperoni. It’s already in his mouth when he asks, “This is any good?”
I shrug. “Couple days old. Should be fine.”
“So, what happened?”
I shift my gaze over his shoulder so I can stare down the wall. “She
found out. About the Clark texting thing.”
“You told her?”
“No, I didn’t tell her. She saw my phone.”
“Are you fucking serious?” He shakes his head at me. “You just left it out for her to find?”
Leaning forward, I drop my head into my hands. “Does it look like I need a lecture right now?”
He blows out a breath and it whistles as it scrapes through his teeth. Tossing the half-eaten slice of pizza back on top of the box, he stands and folds his hands behind his head. “How’d that go down at work this week? She ignore you?”
“I didn’t go. I called out.”
“Is that your brilliant plan?” He rolls his eyes at me. “You’re just never going to work again?”
“Shut up, Brian.” I push myself up to my feet and brush by him, into the kitchen. With a yank, I pull open the refrigerator and scan it for something to drink. My Brita is empty, the orange juice is past its expiration date, and the milk—I wrinkle my nose at the smell and slam the door shut again. Scanning the kitchen counter, my eyes snag on the bottle of cheap vodka I’ve been nursing all week. It’s ten o’clock in the morning but I really don’t care. I take a swig straight from the bottle. The alcohol singes my throat and I screw up my face as I wait for the burn to fade. God that stuff is gross.
When I look up, I catch Brian watching me with an amused expression on his face.
“I’m going back to work on Monday, Mom. But it doesn’t matter because Haley won’t be there. Her contract ran out last week and according to Mr. Marchelli, she turned down the permanent position.”
At first, I just wanted some time and space. I didn’t think I could show up at work on Monday, see her, and manage to keep it together. It never even crossed my mind that by being such a ridiculous coward it would mean that I’d lose my last chance to see her again. In the back of my mind I always thought there’d be more opportunities to make it right between us.