Page 136 of Hawaii Can Suck It

I realize…

I know exactly what I have to do.

It won’t win Reece back, but it will allow me to turn my mess into something good.

“Thank you,” I whisper. “For everything. This has been… an unforgettable experience.”

“Aloha, Camila. May you find the fulfillment and happiness that your soul desires and deserves. The world is waiting for you to shine. Our paths will cross again.”

I wipe away my tears.

Then, I grab my laptop.

I have work to do.

***

Hawaiicansuckit.

Like, genuinely, truly, all the way up its gorgeous volcanic ass with a pineapple.

I stare at my laptop, nursing a lukewarm lemonade at the airport California Pizza Kitchen. My BBQ chicken pizza festers beside me, barely touched. The cheese has congealed into a sad, plastic-looking mess—a perfect metaphor of my heart.

I barely notice the bustling restaurant crowd—tourists in flip-flops and souvenir shirts, buzzing with vacation energy.Must be nice.Meanwhile, my cargo pants hug my thighs like emotional Bubble Wrap. I’m wearing the T-shirt Reece wore when we made love under the stars(yes, the one with rhinos fucking). I’m clinging to anything familiar since my whole damn life has gone up in flames.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I have never edited a video so fast in my life. My fingers fly across the keyboard, making brutal cuts to the footage with a speed and efficiency that would impress even Mr. Critical. It’s not about perfection. It’s about truth. About what I should’ve said all along, before Astrid’s manipulated video went mega-viral and ruined everything.

I don’t have much time. The second Gordon realizes I still have access, he’ll change the passwords to all of Reece’s accounts. He probably already has some poor intern in a corporate dungeon drafting up an ironclad NDA to make sure I never utter Reece’s name again.

But I’m getting this out first.

Every frame I cut through shows Reece’s face—his real face, not the crafted YouTube persona, but the man I fell in love with. The one whose heart I broke.

“Fuck.” My eyes sting with fresh tears.

Of course he went to his default setting—shut down, locked me out, tossed me into the pile of people who’ve used and abused him. That’s all he’s ever known. And right when he took the risk—let himself trust again—I betrayed him.

I can’t get his expression out of my head. The way his jaw clenched—he was barely holding himself together. Then his blue eyes turned hollow, as if I’d taken the first real thing he’s felt in years and mocked him for being so gullible.

That look is tattooed on my eyelids, right along with my shattered heart.

The laptop fan whirs angrily as the upload bar creeps across the screen, the little blue line taking its sweet-ass time, as if it’s aware that my entire soul is riding on this moment. The airport Wi-Fi is a miserable, crawling, wounded sloth, and I resist the urge to start pounding the table(just barely).

“Come on, come on.”

Reece might never see it. Hell, he might delete it the second he gets a notification. But if he does watch it, he’ll learn the truth. The unedited, unfiltered, brutal truth.

I was never using him. I was simply too scared to admit I love him.

He was going to ask me to be his girlfriend.

For real.

My chest tightens and I feel like I might suffocate.

The upload bar finally hits 100%. I hover over the “Post” button before jamming my finger down as if I’m detonating explosives. Which, in a way, I am.

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