It’s strange; my first instinct is to defend Noah, even now. To tell Parker that he’s not an asshole, he’s just delivering all the things that we expected from the beginning. Why is that? Maybe it’s because I had （quite literally） just opened myself up to something more, to trying out something real—only to have my entire heart stomped on in an old booth of a café I used to really enjoy. Which is a double whammy, because now I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back.
“I’m sure it’s just some hormonal bullshit,” I offer. “It’ll pass.”
“Mackenzie,” Parker sighs. “You can feed that shit to someone else, because I know you. I saw you with him that day when you were going into heat. I don’t know what the fuck happened between you two when I wasn’t looking, but something changed. And it’s okay to admit that you’re hurting.”
I say nothing, setting my spoon on the cafeteria table before running my fingers through my hair, which I didn’t bother washing today. Come to think of it, I’m not really sure when I last washed it.
“Just come out with me,” Parker urges. “We can forget about men for a night.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” I grumble. “Your relationship is going just fine.”
“And I will be happy to make up several shortcomings to bitch about over cosmos.”
My lip twitches despite it all. “Fine. Whatever. We’ll go for drinks.”
“Perfect,” Parker says happily. He checks his phone. “I have to go back. I’ll meet you when you get off?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He leaves me sitting at the table alone, and my soup remains woefully untouched, my appetite nonexistent. Is this what it feels like to be heartbroken? I’ve successfully avoided the feeling romantic-wise for almost the entirety of my adult life, and now that I’m experiencing it firsthand, I would be happy to give it back.
I’ve gone over that day at the café again and again in my mind, trying to pick it apart and find sense in the way that Noah had been so eager to pursue something more with me days before ending things entirely. By all accounts it makes absolutely no sense, but the aloof expression on his face as he’d told me it was over, that it wasn’t the right time for him and me . . . it left little room for doubt.
And what’s more confusing is how deep it stings, how much the hurt of it lingers like a wound that won’t heal. I had been so confident that I could keep things casual, that I could explore his body while keeping a tight hold on my heart—so why does it hurt so much?
Deep down, I know the answer. Of course I do. I think I’ve known it since the first time he touched me, but I’ve been so desperate to keep him at arm’s length that I’d somehow managed to push Noah directly into my blind spot. I held him where I couldn’t see the way he was carving a place for himself inside my heart.
And now I’m experiencing the fallout, all alone.
I’m not letting you get away from me, Mackenzie.
I have to shut my eyes tight to hold back tears, refusing to let anyone at work see me give in to that weakness. I grab my bowl and my spoon and the rest of my trash and carry it to the can to throw it away, a bitter emotion I’m becoming accustomed to trickling into my chest as Noah’s empty words play over and over in my head.
I’m not letting you get away from me, Mackenzie.
I laugh under my breath as I head for the elevators. Turns out . . . he pushed me away himself.
* * *
?It’s cold outside the entrance of the hospital where I’m waiting for Parker after my shift, the evening lights turning on and the sky darkening above as the temperature drops. I rub my hands together and breathe on them as I lean against the wall outside the door, eyeing the large bushes a few yards away.
It feels a lot like that first morning I met Noah here after we entered our arrangement, and there is a small, pathetic part of me that imagines that he might walk out of the doors at any moment. Which I know is out of the question; I haven’t seen him since that day at the café. He made sure of that when he put in his resignation the very next day.
Even knowing that, I startle as the automatic doors creak open beside me, jumping a little when someone steps out who is neither Noah nor Parker, but just as familiar.
“Mack?”
I haven’t really spent any time with Liam since the day that Noah kissed me in the hallway; things felt awkward after Priya informed me that Liam might have feelings for me. I still don’t know if there’s any truth to that, and with everything that’s happened since . . . I haven’t had the emotional capacity to even consider dealing with the possibility.