Page 88 of Crazy Pucking Love
The self-loathing flooding my system soaked deep into my bones, making them ache. “You can have the diner if you want. I’ll find somewhere else to go at night when I can’t sleep.”
“I don’t want the fucking diner. It was yours to begin with, and you can have it, because after this, I won’t be able to come in here anymore. Just take everything. And here…” Megan dug into her backpack, extracted a cardboardThorhammer, and tossed it on the table. “My sister had party favors for her birthday, and I brought that back for you, thinking it was some kind of good omen. Clearly I’m an idealistic idiot.”
She started past me, but paused, close enough to touch. Her gaze remained fixed on the door. “For the record, all I wanted was you.” With that, she stormed out the door and was swallowed up by the dark night.
In theory, I was halfway to the type of guy I could feel proud of now. But pride didn’t fill me. Nothing did. And that nothingness spread until I was hollow and empty, the words “All I wanted was you,” echoing over and over until I didn’t think there was anything of me left.
Chapter Forty-Five
Megan
Einstein curled up in my lap, purring when I scratched under his chin. It was like he sensed I needed some unconditional love.
But the second I stopped scratching, he meowed and abandoned me, so apparently it wasn’t as unconditional as I thought.
And now I was having deep thoughts over cat love.
Lyla came back into the room with cookies and cream ice cream and two spoons. “I’m not saying this’ll fix it, but it’s how Whitney and I have always dealt with things.”
I took the extended spoon, and as soon as she opened the lid, I dug in. I’d texted Vanessa, but she was at a study group, and I couldn’t face going back to my room to cry alone.
So instead I’d come to Lyla’s apartment and cried my eyes out as I rehashed the end of Dane and me, friendship and all. My heart was filled to the brim with sadness, every pump sending it farther through my body until it felt like that was all there was and all there’d ever be.
The ice cream slid down my throat, spreading the cold. I wished it had more of a numbing effect—I could use complete numbness right now.
The knock on the door was rapid fire, the type of knock I assumed came before “Or I’ll blow your house down.” Not sure why my brain went to folktales, but clearly it wasn’t firing on all cylinders.
It wasn’t the big bad wolf. It was my roommate, but judging by the fierce expression hardening her features, she could do some serious destruction if she decided to use her powers that way. “What did that asshole do? I’ll kill him.”
“It’s more what he didn’t do,” I said, sniffing in the most attractive way. “We’re done—before I could even ask for more of a commitment, he wanted out.”
Vanessa sat next to me and hugged me tight.
“I’m going to pass on putting a hit out on him, but thanks for having my back.”
Her curls brushed my cheek as she nodded. “Anytime. I didn’t expect to like anyone so much after Ciara left. Now I feel kind of guilty, because I like you even better.”
Happy tears sprung to my eyes, mixing with the sad ones. I had a real friend, no need for quotations or a so-called tacked on before the word. I felt so lucky to have Lyla, and with Vanessa here, too, I realized that despite compromising on a few of my checklist items, I hadn’t failed. “Just… Never let me even think about picking a guy over my ambitions again, okay?”
“I’d like a medal for my epic restraint in not saying I told you that you’d be crazy not to take the engineering opportunity, no matter what happened with Dane.” Vanessa frowned. “Since I just said it, that’s not really restraint, is it?”
Lyla’s eyebrows arched, but she actually did restrain from speaking her thoughts aloud.
“Okay,” I said. “Both of you made it clear you didn’t think I should pass up the opportunity.” I felt so stupid for considering it now, and it only deepened the torment over the entire crappy situation.
The truth was, I thought I’d been crushed by a guy before, but it hadn’t been nearly as agonizingly painful as this. Sure, I regretted sleeping with Brandon and how doing so was all it took to get a reputation as being easy.
But I didn’t regret sleeping with Dane, or the time we’d spent together, even as I wanted to erase it all so the thought of him didn’t rip my heart in two. It made no sense.
And to think, I’d actually longed to fall in love at one point.
Even though I’d never spoken it aloud, I knew I’d loved Dane. Part of me still did, as messed up as that was. I dug out a huge spoonful of ice cream and shoved it in my mouth. “Now I know why they say love bites. It’s like it tore chunks out of my soul.”
Vanessa slung an arm around my shoulders, and Lyla hugged me from the other side.
The door swung open and Whitney stepped inside. Her gaze flicked from the three of us to the ice cream.
Then, without so much as a word, she came over and joined the group hug. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Guys can be dicks sometimes.”
