CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

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2022

          Every word that came out of Chase's mouth was a shot to the heart.

          Bullet after bullet, he kept aiming right at my chest and hitting me right where it hurt without even having to think twice, a harsh reminder he was the only person in the world who would ever be capable of doing so. All that trust I'd placed on him had done me no good; in fact, it was proving to have been quite the opposite. I'd given him the knowledge of how to properly crush and destroy me, believing him to not ever be capable of that much cruelty, and he'd taken the opportunity.

          I supposed that was the nature of love, though. You gave someone everything they needed, every weapon in the world to use against you, and trusted them not to do it. No one ever told you what to do when that trust was shattered, and no one ever taught you how to pick yourself back up and gather the million pieces you had been broken into. They expected you to know better from the start, like anything could ever prepare you for that sort of betrayal.

          I wanted to beg him to reconsider, but the way he refused to look me in the eye as he devastated everything in his path told me everything I needed to know and answered every single one of my unvoiced questions.

          This hadn't been a spur of the moment decision. It had been considered and reconsidered, calculated, and I truly wanted to give myself some credit by believing, with every fiber of my being, that there had been a point where he'd thought against ending things. The problem with this was that it would also implicate a moment where he'd decided I simply wasn't worth pursuing anymore, wasn't worth the effort, and that would be yet another hard blow to my self-worth I feared I wouldn't survive.

          If I were braver, if I were more self-assured, I would tell him he couldn't do this. I'd sit there and remind him of everything we'd both sacrificed for each other, of all the beautiful things awaiting us after graduation, and how all of it had to mean something. I would tell him nothing in the world would ever matter to me like he did, but that didn't mean he could do this to me, handle me this carelessly.

          I wasn't that strong. I sat there and looked up at him, dumbfounded, like all of it was happening to someone other than me—the way I'd been living my life for so damn long. I was too passive, too scared of getting emotionally involved out of fear of getting destroyed, and none of it even mattered in the end. There I was, broken and devastated and miserable in spite of how badly I'd broken and bent myself to avoid the heartbreak.

          It had always been inevitable. I'd never been worth it; he had just become well aware of something I'd known since the first day.

          "What?" I croaked out, in a voice that didn't even sound like mine.

          I realized how desperate I'd be to sit there and beg him to love me like I loved him, truly convinced this decision had hurt him as much as it was hurting me, but I'd grown comfortable in our routine. Past the disbelief and my lack of confidence in myself, past my inability to believe my luck when the man who ended up becoming the love of my life loved me back, I'd grown used to it.

          It sounded horrible to admit it, like I'd been taking him for granted all along when I knew it wasn't the case, with my self-doubt constantly threatening to ruin the beautiful thing we'd built together, but it was true. On the good days, the days I hadn't managed to sabotage and had allowed myself to truly enjoy the moment without thinking about the incoming end, when I would lose it all, I'd been perfectly content with everything. He was mine and I was his and nothing else mattered. The bubble—our private bubble—was heaven, no matter how painful.

          Love me back. Please love me back. I've given you all the best parts of me. I've done everything you asked me to do and everything you didn't. You're the only person who has ever seen me properly. You are my home. What do I do when I can't walk through my front door anymore? How do I stop being so homesick? Please don't lock me out. I invited you in, and gave you a key. I let you in the door. I left it unlocked for you.

          "I'm leaving this city," he revealed. I knew this already, but I was channeling whatever was left of my energy into not breaking down in front of him, so I failed miserably at looking like I was hearing this information for the first time. If he noticed it, he didn't acknowledge it, which made sense. After all, my feelings would no longer be any of his business, and he hadn't spared them. "There's nothing left for me here."

          "There's me," I stupidly said. Wasn't that the problem? Wasn't I the problem? What good would it be to remind him that one of the primary sources of his unhappiness was sitting right in front of him? "I've always been here, right here, supporting you."

          "I know. That's part of the problem." I exhaled through my mouth, the shakiest attempt at calming myself down of the whole week. Even when I'd suffered thanks to and through his radio silence, I'd done a much better job at acting unbothered, though I was the furthest thing from that. "I thought I'd be able to move past everything that happened with your father and the script because at least he gave me a second chance, an opportunity to improve, but even that was taken away from me." His jaw clenched and I found myself shrinking even further. Last time I'd heard anything about that, my father was still adamant about letting him repitch the script, so I couldn't help but fear that the disastrous birthday lunch conversation had been the final nail in the coffin. "It's over, Penn. I overworked myself to perfect a script he never even wanted in the first place, and looking at you . . . looking at you just reminds me of that. It reminds me of wasted potential, and that's not healthy for either of us."

          "I'm not my father," I retorted, through gritted teeth. All my life, I'd been compared to my mother, being too closed off to ever allow anyone to get to know me past my appearance, so I rarely got compared to my father, even career-wise. I knew I'd never amount to being a tenth of who he was, so damn talented it was mortifying to stand next to him out of fear I'd dim his light. "Whatever decisions he makes regarding his career and other people's has nothing to do with me, and it's not fair that I have to pay the price over something that was never my business to begin with. I was happy for you when you told me you got that opportunity, and I know how hard you work, so I really can't understand how this is my fault—"

          His eyes darkened. "Did I say it was your fault?"

          "No, but—"

          "Then what is the point of even trying to explain anything if you're just going to jump to conclusions based on what you think I'm implying?" I forced myself to look away from him, now that it was clear we were way past the point of no return, and everything about the current conversation was like a train spiraling out of control. No matter how hard I tried to steer it back onto the tracks, a crash was imminent. "You don't want to listen. You just want to twist everything to make it fit whatever narrative you've come up with, where I'm somehow the bad guy for looking out for my career."

          Even after all these years had passed, even though I knew I'd willingly given Chase every bit of information he'd ever need if he wanted to truly hurt me, I was still astounded that he was doing it. If all of this was a test to check how willing to fight for him—for us—I was, I was failing miserably, too distressed to argue back, but I wasn't sure whether it would matter or not at this point.

          "I was just trying to say it feels horrible to be held accountable for my father's decisions," I muttered, tugging at a loose strand of fabric from my sweater. "If anything else happened, I wouldn't know. I haven't spoken to my parents since my birthday."

          His hands gripped the back of his chair so hard his veins bulged out, as blue as his eyes. I'd never been afraid of him, but there was always that intrinsic fear of being alone with an angry man as a woman. "See, I was told he wouldn't even look at whatever edits I'd made or would make in the future because he thought our lives and priorities would never align. He made it clear he wants me to stay the hell away from you, quote unquote."

          My blood froze.

          My parents had been somewhat direct with me that afternoon, even though they'd never outright said they wanted me and Chase to be apart; all I'd gathered was that the effort I was making to act normal and unbothered around him in public, treating him as a professor and nothing else, had only made me look terrified of him, which wasn't how I felt. At the time, at least. With them reading far too deep into our body language, especially mine, I knew I had screwed up big time, but hadn't had the opportunity to fix it. That only ended up creating an even bigger mess, with Chase now being aware of their possible suspicions, and had culminated in this.

          This was no star-crossed lovers situation, fighting against everything and everyone to be together.

          He didn't want to be with me, prioritizing himself and his well-being over the relationship I'd been devoting my whole life to during nearly four years, and it proved just how better adjusted he was. He had a good head on his shoulders, while I'd been behaving like a lovesick schoolgirl all along, oblivious to the harm I'd be causing even when I thought I'd been doing everything in my power to avoid it.

          "I didn't say a word," I insisted. "They might have their suspicions, but I denied everything. I told them to stay away, told them there was nothing going on. I behaved. I did everything you asked me to do."

          "This could very well ruin my life. You know that. I trusted you."

          "Chase."

          He took a deep breath, one I suspected was meant to calm himself down and not to ease the blow. "Sometimes relationships just run their course, and I think neither of us have been happy in a long time. We'd only be holding each other back. To be honest, I felt suffocated."

          All I'd ever done was love him. All I'd ever done was my best, and that had been simultaneously not enough and too much. I'd suffocated him, failed to be as secretive and private as he'd needed me to be, and I'd ruined everything—exactly what I always feared would happen. The irony of fate wasn't lost on me; it was the one thing no one ever managed to escape.

          He insisted we should still keep things on the down low, keep everything strictly professional so as to not raise any more red flags around people, especially my parents, but he would still be gone in a few months. In a few months, none of this would matter to him or to my parents, with everyone moving on with their lives, and I'd still be stuck in the same place.

          I'd still be obsessing over how everything had gone wrong, over how I'd made it all go sour, over how I didn't know how to live without his presence in my life. It had been the only thing that mattered, what I based my plans, interests, and priorities on, and, after neglecting literally every other person and aspect of my life just to put him first, I had nothing. I was headed towards the edge of the cliff with no way of hitting the brakes.

          I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to wail like a banshee until my throat went raw, until he took me back and we forgave each other for the hell we'd put ourselves through, but I knew it wouldn't work. I'd just be manipulating him into doing something he clearly didn't want to do, and I refused to use him like that. I refused to use him to satisfy my intense need to be liked, to be needed, and it was obvious he didn't need me anymore. I'd overstayed my welcome. I was a liability at that point, a dangerous notch in his perfect record, and I still kept fighting to prove I could change, I could be better.

          We were conveniently ignoring one of the biggest elephants in the room, too, as he'd neglected to mention the diamond ring adorning my finger and I was too big of a coward to even mention it. I'd been in relationships before and I'd gotten gifts from those guys, but none of them had ever felt important enough to make me feel the need to return them after the breakup. A diamond ring had an associated value, money aside, and it wasn't something to take lightly, even without us ever having discussed exactly what it represented. It wouldn't matter now, anyway, and the wise thing to do would have been to take it off and dramatically toss it across his desk like people do during the third act breakup in romantic comedies, but there was nothing romantic or humorous about me being pulled apart and ripped to shreds.

        Chase dismissed me like this had been nothing but a professional meeting to discuss my senior project—which I wasn't sure how I'd even finish now—and I had never felt so destroyed in my life. I was used to the walk of shame, the quick steps I'd needed to force my leg muscles to take to ensure I stayed hidden in the shadows, but it was different. The secret I was leaving his office with was even heavier, even worse.

          As it ended, as snow fell outside like volcano ash, everything felt so damn pointless. I'd given this man and this relationship all I had—my empathy, my strength, my time, my love, my patience—and he didn't want any of those things anymore, so I had no idea what to do with those things, if there was even any of it left in me. For the past three and a half years, my brain had morphed into an organ that functioned for him, exclusively for him, and I didn't find myself malleable enough to learn how to do anything else.

          What was the point? What would I do?

          I was so dazed I couldn't even find the strength to blink away my tears and unblur my vision, which, in turn, made me stumble from side to side across every hallway I walked in like I was intoxicated. The mindless chatter of the people around me didn't bother me, didn't convince me they were talking about me or laughing at my tragic ineptitude. No one around me even cared that my world had ended or that I was still wearing a diamond ring under the guise of keeping appearances, like they had even batted an eye if they ever saw me wearing it in the first place. I wore it because it allowed me to prolong the illusion that everything was fine, and I couldn't even lie to myself.

          Once again, I was overestimating my place in this world and my importance to other people. They didn't care. No one did. The only person who had cared had also just ended things, taken away every bit of strength left in me. I was dispensable, negligible.

          "Penn?"

          My first instinct was to ignore that voice, knowing exactly who it belonged to. My brain had been trained to avoid that source, so driven by self-preservation and by the desperate need to protect Chase and our relationship, but, now that I'd lost both of those things, we were all too far gone for me to still bother pretending I was strong enough. I kept walking with staggering steps, the edges of my vision blurring and darkening, and almost made it past the exit sign to the frozen courtyard.

          Almost.

          "Hey, Penn, wait up! Are you okay?"

          No. No, I wasn't. I wanted to be left alone with my self-pity and my misery, but no words came out of my mouth. It was so frustratingly unfair that I was never able to stand up for myself when it truly mattered; all those times I'd fought winless battles felt useless, like all that tenacity had never amounted to anything valuable.

          Since I didn't voice my discomfort and it would be easy to simply pretend I hadn't heard a thing, I had to put up with Marco following me, which wasn't hard. He was taller and a lot more muscular than I was, so he wouldn't run into much trouble racing after me or even break a sweat. I, on the other hand, was out of breath, wiping away at my tears with my stupid, trembling hands, and couldn't, for the life of me, stop sobbing. I felt miserable, knowing no one would ever understand how shipwrecked I felt, and it only made the isolation hit harder.

          At least I'd had Chase before. Now, it was just me.

          Marco insisted on, at the very least, walking me to my apartment, and I couldn't find the words to refuse the company. Deep down in my heart, I knew I wouldn't have been able to do it by myself, with my leg muscles cramping and threatening to give out, though I wouldn't complain too much if the frozen ground were to swallow me. It felt pointless to exist when I was living a half life.

          "You really don't need to do this," I muttered, tucking my ringed hand into the deep pocket of my coat just so I could try to avoid yet another awkward conversation. Since he was at my birthday party, he probably had already seen me wearing it, but no one but Savannah had cared much about it. "I can walk on my own."

          "I know, but I'd feel better if I knew you'd gotten home safe."

          I scoffed, barely resisting the urge to correct him by saying this was hardly home. Now, it was yet another place filled with memories of Chase that would be nothing but that. "I'm glad to hear all of this is just so you can sleep better at night."

          I didn't mean to sound so venomous, so reminiscent of Ingrid, but I couldn't bring myself to be nice. I already had my own guilty conscience to worry about, and I certainly didn't have the emotional availability to stroke Marco's ego by letting him know he was doing the noble thing.

          Still, if any animosity was palpable in my voice—it was to me, but my brain was overtrained to detect the slightest alterations in people's regular states, including my own, and I noticed things the vast majority of normal people ignored—he didn't acknowledge it. Not verbally, at least, but I was great at reading micro reactions at that point. I knew what I was doing, and I wouldn't let some guy manipulate me into doubting my reality.

          "Not at all," he retorted, with a defensive twinge to his voice. "You were stumbling from side to side like you're drunk and you look super pale. I wouldn't leave you on the side of the road like that. Besides, we both know Ingrid would skin me if she knew."

          "Right."

          As irritating as the present conversation was, it somehow managed to distract me, even if I couldn't send Marco on his merry way so I could cry over my ruined relationship and life in peace. He even walked me up to the front door and didn't bat an eye when we both noticed the door was ajar, with loud music coming from the inside, as that was a common occurrence. It no longer bothered me at that point, as I'd grown used to the new normal and partying era when it came to Savannah and Ingrid, but my pounding migraine didn't appreciate the heavy bass line.

          Marco hesitated by the door, thinking there was no need to follow me—and he was more than correct—but Ingrid noticed him there and urged him to come inside to join whatever celebration was unfolding. He did, ducking his head while entering the apartment because he was just that tall, and I was shaking so violently it was a miracle he remained upright on two feet. I could have reached out to him to support myself, but I knew the implications such a gesture would have, and I didn't want him to think I was even remotely interested, so I pushed through my lightheadedness.

          In the kitchen, everything crumbled.

          Savannah had made Manhattan cocktails. It was an innocent gesture by itself, knowing how much I enjoyed them, but those drinks would forever be tainted by memories I'd never get back or be able to look back on with fondness. Chase would always be the lost love of my life, regardless of how dramatic that sounded, and I just wanted to explode. I wanted to disappear.

          My brain barely registered the sound of glass shattering or the commotion forming around me. I didn't even realize I was sprawled on the kitchen floor until Marco rushed to get to me, crouching next to me, eyes open in panic, and the characteristically coppery scent of blood was everywhere. It followed me wherever I went, like I was a permanently open wound.

          The air around me thinned and I quickly realized the heaving sounds echoing in my ears were my own as I struggled to breathe properly. Against the wooden floors, it was hard to tell what was liquor and what was blood, though I suspected it had all swirled and mixed together at that point, and I was soaked to the bone—both from that horrid combination and from the snow that had fallen on me outside, melted thanks to the difference in temperature.

          I didn't care. I couldn't.

          "Come on," Marco murmured. "Let's get you to the hospital."

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how are we feeling girly pops? are you sleeping well? are you hydrated? are you eating all your meals and snacks? penn isn't. don't be like penn

so. yeah. that happened. part two of this book is both very short and just.....a bunch of emotional trauma hopefully being worked on by miss penn here, and i'm once again begging you to not look at this through your own eyes and judge what happens by how you would work through it. this is penn's personal journey. let's all hold hands

i know this probably wasn't how people wanted or expected the relationship to end (i know most of you wanted her to leave by herself), but there's a reason why i do things the way i do them, so please trust me and the process. mwah. ily