Write this down, Hallmark: Nothing good ever comes out of stalking someone.

I saw Jake, while I sat across a table at my dorm's dining hall with Eddie. Through the perfectly clear glass, Jake's eyes darkened as he lowered his phone off his ear and turned away. The sight flipped a rush of urgency through me.

Time to wrap up.

"Eddie." My eyes flipped back up to his and I gathered the gentlest voice I really didn't have in me. "I... am not in the most stable place right now. Seriously, you seem like a nice guy but I'm a hot mess."

My eyes shifted to where blank space now occupied the spot where Jake had stood. "And, frankly, right now I'm an unavailable hot mess..."

"All I'm asking is for a chance," he offered and held out his phone. "Even as a friend, which you sure look like you could use right now."

I nearly fell over at the word because I was probably the poster child for the most awful, non-friend person.

Just check TMZ. I should be glad they haven't dug up all my exes yet.

TMZ wasn't actually the worst offender, that award went to anonymous social media gossip... everywhere. I lost count of the number of names that were thrown at me, slut, whore, turf burner, jersey chaser, Trojan subscriber, Harrison's bicycle... although Jake's Achilles heel was probably my favorite.

"Sure, right." I rolled my eyes, then entered my new phone number into Eddie's phone.

Eddie offered a huge slice into his character when he didn't test that number, just tucked his phone into his pocket. So, I smiled and wished him goodbye.

"Take care, Harper."

"Thanks." I waved over my shoulder on my way out.

The more steps I took, the more I wished I'd stayed there like a normal fucking human being. Then I wouldn't have chased after Jake's large frame and paused when he met up with another girl. I wouldn't have seen them together at Rendezvous, a cafeteria one block away from Feast. And I definitely wouldn't have seen how Jake sat across from her at a table, laughed, and smiled at one point with his hand cupped over hers.

With her small frame, brown hair pulled in a ponytail, and fair skin, I had no idea who she was. But the way her brown eyes batted up at Jake turned my stomach. At one point, she also reached across the table and grabbed his hand, which hit me harder than a period cramp.

He's found someone else. That's why he was silent.

I bet he came here to end things with me.

Within my thoughts, which swirled messily the longer I took in Jake's exchange with the girl, I almost missed the heavy footsteps that approached me from behind.

Just like when I'd asked the universe for a dick, the universe delivered.

I just wished it hadn't sent this dick.

"Hate to say I told you so," a haughty male voice spoke up.

After I nearly jumped out of my skin, I turned and met Ethan's smug grimace. I wasn't sure how he managed to look simultaneously cocky from being right and severely annoyed, but he masked neither of those emotions as his brown eyes studied mine.

I realized I'd long passed the creepy stalker time limit when his eyes shifted to the view on the other side of the window. "Should've beaten him to it when you had a chance, Harper."

"Fuck you, useless sack of shit testosterone," I tossed back with a middle finger shot right in front of his nose.

"Tempting." He rolled his eyes, then yanked open the exterior door. "Who knows what kind of STD you two have passed back and forth between each other. And I have one more gift for you too."

"Keep the fuck away from me," I spat out angrily. "I'm done with you and your stupid vendetta's."

"You got me, I can't resist." He stopped, turned, and approached me with quick steps. Darkness filled his eyes by the time he stood an inch from me. "This one is so personal too, Harper."

"Ethan." My hands clenched into tight fists at my side because the last thing I wanted was this asshole's nose anywhere near my personal business.

"So ungrateful." He smirked, more with a flash of insider information in his eyes than Jake's attractive version, and flashed me the same photo Drake had shown me, of Jake perched by Wyatt's bedside. "Had no idea your boyfriend and little brother were so close."

How in the fuck!?

At that moment, I'd never wanted to physically hurt another person more in my life. A strangled croak of irritation passed through my lips as mentally I jumped onto Ethan and pounded the life out of his balls. Yet, when my mind wanted to act, my body froze.

My feet rooted to the spot and every muscle in my body locked up at the words, 'boyfriend and little brother.'

I only snapped to attention when Ethan went inside and charged straight at Jake. Numb except for the eye daggers I shot at the back of his head and apparently still-operable feet, I followed Ethan.

Up close, Jake wore a similar expression to what I assumed what I looked like, by the anger that churned beneath my skin like lava pumped through my veins.

I was an act-first, possibly think about it later kind of person, but two weeks was a long time for anyone's self-reflection. Two weeks after Jake blurted out that he loved me was an eternity when I'd filled in those last two letters.

My initial reaction, past the part of my unreadiness to hear that word which I'd flung in his face, was that Jake couldn't have been serious. Denial proposed the theory that Jake instead had just gotten pulled under the shitstorm of emotions I drowned under and he'd thrown me a lifeline of reassurance that I wasn't a shitty person who didn't deserve a mother's love.

The more days that passed, my denial dissolved into... embarrassment. And shame was a quietly powerful emotion. It forced you inward, brought my attention to flaws in my character that I wished weren't there. On the exterior, I projected myself as a strong, forward, outspoken, emotionally untouchable girl who gave zero fucks about what anyone else said or did. But that wasn't who I was internally and more often that emotional side had leaked out of me worse than... well, arousal out of those dick-desperate girls who tempted Jake with a pathetic threesome.

As much as I wanted to blame Jake, again I was equally to blame for the cracks in our situation and entirely to blame for my own personal reactions. With our quick arrangement, I was reckless. I was also just plain fucking stupid in how I assumed we weren't too connected, our past wasn't too complicated, and we just weren't... too much.

Embarrassed was an understatement of how I felt when I replayed how I'd bared myself, raw and tear stained. The image of how I'd flung myself at Jake in anguish, like a broken toy that demanded he fixed me, replayed over and over in my mind during those two weeks apart.

That's not love. And I can't believe I'm thinking this but Jake deserves better.

The moment I'd done that, I'd crossed the line we'd blurred. I made the relationship personal, brought in my mess of ten years' worth of suppressed emotions that exploded from my mom's unexpected visit.

Afterwards, shame turned me into the realization that I'd become the very person I hated. Broken out of my disillusionment, I collapsed. I cried.

I mourned a broken heart, not from Jake but the mom that thought my only worth was filling a hole in my brother's life. Through my snotty nose, choked off words, cringe-worthy sobs, and wheezed breaths, reality slapped me hard.

This isn't healthy. And it sure as fuck isn't me.

I'm done with relationships... I'm too bad at them.

Seeing Jake in person, up close, within a close enough distance that I smelled his musky cologne, was torturous because my mind and body tore themselves in opposite directions. My mind screamed to run for the Laguna Hills while my body wanted nothing more than to curl up against Jake's chest while his arms blocked out all the shit that had crashed into my life.

After the shit Ethan stirred up, smacking him felt better than it should have. The way Jake approached me afterwards, full-on soft, puppy eyes, my gut reaction was that I smacked them down into flickers of anger when I roared out that I hated him.

I don't hate him, for the record... I opposite hate him.

"Why!?" My hand shoved my phone screen, the one with the number he didn't have, an inch from his nose. "Why did you do... this!?"

His eyes roamed over the same picture Ethan had shoved in my face, then warmed with recognition before confusion took back over. "I didn't -"

"Don't tell me you didn't think it through!" I finished his answer for him because, let's be honest, Jake's actions were as subtle as a gangrene dick. The patheticness of that excuse burned my tongue and I drew my eyebrows together so tightly I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd given myself a unibrow.

My words made less sense the higher my voice elevated, "How!? How the fuck did you think I would respond when you - What the fuck did you think I wanted you for!? What did I say to you!?"

"When I came to your house, after my mom, what did I say!?" Jake's mouth moved and inaudible mumbles hit my ears. I knew the answer myself but wanted to hear the words in his voice, so I snapped, "What did I ask of you!?"

I bit back the 'When I desperately threw myself at you' part.

"Fuck it out of you." His eyes lifted and he sounded guarded, like I'd snared him into a trap and questioned his motives, not mine. How easily the words flowed from his mouth showed he'd at least thought about them and, at most, memorized them.

While I wished I'd have severed all of my emotional ties during that break, now faced right in front of me again, my feelings still rose up inside me. My mind spun with countless questions related to how sorry I felt for him.

What the fuck did he think about during the past two weeks? His own reputation? Making sure his ass stays on the team?

Jake had released only one statement, a general glossed over collection of empty words that the photos were of him and released without his permission.

The pronouns screamed all the intentions I needed to know.

Him. His. And he's not even defending himself.

Fuck, even face to face with me sitting across from Eddie in a setup that must have looked less innocent than it really was, Jake just retreated. He didn't charge inside, demanded an explanation that I would've happily given him, and fuck, he himself still hadn't apologized for not one but two naked girls in his own damn bedroom room.

Why would he? Seeing them only feeds his reputation.

Part of me knew they'd gotten rejected but I swear, the situation embarrassed me more than Jake, going off his indifferent reaction. Given his lack of actions, I'd reached the only conclusion that made any fucking sense to me.

Jake didn't love me.

He hadn't defended me, supported me, publicly or privately. His words were empty bullshit compared to his inaction.

Fuck, now I'm that girl who wishes a guy sweeps her off her feet and fights her battles for him.

No, I'd been left, as usual, on my own for self-protection.

Which I'd done, without a choice, but fuck it would've been nice if he'd... I don't know, been there.

I should've never expected more from him, other than protecting his own ass and future.

The conclusion, which I was painfully aware of, contrasted Jake's digging further into my family. My weakass efforts led me to believe it was nothing other than a PR stunt, a public display of Jake's warm and open heart uplifting his ex-girlfriend's sick brother's spirits while she stabbed him in the back like a scored bitch.

My heart bled at my own assumed explanation, which Jake hadn't shown anything on his side held any actual truth. Yet at this point, my old self-preservation grasped at whatever straws were within reach because I'd gotten absolutely no explanation from Jake himself.

The real reasons were awfully more painful to admit, even where they sat embedded deeply within the back of my mind. Still, evidence was evidence, all of which pointed to the conclusion that I was unlovable. I was the last person capable of reciprocation.

Jake didn't love me because he couldn't love me.

"Harper." Jake dragged his hands down his face and stopped only when his finger rubbed the inner corners of her eyes. "I'm -"

"Sorry!?" A sharp, biting bark flew out of my lips. It wasn't even a laugh, or a yell, just a tortured sound of irritated anguish with a side of bitchiness.

Dark strands of his hair flicked around the sides of his neck as the word came out slowly, like I'd pulled each letter separately out of him. "In my defense, you're totally wrong in the context."

"What context!? Star quarterback smiling with sick kids so he polishes his shit reputation, or where you're using my -" My tongue swelled up around the word 'brother,' so I redirected the anger that warmed my cheeks back to the point, "You have no right!"

He groaned quietly, then reached his hands towards me. My body ached that I stood still, or even better closed the gap between us. I flinched at the rough brush of his fingers over my upper arms. The idea I melted into his grip froze my spine and wrenched my shoulders up.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled those words again.

I hated those words and the pity they were married to. And I hated how they sounded in his voice because Jake never, ever pitied me and I loved that about him.

I'm sorry your mom left.

I'm sorry your dad's never home.

I'm sorry your half-brother is battling leukemia... Yeah, that part I'm still wrapping my brain around.

I'm sorry you're so fucked up emotionally.

Inside my tight fists, my nails pinched into my palms. "You don't get to be sorry. You don't get to wedge yourself into my family shit, then treat me like I don't exist!"

My chest pitched with a ragged breath and fuck, I swore tiny black dots danced around Jake's furrowed expression at this point. Dryness chapped my lips and I dragged the tip of my tongue over the only three words I had for him.

"It's my pain." In case he needed any further clarification, I threw in two more, "Not yours."

"Harper..." A tremble quivered my lower lip but I lifted both my hands and cut him off. His frown deepened, along with the strain in his voice, "But, your mom -"

"Is my own fucking business!" I screeched so loudly that my throat seared. A few curious sidewalk eyes examined us but I ignored them. "She left me, Jake! Not you! She came back to guilt fling my... brother in my face, not yours!"

"Ten fucking year's I've dealt with -" A hard swallow bobbed my throat because, fuck, that admission wasn't coming up and breaking me. "My own shit. Mine."

Guilt flashed in his dark eyes, like just now the dumbass had realized his mistake. I would've preferred complete silence over the bullshit lie he fed me, "Harper, I didn't mean to pry."

"Yes, you did!" my voice cracked under the sob that ruptured itself upward. "That's all you've done since I saw you again, fucking pry into my business."

His eyes closed for a moment, then he relented with a sigh that slumped his shoulders, "Okay, fuck, I did. I'm sorry, I tried -"

The edge of finality in his voice was the last shred of evidence I needed, and blurred out the rest of his words from registering in my brain.

He's done. I'm done.

Whatever the fuck we are or aren't, we're done.

My entire body hurt at this moment as more shame rose up inside me. I wanted to crawl under the sidewalks and let myself get trampled into numbness. I wanted to drink myself into oblivion or smash my head into a nearby fucking brick wall, until the dull pain that sharpened itself the longer I stared at how impassive Jake looked at me.

"That's what you want." His jaw set and eyes hardened when I realized I'd said my last 'we're done' thought out loud, which only worsened the impact of his lack of reacting stronger than a half-assed glare.

My hands shoved into his chest and even though we both knew I'd never make him move, he stepped back. Yet, his face looked like stone, hardened, solid, impermeable, and cold. That look, combined with absolutely zero effort that argued against me was the only response I needed.

His eyes were darker than usual but dulled without their normal heat when he looked at me.

Like when he wanted me.

I should've appreciated the absence of his dark-eyed look of hunger, or the fact he didn't offer any painful, sarcastic words of finality this time. The effect remained the same.

It's over.

Even if this time I broke my own damn heart.