Page 221 of Collide
I feel the breath leave my body. The champagne bottle slips from my fingers, landing with a soft, hollow thud against the rug.
“You’re breaking up with me?” I ask, my voice shaking.
This isn’t happening.
He sucks in a sharp breath on the other end, and for a second, I swear I hear something break in him, too.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs.
No. He can’t mean that. Not tonight. Not after everything.
Tears blur my vision, slipping freely now. My throat is so tight, it physically hurts to swallow.
“Why?” My voice cracks. “Alex, don’t—please.”
“I have to go,” he cuts in, his voice hollow, distant.
Please.
And before I can say anything else—before I can beg him not to do this—the line goes dead.
The phone slides from my hands, landing on the floor beside the abandoned bottle.
I stare at it.
The screen lights up for a second, long enough to flash my background.
That photo. Us, in Sweden. His arms wrapped around me. My head tipped back, laughing at something he said.
A reminder of everything we were before he blew it all up.
And then, for the first time all night, I welcome the loud, ragged sob that tears out of me.
I draw my knees to my chest, arms wrapped around them, trying to hold the pieces together as they begin to slip.
It’s over. He doesn’t wantme.
The reality hits me like a truck.
Tears keep coming, relentless, until there’s nothing left.
I’m hollow. Empty in a way that feels worse than crying.
Confirmation that I’m not good enough.
Peeling myself off the floor, I need out of this dress. It feels like a cage. The floorboards are cool beneath my feet. Jarring, like the night itself. I rise with the high, only to crash hard, left in tatters. The dress slips from my body, discarded like a second skin, pooling at my ankles as I walk away, leaving it crumpled and forgotten on the floor. A relic of a night that should have been perfect, but isn’t. I feel sick.
The shower is scalding hot. Steam fills the room, fogging up the mirror until I can’t even see myself. The heat burns against my skin, but it’s almost comforting. If it stings enough, maybe it’ll wash away the ache in my chest.
But it doesn’t.
I stand under the water until my skin turns pink and raw, until my hands stop trembling, until there are no more tears left to cry. When I finally step out, I throw on underwear and Alex’s T-shirt. It’s soft and barely covers the tops of my thighs, but I don’t care. Moving on autopilot, I pad barefoot back into the living room, water still dripping from my hair. The dress and half-empty champagne bottle are still there, abandoned on the floor.
Like me.
I don’t even glance at them.
Instead, I walk straight to the bar cart, my fingers curling around a heavy crystal bottle of vodka.
