Kiss and Break Up (Magnolia Cove, #1)(62)

His nostrils flared. “That’s not fucking true.”

“It is. It is fucking true. But not this time.” I marched to the door, flinging it open. “Get out.”

He didn’t move. “This is a mistake. We’ve both made enough mistakes. Can we please not make anymore and, instead, find a way to move past this?” His eyes were begging, but his words were far from enough.

My laughter cracked and ebbed in the air around us. “Go, Dash. Now.”

“No, just listen to me,” he growled.

“Why should I when all you do is downplay what you’ve done? The way you hurt me?”

“Because I love you.”

“Well, I don’t want your damn love. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not in ten years.”

Shock painted his features a paler hue. “You don’t mean that.”

I picked up the oriental vase from behind me, one of the only items Mom took from Dad’s place, and threw it at him. I missed. On purpose. But it was enough. It made his feet stumble to the door, and I pushed him the rest of the way out.

“Peggy!” He pounded on the door when I slammed and locked it. “Peggy, don’t fucking do this.”

“It’s already done. And it never should’ve started,” I yelled through the wood. “Go home before I call the cops.”

He didn’t move for at least five minutes. I felt him there, like a smothering blanket in the heat of summer, while I sat on the floor with my back against the door and cried.





I stayed in bed the rest of the day, my tears drying on the pillow until I had enough energy for new ones to dampen it again.

I’d wanted this. I’d wanted to know what it was like to fall for someone and experience all the things the girls at school experienced. Even if I’d gotten hurt. But those who hadn’t had their heart broken were nothing but foolish dreamers to think they could handle it. And had I known just how completely love could ruin me, I never would’ve set out to find it.

For what I found loomed closer to home than I ever saw coming, which only made it all the more devastating.

Mom had given me space, and I’d been grateful, but she’d apparently thought she’d given me enough when she entered my room later that night and curled up behind me.

She didn’t touch me, and she didn’t pry. She just waited, offering comfort with her presence.

And though I tried, I tried so hard not to set every torn piece of me free, I had to. It needed out. It needed to find a safe place to land. I couldn’t keep it trapped within or else I feared I’d never leave my room again.

She didn’t say anything as I spoke, but I knew she was listening, and as I choked out everything that’d happened with me and Dash, I wanted to cry harder as I heard it all out loud. “I don’t know what to do now,” I whispered when I’d finished. “What am I supposed to do now?”

Mom spoke then, her hand coming to rest on my hip. “You continue to feel, and you continue to do what feels right.”

I was surprised yet relieved she wasn’t telling me to forgive him. “How could he do that, though?”

Mom shifted closer. “There’s no excusing it. He did it, and it’s done. But I do believe he’s sorry, that he regrets it, and that he loves you.”

I scoffed, wiping my eyes with my sheet. “He’s a conceited brat.”

She laughed. “True. But he’s a conceited brat who would do anything for you. To the point of ruining himself.” A yawn escaped her. “However, that doesn’t mean he gets to use that, what you did when you didn’t know how you even felt, as an excuse to hurt you.”

I thought about that. Turned and twisted it over as I sat up and drank the glass of water Mom had brought in with her. The cool liquid slid down my dry throat, and I tried to picture what life would be like moving forward without Dash. It seemed incomprehensible—undoable—to continue being me without him there. But I had to. He’d left me no choice.

“I don’t want to go to school tomorrow.” I set the glass down, then slipped back beneath the covers.

Mom pulled them over herself, her eyes closing. “I’ll give you one free pass for a broken heart, but it’s up to you how you use it.” After a moment, she added, “I would’ve given you two, but you broke my vase, so no dice.”

I smiled, and the movement on my lips felt foreign but nice. I could only hope I’d remember how to keep doing it.





Peggy



I opted not to use my free pass and dragged my weary self to school.

The news of Lars, the poor bad boy scholarship student, being Annika’s baby’s daddy spread like wildfire. It became the only thing on people’s lips if they weren’t eating, and when I saw Daphne by our lockers Monday morning, I knew she was trying to hide just how much it was hurting her.

“You okay?” I asked. “Sorry, that was stupid.”

“It’s fine.” Her brows scrunched, a layer of concealer heavy beneath her eyes. “You look like shit.”

Before I could say anything, she was pulling me toward the girls’ bathrooms, Willa tagging behind.

A few juniors lingered, applying lipstick and straightening their knee-high socks. With one hiss from Daphne, they collected their things and made themselves scarce.