Broken and Screwed (BS #1)(56)

I clung to his shoulders, weak and helpless. Everything hurt. It was painful to breathe.

He brushed a hand against my cheek and tucked some hair behind my ear before he whispered, “It’s Ethan’s birthday, but I understand.”

He pulled away. He pressed one last kiss to my forehead and then turned and went back into the club.

A part of me went with him.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

When we got back, Angie stayed with me. It was hard, it was really hard. Jesse and I were done. I knew it was true this time and the pain crippled me every day, but I heard Angie’s voice in my head. Every morning, she said to get up. ‘You get up every morning. You shower every morning. And you go through the motions. You do what you’re supposed to and someday it won’t hurt as bad.’ I had looked up at her and asked, ‘Do you promise?’

‘I promise. It’s better this way. I promise, Alex. I do. You just have to get up every morning.’

So that’s what I did.

At first I didn’t notice much. School seemed the same. Angie would tell me later that everyone knew about our fight with Marissa. She became best friends with Sarah Shastaine. When I heard that, I was dumbfounded. I thought that I would’ve noticed if Marissa had become best friends with Jesse’s ex-girlfriend, but I hadn’t. I’d been clueless. Angie told me that I walked through the hallways like a zombie. I was the living dead. And she also told me that Eric apologized to me about something in the first week. She didn’t know what he apologized about, but I had told her that he said he was sorry for something.

I shrugged at that information. I didn’t remember. I didn’t remember anything anymore.

Christmas passed. New Years passed. Easter passed.

I didn’t remember any of it, but I did what Angie said. I got up, showered, and I did what I was supposed to do. I studied and I did it hard. My grades shot up. My test scores went with them and when the school counselor called me to her office to offer her congratulations, it took me five minutes before I comprehended what she was saying.

I’d been awarded a full scholarship to Grant West University for my academics. I was the second student to receive a full scholarship and the third to receive a scholarship in general from there. I already knew the other two, Jesse and Cord. I was the third, but I knew Jesse had received a full scholarship, so that meant Cord hadn’t. He’d gotten something, but not a full scholarship. I’d forgotten that I had applied the year before, before I knew Jesse was going there.

Huh.

I should’ve cared, but I didn’t. I left the office that day, but I never saw the odd expression on her face or how she reached for her phone afterwards. It wouldn’t be until later that I would find out that she had called my parents. Of course, there’d been no word. They were still gone. Where they went, I had no idea. What they were doing, I had no idea, but I knew my father traveled for his job. I guessed that’s what they’d been doing, traveling for his job. I would never find out that they had gotten an apartment in the city closer to his office and that they were living there. They’d left me the house, but never told me. They never cared to.

I was 18; I had been for a year now. They didn’t have to tell me a thing anymore.

It was the end of April when Angie asked me a question that I had never considered before.

“Who are you going to prom with?”

My head jerked up. “What?”

Then she slammed her locker and raised her eyebrows.

“Huh?”

“Prom. You. Me. It’s in two weeks. Who’s taking you?”

“No one.” I blinked rapidly, for some reason dumbfounded again. Prom? I’d only been thinking about graduation, well, not really. I still hadn’t told Angie about my Grant West scholarship. I’d been holding that in for two weeks, waiting for the right time. It never happened. I never wanted to risk Angie’s wrath again.

“No one? Are you kidding me? I thought Michael Helmsworth was drooling all over you at the party last weekend.”

Oh. That’s right. I’d forgotten about the party.

Angie snorted as she slung her purse over her shoulder, along with her book bag. “What? Did you forget?”

I had. “No.”

She stared at me with narrowed eyes. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Then her hand went to her hip. My eyes widened. I knew what that meant.

“Alex.” Her voice dropped to the no-nonsense tone. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“I forgot about Mike. Really.” I scratched the back of my head. “But I thought it was Carl, his brother.”

“Oh, yeah.” The hand fell away.

Thank god.

And we were walking again, towards the parking lot. “So, who are you thinking?”

“For what?”

“For prom.” Angie threw her hands up. “I swear that I’m having a conversation with myself here. Are you here? Are you actually Alex? Or did we leave you somewhere I don’t remember?”

“Yeah, Las Vegas,” I muttered before I realized what I said. Then my hand clamped over my mouth and I stopped in my tracks. I had not said that. I really hadn’t.

But Angie grew quiet and looked away.

I had said it.

When she turned back, I wasn’t expecting the tremor in her voice as she rasped out, “I’m sorry, okay? I thought it was for the best if you and he stopped doing whatever it was that you were doing. I didn’t expect for you to be like a zombie again.”