Page 44 of Austen, Edited

Chapter 26

When Abby woke up, she found a small Post-it note next to her on the couch.

I didn’t want to wake you. Call me later. Thanks for the nap.

She laughed, sitting up and stretching. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she found it was nearly one in the morning. How she’d fallen asleep again was a mystery, especially since she’d slept through the movie too.

Even now, too many emotions overwhelmed her, and she tried to breathe in slowly, knowing it was the best way for her to relax enough to go back to sleep.

What had he talked to Hannah about? For someone he said he’d broken up with, the girl still called and texted a lot.

Abby brushed it off. She wasn’t going to let that get her down. There were too many things coming up that she needed to focus on. Papers for class, finalizing the settings for the app so it could be sent to beta testers, and, of course, preparing for her mother.

As determined as she’d been to confront Greyson about her feelings right then, she needed to wait until all those happened first. Because if he still wanted to be friends, the heartbreak was going to cause delays in everything, and she couldn’t just drop all the balls she was juggling.

Sitting in the dark of the common room, Abby bit her upper lip, trying to decide if she should go see her mother or not. All the feelings of abandonment surged, the same thing she’d felt when Greyson decided to go to college two states away without talking to her about it. It was something that could paralyze her, and she didn’t like being so vulnerable.

She saw a message from her uncle, and her stomach dropped, not ready for whatever he needed from her now.

Jeff is going to ask for another date. Accept him.

Dropping her head back against the top of the couch, she groaned. How was she going to make it through one more date with the tool? If he exaggerated to see its effect on her again, she’d leave and not look back.

She thought about when he’d come to the brunch and how her cousins had been so interested in him. Could she suggest a group kind of thing? Maybe not being one-on-one would help her relax and even sway his attention to someone else.

But it was too late to think about that right now. She just needed to sleep, knowing that in the next few days, she’d know where her life was heading and who she would be keeping in it.

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