Page 64 of Don't Remind Me
Just then, I caught a glimpse of raven-black hair and tanned skin in the middle of the pack of women, head thrown back, laughing at something my mom had said.
I should have turned around, marched through the house, and left that very second. Nothing good would come of this. But before I could retreat, my ex-girlfriend looked over her shoulder and spotted me.
She smiled like she was expecting me. Like this had been the plan all along. Like it hadn’t been a year since we’d last spoken. She stood and tapped my mom’s arm before pointing in my direction, and my mom’s eyes lit up as they both started across the yard.
“This is not fucking happening,” I said, ready to scream except for the fact that I could no longer breathe.
This is not fucking happening.
If I thought it enough times, maybe it would come true. And then pigs would fly.
“What can I do?” Alec asked, eyes wide, face pale with guilt. I had nothing to do with this, yet I still managed to ruin his party. All by not being with the person my mom thought I should.
“Don’t worry about it. I just need to duck inside for a bit. I can’t—” I glanced at Mom and Gabby, now halfway to the deck. “I just need a few minutes. Please, just enjoy your party, okay? Please.”
“Are you sure? Because I could?—”
But I was already stepping inside, setting my beer on the island as I headed for the staircase to my old room. If I walked out the front door, I’d get straight in my rental car and wouldn’t stop until I was back in Philly. The desire was so strong I had to grip the railing to stop myself. I refused to do that to Alec.
“I’ll go get him,” Gabby said from the kitchen, her voice and the swift clicking of heels on the wooden floor following me up the stairs.
I reached my room, now void of the Green Day and Blink-182 posters that had hung on the walls in high school, and clasped my hands behind my head. I was able to drag in two full breaths before the door clicked shut behind me.
“Hey, handsome.”
My arms dropped. “What are you doing here, Gabby?”
Her smile was predatory as she stepped toward me, hips swaying in her tight dress. “What, I don’t even get a hello?”
Sure, if we’d stumbled across each other in the grocery store. But she was here, in my parents’ home, at my brother’s baby shower. My muscles were granite, my lungs hardly able to expand. “Whose idea was this? Did my mom call you?”
“You know the two of us were always close.” She lifted a shoulder. “We’ve stayed in touch a little. She thought I might like to come, and it seemed like a good idea.”
“Why?” I practically begged. “And why didn’t you call me first?”
“Would you have answered if I did?”
Probably not, no. Not right away. I would have needed some time to brace myself before a conversation with her. But I would have at least texted her back.
“That doesn’t explain why you’re here,” I said as she got closer. “We broke up over a year ago.”
“So? That doesn’t have to mean anything.” She laid her hands on my chest, and I flinched. “Not if we don’t want it to.”
“It means we’re not together anymore,” I said, pulling her wrists away and stepping back.
Growing up, this room had never felt small to me. If anything, it had felt the opposite, been the one place where I could cast off everyone else’s expectations and have the space to be myself. Right now, that space was getting sucked out, the walls shrinking around me, leaving me trapped with more than one of my pasts.
She took another step, cornering me against the twin bed. “We could be—” she started, but frowned as she saw my face.
I was already shaking my head.
She dropped the flirtatious act. “Jase, come on. We were together for years, and then we hardly even talked about it before you left. One day, everything was great, and the next, you were ending it. Do you seriously not regret it?”
“No,” I said, stepping to the side to put another foot of space between us. I grimaced at the harshness of my tone. Ididregret some of how I left. But notthatI left. And I didn’t trust her to care about the difference.
She saw my grimace and jumped on it. “We can talk about it now,” she said, hope rising in her voice. “I get we had a few issues, but we were good together. We deserve another shot.”
“No.”
