Like he’d never see me again.
And that broke me.
“Fine!” I screamed, and in a move that surprised both of us, I punched him straight in the chest with both of my fists. “Go! Leave!”
Clay took every hit, his eyes fluttering shut, not so much of a flinch each time my little hands rained down on him.
“Go be with Maliyah. Go pretend like none of this mattered, like I don’t matter.”
He shook his head at that, reaching for me, but I swatted him away.
“No. No, don’t try to take it back now.”
“Kitten,” he whispered in a pained breath.
“GET OUT!” I screamed, hitting him again and again as I shoved him toward the door. “I hate you! I never want to see you again! I hate you!”
The words came out more desperate and garbled with every breath as sobs ripped free from my chest, echoing off every wall of my apartment.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered against another flood of tears, trying to hold onto me as I pushed and pushed.
“You…” I stopped, melting into his arms as he wrapped me up tight. I shook and cried and he did the same. “You broke my fucking heart.”
Silence fell over us, one long, still moment.
“I broke mine, too,” he whispered.
And then he released me.
I gasped at the loss, but didn’t have time to do more than reach for his back as he pulled my front door open and flew out of it without looking back at me.
A mangled cry fell from my lips when he was gone, and I sank down to the floor, bones collapsing in a heap before I hugged my knees to my chest like that was the only way to keep myself together.
Just like that, my cotton candy cloud moment was over.
And no matter how I braced for it, I knew I’d never survive the crash to the ground.
Clay
I dragged my ass into the locker room after our loss against the Hawks the next day, wondering why I didn’t feel the same emotion as my teammates.
Zeke threw his helmet into his locker with more force than necessary, the clang of it echoing off the walls of the room. Riley tried to soothe him, but the way she shook her head and hung it between her shoulders told me she was just as upset. Kyle sat mutely on the bench in front of his locker, no phone in sight, no bragging on social media or dancing in celebration. And even Holden’s jaw was tight as he stood in the middle of the locker room and thought of what to say to rally us.
It was a brutal beating, a poor showing on all our parts against a team we should have easily defeated.
My team was angry. They were disappointed.
I, on the other hand, was just fucking numb.
It should have been something I was used to, the hollowness in my chest. After my breakup with Maliyah, I thought I’d felt the worst emotional pain of my life, thought I had survived the worst heartbreak I’d ever experience.
I wanted to laugh at that now, but I couldn’t muster up anything that even resembled joy — no matter how sarcastic.
This wasn’t just pain. It wasn’t just heartbreak. It wasn’t just missing someone and being mercilessly reminded of them everywhere you looked by memories that would haunt you for what seemed like eternity — although all those things were present.
This was the kind of torture only those who put someone they cared about through hell knowingly could understand.
It was guilt, and failure, and recognition that I was the villain. It was someone else’s blood on my hands. It was the cry that I had to do it, that there was no other way, weak as it left my lips.
My mom was the happiest she’d been, not just since Brandon split, but since Dad had. Cory was putting her up in a five-star rehab center in Northern California that frequently housed the rich and famous, and she was tickled pink, not just at the chance of running into one of them, but at really changing.
I’m going to be a better woman, she’d told me on the phone last night, though I’d been too fucked up to really listen. A better mom for you.
She was packing her bags, getting ready to leave tomorrow, a check to repay the loan I’d taken out, and then some, already in the mail and on its way to me.
And even though it was my money, even though it was me who’d loaned it to her and therefore deserved it coming back to me — it felt like dirty money, like it had blood on it, too.
You’re doing the right thing, son.
Those were the words Cory said over the phone yesterday morning when I’d agreed to his deal after not having slept or ate or done anything but stare at the wall of my bedroom. I could almost imagine him clapping me on the shoulder with pride.