“Lindsey…she’s in my lab and wants to meet,” I say quietly. He nods. He knows. “Andrew…I…”

He holds up a hand, shaking his head, his lips a deeply unhappy smile.

“It’s okay. She’s your friend, and I’m…” he pauses, chuckling to himself, “I’m not in the place I should be.”

He pulls his keys from one pocket and his beanie from another, tugging his hat over his head and opening his palm for one more wave goodbye as he falls back on his heels, turning to leave. “I’ll see you again soon, Emma. There’s too much to talk about—me and you?”

I watch him go, wanting to race to him, wrap myself around him, kiss him like I really want to. But I stay in my place, remaining in the lie we’ve built on Lindsey’s behalf, regretting every second of it, and now taking it as my punishment just as I’m sure Andrew is.

His engine fires up, the sound hitting that familiar nerve, but this time I’m able to stop the feeling before it numbs me. I wait to watch him pull away, and he lowers his window, looking ahead, breathing—thinking. Then he leans out the window, urging me to take a few steps closer so I can hear him.

“I said I wasn’t in the place I should be,” he says over the low idle of his car, licking his lips once, pulling his bottom lip in, chuckling to himself and looking down into his lap. He shakes his head slowly, then peers out the window again, his eyes square on mine, his heart talking to mine now. “What I meant to say was I’m not with the person I should be.”

There’s an emptiness and fullness that settles over us at the same time—a feeling of hope and hopelessness. We wade in it, breathe it in together, and I want to run back to him, to tell him the rest of my story, to climb back into his car and let him drive us away, not caring if it hurts Lindsey. But my feet stay where they are, and Andrew’s hand pats the side of his car, his fingers drumming along the shiny black surface and the gleam of the chrome stripe.

He drives away, and long after he’s out of sight, I wait.

I wait for him to come back.

I think I’ve always been waiting.

Chapter 14

Andrew

I should have kissed her anyway. I should have stayed. I should have picked her up in my arms and carried her into her goddamned apartment.

Instead, I drove away, headed right to Harley’s gym, and convinced him I was fine, good enough to stand in the ring for an hour with some new guy. This time, though, I hit back. I hit back more than I normally do. I hit back with the force of all of the shit I was feeling. I took out my frustration with Emma, with her parents and the lies they clearly told, with her lack of trying to find out the truth sooner. Was it her job to find out the truth? Would I have if I were in her position?

There’s still this part of me that can’t help but feel like I was busy thinking about her while she forgot about me completely—while I lost a year of my life and most of my soul.

I took it all out in the middle of Harley’s gym on some guy named Taylor. Some frat boy who cleaned up during the campus fight night and thought maybe he’d make a go of it, get himself some sponsors and really try and fight. I’m pretty sure I broke his nose.

Harley was pissed at first, and before I left, I thought he was walking over to tell me to quit showing my crazy face in his gym. Instead, he pulled up a stool and sat silently while I unwrapped my knuckles and packed up my bag, sliding his chair away right before I left, his back to me as he grumbled “that dude isn’t ready. Good work, tonight.”

Good work. Ha!

I left feeling just as confused and frustrated. I spent the night ignoring the three—she sent three!—texts from Lindsey. And then I laid awake, getting to my feet and moving to the door, with every intention of driving to Emma’s apartment, before talking myself out of it and throwing my ass back in bed.

The problem is it’s not just Emma’s apartment. It’s Lindsey’s, too. I’ve made things messy. But I haven’t slept with Lindsey. I mean…I’ve slept with Lindsey. But that hardly counts. That can’t count. Not now that things with Emma are…well, they’re different.

I didn’t think my hate could give way so easily. I’d spent so many years harboring it, carving it into this delicate weapon to guard myself from ever dreaming again. It turned into vengeance when I saw her in the bar. There was only one thing that could have made a difference, and that was Emma not knowing where I’d been. I don’t know why her parents lied to her, and I hold them accountable. My anger—it’s shifted in their direction. And I’m a son-of-a-bitch for hating her mom now that she’s gone. But I do. I don’t know what their motives were, but I’m sure it had to do with everything they thought I was, and the one thing they thought I wasn’t—good enough for their daughter.