BRIE

          I find it quite interesting how my heart still skips a beat around Cole, but it's for a completely different reason now.

          I don't think this is something that will ever go away, especially when I thought my feelings for Rhett Price would mysteriously disappear if I kept pretending I hadn't ever felt them in the first place, but the flood of anxiety that washes over me whenever I spot Cole on campus is a far cry from the original emotions his presence used to pull out of me.

          Now, talking to him is the last thing I want to do. There are worse scenarios to trap myself into, certainly, but I've been making an effort to stay grounded, feet on the ground and all, and I can't keep relying on hypothetical situations. Maybe he did have a point when he said I wouldn't get anywhere in life by carrying myself like I'm the protagonist of a romantic comedy instead of living in the present, real moment, but there's always an itch in me to hold onto the whimsical side of daydreaming. If that makes me an idiot, then . . .

          At least Rhett lets me spend some time in magic worlds in my head while still serving as a safety net. He did promise me he'd catch me, after all, and has yet to fail me, so what more could I want out of this? Haven't I gotten the best of both worlds?

          (I want it to be real so, so terribly, but my fears and insecurities have a tendency to get in the way of my happiness. I don't know how this will be any different.)

          "I don't want to talk to you," I tell Cole, despite knowing he's not the type to take no for an answer. He never has been—he's never been a quitter, not until the day he dumped me—so I'm not surprised to see his resolve not waver, but at least he's not trying to grab me again. He doesn't even try to block my path, a clear change from his demeanor at Paige's birthday party, but I can still feel his hands on me and it sickens me. "I really should get to class. In case I haven't been clear enough already, I don't want to be anywhere near you. We've said everything we needed to say to each other."

          His eyes narrow. My heart, stubborn as a mule, skips a beat, but it's not in excitement or annoyance—fear. It's fear this time, and I don't know how to feel about it because it's simply so foreign to me.

          I don't think I've ever felt scared of Cole, not like this, but our dynamic has been forever changed and tainted by everything that's happened between us—everything he's done to me.

          The point of no return is often the moment your partner lays a hand on you. We weren't together when he physically hurt me—with his hands—but the time we've spent apart has allowed me to look back on all the other ways he has harmed me to the point of making me feel physical pain even without touching me.

          The heartache brought by all the times he blew me off, by all the times he didn't care about me or my interests or what I had to say, the blatant indifference and dismissal of my feelings and my dreams—all those things can easily tear someone's heart piece by piece. 

          "Why?" he insists. I huff, pulling up my backpack's strap once it starts sliding off my shoulder. "Because of him?"

          "No, because of me. Because of you. We're done. It's over. You made it perfectly clear yourself, so I don't understand why you won't leave me alone. I moved on, so it might be a good idea for you to start doing the same thing."

          He rolls his eyes. "Moved on. Sure. You think you've managed to convince everyone your little stunt isn't just to make me jealous or take you back—"

          "Listen to yourself! You love listening to the sound of your own voice, so do us both a favor and pay attention to the words coming out of your mouth right now. You put me through hell and I'm sorry it has taken me this long to realize it, but now that I'm seeing someone who treats me well it's become more and more apparent I was the one settling for a lot less than I actually deserve."

          Rhett has broken your heart too, something inside me whispers as a reminder. I can't tell whether it's my brain or my heart. Don't forget that. You're not out of the woods. Not yet.

          "It won't work, you know," Cole hisses, through gritted teeth. He has me cornered now, backed against the wall, and a terrifying feeling of déjà vu runs through my spine, chilling me to the bone. People are staring, and yet no one does anything. I don't need to be rescued all the time, but I recognize some of these faces from Paige's party, and know they remember what happened. "You're making the biggest, dumbest mistake of your life by being with him. You hated the guy, Brooke. I have texts to prove it. You're trying to fool everyone, adults included, but people see right through you. I see right through you."

          "Good thing I don't care about what you think."

          "Would brands even consider supporting and sponsoring a known liar? A guy who toys with girls' hearts and tosses them aside once he doesn't need them anymore? A guy who did that to you?" My own heart clenches, but I can't let him notice the way I flinch over it. It's my ultimate wish to stop wincing with those memories. "All it would take to ruin everything would be a confession. Evidence that you're somehow being coerced into this."

          "There's no evidence because I'm not being coerced into anything. No one is lying here."

          "Sure, Brooke. Sure."

          I hate to admit it, but he's managing to get into my head, raising doubts where there shouldn't be any. I don't know what Cole knows that I don't—for all I know, he can very well be bluffing to bait me into prolonging this conversation—but I also don't want to lead him to think I don't trust Rhett. Even after everything that has happened to us and to our relationship, in every state it's been, he's still the one I'm choosing to believe.

          Whatever he's keeping from me, I have to trust there's a good reason for it. Whatever he has done, it can't be bad enough for him to risk his career . . . can it?

          The devil in my brain (who, coincidentally, sounds an awful lot like Cole) is quick to point out that not only does Rhett come from money, he's also a legacy player, and I'm certain there are entire teams of people dedicated to making scandals vanish into thin air.

          Hasn't this whole fake relationship been all about reinventing his image and fixing his reputation after all? What better way to make it look like he's atoning for the error of his ways than to lure me back in—the one person in his life who needs a rehabilitated reputation more than he does?

          He has implied it himself, too; if he can fix things with me, there's nothing standing in his way to stardom and success. He'll have proven to everyone else he's unstoppable, and he'll have me, because he knows I can't drop him. He knows all I've ever wanted is to be loved, to be seen, to be understood, and it wouldn't be the first time I've fallen for it.

          Breaking someone's heart, at its core, doesn't ruin careers or reputations. Sure, if the other person is influential enough and gets their friends to unfollow you on social media to paint a dirty picture of you or something, you might find yourself on the receiving end of some backlash for being a jerk, but that's about it. PR teams can sometimes make it disappear. Sometimes.

          There are far more serious things one can do, terrible things, and I don't want to believe Rhett would ever be capable of such a thing. There are actions with consequences not even I could protect him from, actions that would make sponsors and brands drop him for bad publicity.

          I don't want to ever consider Rhett could have hurt anyone like that, but Cole is hinting at there being a possibility, no matter how small, and, now that I've thought of it, I can't shake it off. It's poisoning me from the inside.

          I look at Cole, wishing to take all of it back, but it's too late. The seeds are already there.

          Still, I insist, "People change, Cole."

          "That quickly? That's impossible. Not even you can be delusional enough."

          I am. I can be. I desperately want to believe Rhett over him.

          "You mean like you changed in the span of minutes and betrayed me in a way I never thought you would? That's grand, even coming from you."

          "I apologized."

          "Like that makes it any better! I don't know why you're so eager to try and prove my relationship isn't real when it has somehow felt more real to me than every moment I spent dating you. The fact that you're so obsessed with wanting this to be fake because you can't accept I'm moving on with my life with someone who cares about me and is a decent human being instead of feeling miserable over you . . ." I shake my head. "It it were up to you, I'd still be moping in my bedroom, waiting for you to change your mind and let me beg you to take me back. You like being chased. You like the attention and the control. Well, sorry to disappoint, but that's not what I want and I'm not taking the bait. Your attempts at trying to make me feel bad for choosing my happiness are pretty pathetic."

          "Like you'd ever be happy with the same guy who broke your heart. I did it, but so did he—years before me. It was worse, wasn't it? You've never moved on."

          I throw my hands in the air, frustrated. "Dear God, Cole, you're obsessed with Rhett. Should I break up with him just so you can date him instead? You think you're being charming and that I'll fall to my knees by your feet because of how protective you think you are, but let me tell you something. This? This right here?" A brilliant idea crosses my mind. I reach out my gremlin little hands towards it before I can lose it and gesture towards the space between us. "This won't do. This is embarrassing for you. It's suffocating, actually. I'm sure you know a thing or two about feeling that way, right?"

          His nostrils flare with fury, but even that is no longer bothering me. I can't let it bother me; the second that I do, the second I allow for him to get under my skin more than he already has, that's when I'll know I've lost. I will have lost myself, and there's no greater tragedy than that.

          It's a constant battle when it comes to him, as I'm repeatedly reminded of how I've allowed myself to be (mis)treated for the sake of false promises of love, and it scares me how far I'll go for crumbs of attention and affection.

          The thing about Cole is that he, much like Rhett, knows me well enough to know exactly how to hurt me—probably not as much as Rhett can, but still enough. The fact that he knew my vulnerabilities and insecurities and how to weaponize them against me was bad enough, but knowing he hated me and Rhett enough to do it was even worse; hadn't I trusted him blindly at some point? Hadn't we loved each other, too?

          He knows how badly I want to be good, to be perfect. He knows I'd rather collapse and shatter myself into thousands of minuscule pieces than to have other people have a negative opinion of me, and having them paint me as a liar would be a harsh blow to my self esteem.

          Being called out for being a liar about this would also destroy Rhett and everything he's been working so hard for, even if I don't fully understand how exactly this can be used against him, and I can't do that to him. I don't know how to protect this delicate thing we've been building up in secret, a frail rose blooming under a forest of fake thorns we're using to conceal it, from consequences I can't comprehend.

          I can't break both our hearts. All this time, I've been so horrified by the possibility of being a victim of Rhett Price-induced heartbreak for the second time of my life that I've routinely ignored that, this time, the responsibility could very well lie in my hands.

          Cole knows all of this, and it terrifies me that I've given him this much power and information on how to destroy me and my spirit. It's always the people you used to trust.

          So, I swallow the lump in my throat, square my shoulders, and decide to face the music. I can't let my doubts control me any longer, and part of it starts with leaving my past history with Cole right where it belongs.

          In the past. In a dumpster.

          I raise my chin, look him in the eye, and stand my ground. "You know why I won't ever feel bad for not running back to you as soon as you walked back into my life with open arms? You could have broken my heart by dumping me and stopping there, but you decided to take it one step further and undermine my future; that's unforgivable, and you know it. No matter how atrocious you think Rhett is, he'll never do anything as terrible as that. He respects me. He cares about me. The only person you care about is yourself."

          Leaving him is the right decision. I know that, he knows that, everyone knows that, and it's not because of Rhett. It's not because of the doubts swimming around in my head, though I know I'll have to deal with them sooner or later. Ideally as soon as possible.

          So, I choose to walk away—hopefully for good this time.

          When I almost think he'll let me go and leave me alone to process all the questions bouncing against the walls of my brain, he manages to pull me back against my will. I've taken three steps inside the lecture hall when his voice booms around me, amplified as though he's speaking into a megaphone.

          "Ask him about Magnolia Hawthorne, then!"

          My blood freezes in my veins.

          I don't want to give him the pleasure of realizing he has finally hit me right where it hurts by mentioning the elusive Magnolia and, now that I have her last name, it'll make it easier to dig up some information on her. I don't want to resort to that and would much rather hear it directly from Rhett than from a third party, especially one that has made it obvious they don't trust or like, but the secrecy and the anxiety this stranger has caused me are eating me raw.

          Whoever Magnolia is, wherever she is, whatever happened between her and Rhett—it's all haunting me, like a perpetual ghost following me around, and the supernatural has always been the one thing I'm skeptical about. I'll eat up every romantic comedy under the sun and delude myself into believing in real life fairy tales—or that I'll ever live one of my own—but ghosts are where I draw the line.

          I shouldn't give her, a stranger, or Cole, an emotionally neglectful ex-boyfriend this much influence in my life, feelings, and decisions.

          And yet.

ᓚᘏᗢ

          By the time Rhett's next hockey practice rolls around, I'm in a daze.

          My brain doesn't register anything that happens until then, not even the walk to the ice rink or finding a place to sit on the stands, far away from the glares the other WAGs insist on shooting my way, and I sit alone. This time, my shivering has nothing to do with the low temperatures.

          I know I'll have to talk to them at some point—if not for Paige and her request, then for my sake, as feeling disliked and unwelcome to this degree is becoming unbearable—but today won't be the day. After the morning I've had, swarmed by thoughts about Magnolia, Rhett, and what all of it means for us, I can't handle another difficult conversation.

          Then, a shadow materializes in front of me. By instinct, I look up, wanting to check what's blocking my view and the light, and find an angel in the shape of a brown-haired girl, holding a small child against the curve of her waist.

         "Brie, right?" she questions. Her hair has been pulled back by a claw clip, messily so, but it looks a thousand times better than when I do it and put effort into making it look presentable. More than that, what catches my attention and interest is the unmistakable kindness in her hazel eyes, big like a deer's. "Hi. I'm Jackie. Mind if we sit with you?"

          I stiffly nod, moving my bag away from the empty seat next to mine. "Sure."

          "Thanks. My sister usually watches Daze here while I'm at school, but I decided to bring her with me today so she can see her dad play." She bounces the baby—Daze—on her leg, smiling when she stretches her chubby little arms towards the rink. "I think you and I should talk."

‧₊˚❀༉‧₊˚.

if you couldn't tell, i love saying "and yet". it's my thing.

also say hi to jackie she's a babe