Page 67 of The Heartbreak List

Cooper was my everything. She became my love and my grief and my guilt. I guess it would make sense that I would find someone who could make me feel again, only to have to lose her. It’s penance, right? My life without Cooper is supposed to be agony. I don’t get to forget her. And I wouldn’t want to.

But Indy makes me wish for so much more.

“What?” She wrinkles her nose when she catches me staring. “Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

“No reason.” I concentrate on pulling on sweatpants. “Your phone should be charged. Do you want to call your friend?”

In the kitchen, she turns on her phone. The screen lights as it boots up.

“I hope he hasn’t told anyone yet.” She takes a determined breath and lifts her phone to her ear. “Hey, I’m glad I caught you.”

Her friend is loud despite the phone and continents in between. “Indy, what on earth is going on? You don’t answer my calls. You don’t talk to me anymore. Something is going on with you…this isn’t…we’ve never kept secrets from each other. You’re freaking me out.”

“I don’t even know where to start.” Indy wanders away from me to the other side of the counter. She lowers her voice and turns her back on me. “I…left Gray.”

“You did what?” her friend screams, as Indy takes her call into the living room.

She doesn’t need me eavesdropping, so I scope out the fridge for something to eat. But I’m never here, which means the fridge is empty apart from a couple of beers Pez brought over one night and a half-gallon of milk. The pantry yields similar results. Except for a half block of chocolate. Score.

I put it in a pot on the ancient stove and pour in a couple of mugs of milk then light the hob. I’m going to have to do better than this if Indy is staying. We need groceries. Vegetables and fruit and whatever else she eats. Less alcohol. Less pills. Less fighting.

That’s if staying is what she wants. She might not. Tomorrow could bring regrets and changes of heart. God, I hope she doesn’t go back to him. I need the time we have. I need to show her the world she wants to live in.

When the milk is heated and the chocolate has melted, I pour it into two mugs and go to find her. She’s curled up in my recliner, her phone cradled in her hands on her lap. She has a strand of hair between her lips while her eyes stare at the wall unseeing.

"Indy, sweetheart.” I sit on the coffee table. It wobbles, but it’s sturdy enough. I’ve stood on this thing before and haven’t fallen through it. Putting down the mugs, I reach out and cover her hand. “Are you okay?”

She blinks and her gaze meets mine. “Sorry?”

“Here.” I offer a mug. “It’s hot.”

“Thanks.” She handles it carefully. Her eyes glisten with the tears she’s cried over the course of the phone call. Her eyelashes are webbed.

“How’d she take it?” Stupid question. No one is ever going to take the kind of news Indy had to share well.

“Like her best friend is dying.” Her eyes grow wetter and she hiccups. She takes a sip of the hot chocolate. “This is really good.”

“It is.” I wait for her to open up to me. It’s her choice to tell me more. I won’t push her to talk to me when she isn’t ready.

“She wanted to get on the next flight home. She was looking at tickets while we were talking.” She tugs at the hem of my shirt. Rubs the pad of her finger on the middle of her bottom lip. “I convinced her to stick to her original plan and fly back in a few weeks.”

“Do you think she will?” I found it took a lot more than persuasion to keep loved ones at bay. Drugs and hard liquor helped a lot more than yelling in their faces. When you push them away hard enough, eventually people give up on you.

But that’s not Indy. She cares about everyone. And she cares about living even if it is short term. I numbed to survive. She’s surviving by putting her energy into living. It’s a lesson I’m so fucking grateful for.

“I guess we’ll see.” She yawns. “I just wish I could go over there to see her. But now I’m going to have to cancel the wedding and move all my stuff. My parents are going to be beside themselves. EJ is going to be so upset with me.”

“You did what you needed to do.” I take her mug and put it next to mine before I stand. Holding my hand out to her, I wait until she takes it and then I lift her into my arms. If she hadn’t broken his heart, I would not be the one kissing her tonight. I would not be the lucky son of a bitch carrying her to bed. And I would not be the one to strip her bare and take her soft and slow until she cries out my name while she comes.

Sunlight seeps in around the blinds, lighting up the room and making me squint as my eyes adjust. My arm is still around Indy and my morning chub is nestled against her ass. It gets harder now that I’m aware of her naked body pressed on mine. Until she shakes against me. “Indy?”

“Sorry.” Her voice is thick and wet and she lifts a hand to her face.

Shit. My heart catches. That swampy feeling sticks in the back of my throat. Waking up to her tears after last night was my fear going to sleep. I brush her hair away from her cheek. “You’re crying? For him?”

“Yes.”

It kills me to hear her admit it. Is she done with me already? “Are you going to go back to him?”

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