Page 81 of Pieces Of You

“I didn’t mean for what happened last night to happen. It’s just…” He stands up and moves toward me. I take a step back, and he halts, stops only feet away. “The moment I saw you, I felt like… like everything else disappeared, and maybe that’s my problem.” His throat moves with his swallow, his hands fists at his sides. “Maybe that’s what you are to me, a distraction—”

I scoff, cutting him off. “I’m glad I could be of service to you.”

His eyes drift shut, then snap open a second later. “That came out wrong,” he says, shaking his head in frustration.

He starts to move again, but I stop him, my hand up between us. “You should go.”

His chest rises. So does his voice. “So, you’re not even going to let me explain?”

“What’s there to explain, Holden!” I almost shout. “You were gone a week, and in that week, you realized you didn’t want me anymore!”

“It’s not about you, Jamie!” He points to his chest. “It’s me! I can’t…” he trails off.

“That’s so fucking cliche, and I deserve better!” I laugh, fueled by bitterness and disappointment. “And I’mtrying, Holden,” I say, my voice breaking under the strain of my withheld sob. “I’m trying really fucking hard not to make this about me—but how can I not? Every fucking time I let my defenses down, I get…” I motion between us, “…this.”

“Jamie,” he groans. “It’s not—”

“A big deal,” I finish for him. I find what little strength I have left and raise my chin, holding on to the only thing I have left: my pride. “It’s not like we were in love or anything.” I lie… for the same reasons my mother always lied to me: to protect me from reality. “I’ll be fine, Holden.” I blink back the pathetic tears threatening to fall, ignoring the heartache pulsing through my veins. “You can go back to being you, and soon enough, we’ll both forget that this was once…nothing.”

He doesn’t respond. He just stands there, staring at me, unmoving, unflinching. And then my alarm goes off, and Holden's head snaps to the sound. “Let’s just go to school—”

“I’m not going to school today.”

His eyes meet mine. “Why not?”

“I’d already planned to take the day off.”

“Bullshit,” he spits.

“I did!” Maybe if he’d called evenonce,he would know that. “I have a thing.”

“A thing?” he asks, incredulous.

“Yeah, athing.”

“Whatthing?”

“It’s…” It hits me now. Hard and fast. Like the building of a dam right before the floodgates open. “It’s not your problem anymore.”

38

Holden

I’d wokenup in the middle of the night and saw the drawings scattered on the kitchen counter—compass after compass after compass—and I knew what it meant. She was lost, with or without me. And I… I realized then that no matter how much it hurt, I had to face the truth.

And the truth was simple:

I couldn’t be the one to find her.

To save her.

No matter how much it destroyed me.

I go home,shower, and then I drive to school because I have shit to do. Shit that can’t wait. I call Mom on the way, who’s now in New York with Mia until… until she gets the help she needs to make it through each day.

When I get to my locker, Dean’s there, a single dahlia in his hand. He waits for me to open my locker before moving around me, using tape to stick the flower onto Jamie’s locker. I haven’twantedto speak to him in weeks. I still don’t. But I have to now. “What’s that about?”

He faces me, eyebrows drawn. “You don’t know?”

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