Page 206 of Built to Fall
Quickly, I shake off the thought that maybe I should hear him out. “I don’t want to hear another word from you. Ever.”
“Evangelina, you don’t mean that. I swear it’s not?—”
“It’s not what I think?” I cut him off. “You’re seriously going to pull that as I tell you that we’re over, all while you wear the guiltiest expression I’ve ever seen?”
“Lina,” he utters, attempting to reach out for me yet again.
I flinch as a response. “I don’t want your explanation. It’s already written across your face.” I push myself off the wall, trying to show that I’m stronger than he is.
I take one step away and proclaim, “And so we’re clear, I want nothing to do with you, Grant. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t even want to breathe the same air as you. So, believe me when I say that I am done with you. Completely. Please, accept that.”
“You have no idea what actually happened.”
I stop walking my path down the hall, turning around one last time to face him. “And you think I want to know? I don’t need the specifics. You cheated on me. We’re done.”We have to be.
This time he succeeds at grabbing ahold of my wrist from behind, and before I can manage to yank away, he says, “I know it looks like I fucked up, Lina. But you’ve got it all wrong.”
“She was mybest friend, Grant.” My eyes are leaking profusely now, and I know I look as pathetic as I sound. “I became best friends with her. Itrustedboth of you. You’ve made me look like anidiot!”
My voice cracks as I force the next words out. “And what kills me is…losing her hurts almost as much as losing you. Maybe even more.” I shake my head, blinking through the sting. “You didn’t just take us down—you ruined the only friendship that made me feel like I wasn’t hard to love.”
“Eva—”
“Don’t!”My voice ricochets off the walls of the hallway as I hold a hand up, pulling it from his grasp. “I tried to convince myself that my initial reaction to you was because I was still upset about Gage. The more I got to know you, the more I convinced myself that I was wrong about you.”
He reaches out again to grab me when my voice breaks into a sob. I don’t have the energy to push him away.
“Please,” he pleads, his own voice breaking. There are tears welling in his eyes now.
“ButGod, Grant. I should have just listened to my gut and left you thehellalone.”
Ripping my arm away from him, I continue walking. I ignore his attempts to gain my attention as I continue to make my way down the hall to the stairs.
I’m not going back to my apartment, where he can so easily walk down the hall and try to continue this conversation. I can’t.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so much rage in my life as I sprint down the stairs. I don’t even have the worry that I’m going to fall, because the only thing going through my head is the thought that the person I love most in this world didn’t even flinch when it came time to risk losing me.
But against my best efforts to keep my composure, I get to the last flight of stairs, and my eyes are burning, sobs wracking my body in a way they never have before. I can barely even see the stairs I’m running down.
I’ve never been a big crier. I have always been more immune to my emotions than in tune with them. When I do cry, though, it’s more commonly out of anger and frustration rather than complete and utter misery.
By the time I get to the parking lot, all I want to do is physically rip his kiss out of my brain, taking every other thought of him with it. Every memory. Every moment.
My car feels like it’s a mile away, and when I get inside, the only thing I want to do is sit here. I can’t even start the car, let alone gain the courage to drive in the state I’m in.
I rest my head against the steering wheel. Heaving breaths take over my mind as I feel the tears fall onto my thighs. I so desperately want to get out of this parking lot, to get out of Grant’s premises, but I don’t want to get in a car crash.
I’m not stupid. Especially after what happened to my mom. I’m not stupid enough to drive in the middle of a panic attack—just stupid enough to let Grant Vandenberg be the reason I’m having one.
It’s the first time I’ve thought about how she died since it happened. The first time I’ve acknowledged it.
It takes over my entire body. The tears. The heaving. The ache.
It only hurts if you let it.I tell myself over and over.It only hurts if you let it.
And what guts me—what absolutely wrecks me—is knowing that the two people who once felt like my rescue were just a rerun of my ruin.
That I didn’t escape the betrayal. I walked straight into it. Again.
