Page 86 of Just Forever

“Four, three, two, one.”

Shouts of “Happy New Year” ring out all around us, and everywhere, people are kissing.

I pull Lake into a hug.

“I love you,” I say into his ear.

He grips me tighter for a quick moment before he takes a step back.

“You better,” he says.

He looks around us. At all the happy people. At Rach and Sawyer gazing at each other lovingly, Sawyer murmuring something to Racel that only the two of them can hear.

The look on Lake’s face is full of some kind of reluctant wisdom. The kind where you know something, but you’d rather not have learned it.

And I can’t help but feel like I put it there.

But also…

I have the power to fix this.

LAKE

Even though Idon’t believe in this, the start of a new year is always hopeful. It’s a clean slate. A new start.

And then you find out it’s the same shit, different day.

My enthusiastic clean slate plan explodes three days into the new year when Scott starts calling me again. Somehow, I figured that just ignoring him would do the job because he’s been ignoring my existence for twenty-three years, so I simply assumed he would forget all about me soon enough.

Apparently not.

“Are you gonna take that?” Ryker asks one day when I forget to put my phone on mute, so it starts to ring, and I silence the call.

“It’s not important,” I say.

He sends me a long look. A silent “Bullshit.”

“It’s just Scott,” I mumble in a pathetic attempt to sound casual.

He looks at me carefully. “I thought you decided to give him a chance.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Because?”

Because he’s a fucking asshole.

Instead of doing the normal thing and just telling him, I don’t. I know I should. Not telling him is an asshole move.

And still, I just can’t.

“It’s easier this way,” I say.

He eyes me, still carefully, like I’m a ticking time bomb.

“And by easier you mean…?”

I get up and start randomly putting away shit that’s lying around just so I have something to do. “Just easier. I don’t need him poking around in my business, okay? It’s better like this.”

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