An Optimist's Guide to Heartbreak (Heartsong #1)(75)

“I – I’m fine,” I fluster, swiping two fingers under both eyes. “I just need to find Cal.”

She takes me by the shoulders and gives me a full sweep. “Your dress is torn at the knees, your hair is a mess, and your eyes are all puffy. You look like you just had your heart broken.”

Deflating, my bottom lip wobbles as I duck my head. Is this what a broken heart looks like? A tattered dress, hair in disarray, and swollen eyes? All I can see is the mask of pure blindside on Cal’s face. That’s what heartbreak looks like to me.

Perhaps it’s different for everyone.

I realize I don’t know how to tell Alyssa about what just transpired because she’s also not privy to the truth about my heart condition. My attempt to keep the ones I love in the dark, convinced it was the only way to live in the light, has backfired. I feel like a deceiver. A double-crosser. My good intentions have turned rotten, and my stomach curdles amid the blowback.

I lift my chin, squaring my shoulders. “I’ll tell you everything, Lys, but I need to find Cal first. Did he pass through here a few minutes ago?”

She shakes her head. “I’m not sure, I was too caught up in dancing. Did he reject you? Please tell me no.”

“No,” I tell her. “It’s not like that. I’ll be back in a bit, okay?”

Alyssa nods, dropping her hands from my shoulders and stepping back, her expression pinched with worry. I force a smile and turn to leave. Weaving through the tables and out the reception doors, I half-run down the hallway that leads to the main entrance. As I push through the door and look both ways into the parking lot, a feathering of smoke permeates my senses.

I glance farther to my left. Cal is seated with his back flush against the side of the building, his knees drawn up. There’s a cigarette pressed between his fingertips. “Cal.”

He takes a drag, tipping his head back to the brick. His eyes are closed as he mutters, “What.” It’s not even a question—just a clipped acknowledgement of my presence.

“You’re smoking,” I say, my words as cautious as my approach toward him.

“Observant of you.” He takes another drag, longer this time, blowing the smoke out through his nostrils. The tendrils curl around him before a draft carries them away. “I don’t want to talk if that’s why you’re out here. I have an Uber on the way.”

My gut twists. “Cal, please. Let me explain.”

His head whips toward me, the embers of his cigarette glowing bright against the backdrop of nightfall. Almost like a firefly. “Explain?” he echoes drily, flicking ashes to the cement. “You had nearly four months to explain. But you waited until now to rip the rug out from under me.”

My breath catches. I slow to a stop a few feet away from him, shaking my head. “You say it like it was intentional. Like I was trying to hurt you, but I wasn’t. All I was trying to do was protect you.”

“Protect me?” A humorless laugh falls out of him as he inhales another drag, then rises from the pavement. When he faces me, his eyes ignite to match the smoldering ash at the end of his cigarette. “Inserting yourself into my life after all these years when you’re only temporary is not protecting me.”

“I missed my friend.”

“We were always more than friends,” he counters. “You had to know what would happen when you walked through the door to my shop.”

My head is shaking back and forth, wildly, defiantly. “No.”

“Yes. And the first thing out of your mouth when you sat down for an interview should have been that you were fucking dying.”

I’ve never seen Cal this angry before. I’ve seen him irritated, cold, distant, and sullen, but I’ve never seen him seething mad. Waves of volatile emotion ripple off of him, and I know I did this.

I’m responsible.

Tears well and fall, so I swipe them away as I resume my trek forward. He’s right, in a way, but he’s also not. Cal has no clue what it’s like to be me. It’s like walking through a minefield day after day—or, maybe I am the minefield. I’m one wrong move, one misstep away from detonating. My heart is a powder keg. “I shouldn’t have said it like that,” I say gently, closing in on him. “I used to have a good friend…her name was Jessica.” He looks away as a thin column of smoke billows skyward from his right hand. “I met her at the hospital when I was just a kid, and we kept in touch as pen pals. She had the same heart condition as me. TOF.”

Cal’s jaw tics as he glances down at the ground, flicking his cigarette again.

“As we grew up, we started to spend time together in person. Sleepovers, lunch dates, movie marathons. When she was fourteen, she fell in love,” I croak. “With Greg—the man you saw at the show last month. They were high school sweethearts. They had their whole life planned.” I wipe away more tears and push my hair out of my face. I’m standing right in front of him now, my ankles shaking in my heels. “They were so, so happy, Cal. So in love. And then, just like that…she was gone.”

His eyes lift, dark and bleak.

“She was grocery shopping, and she dropped dead in the produce aisle. No warning, nothing. She was just…gone.” My voice cracks. The tears fall harder. “Her heart gave out while she was grocery shopping. Something so mundane and innocent. Greg came to my mom’s house to deliver the news, and he collapsed on the doorstep. He was completely devastated. Broken. The love of his life was taken from him at only eighteen years old, before they could even start their life together,” I sob, choking on my words. “I swore to myself that would never be me. I would never put a man through that. I saw what it did to him—I saw what it stole. Love can be a fulfilling, enchanting thing, but it can be a thief, too. It can drain you, suck you dry, strip you bare. I decided that I would never give it a taste. It wasn’t worth it.” My confession prickles like the ice cold gale that blows through. I watch as Cal stares back at me, only two feet away, the cigarette paper charring to his skin.