My mom was right. Ignoring her wouldn’t solve this. The only thing that would make things right was me doing what I should have done in the first place.
End this once and for all.
I threw open the door and knew in an instant that I was a fool. I took one look at Eve’s swollen eyes, her flushed cheeks, those trembling lips…
Had I really thought I’d been prepared? Even steeling myself for this moment, the sight of her was enough to knock the wind out of me.
No opponent on the football field could ever level me the way this girl did with just one look.
“Hi.” Her voice was soft, her eyes full of unshed tears as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her winter jacket. “Can we talk?”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” I tore my gaze away from hers and fixed my stare on the car behind her. It was Collette’s. She’d probably come to pick her up and take her to class after my text.
Guilt gnawed at my guts and I clenched my jaw to bite back an apology...or worse. It wouldn’t take much for my resolve to crumble and I could easily find myself telling her the truth about how I feel.
That would only make things worse. It would only make this harder for Eve.
It was that thought that gave me the strength to do what had to be done. After our conversation at Hazelcrest, I’d allowed her to convince me that we could do this. That we’d be okay. That I was good enough for her.
But we all knew the truth. I wasn’t good and I was never going to be good.
Eve scoffed as she shifted her gaze to the ground for a moment. Then she glanced back up at me. Her eyes were wide and there was annoyance in her gaze. “Are you at least coming to the academy for class?”
I shook my head. “I told Ms. Boucher I was sick.”
She let out a huff of air that was supposed to be a laugh, and her lips curved up in a pale imitation of the smile she’d been wearing earlier today. “That might fly with Ms. Bouchet, but what are you going to tell Bianca?” She pursed her lips and adopted a high, prissy tone. “Real dancers don’t take a day off.”
I forced my gaze to meet hers, careful to keep my eyes shuttered and my expression blank. “Well, I’m not a real dancer so that doesn’t apply to me.”
That wan smile faded and the last flicker of hope in her eyes died. “Are you really going to do this?”
Her voice was little more than a whisper but I heard her words. I felt her words, like a knife to my heart.
I didn’t want to do this. I wanted to be there for her. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t run from the truth. I wasn’t the guy for her and I was never going to be the guy for her. The sooner we figured that out, the better off we were.
But I couldn’t fight the pain in my gut. It was gnawing away at me with every passing moment. The pain that told me, I could still save this. That I didn’t have to push her away for good. My lips twitched with the urge to say what I needed to do to fix what was happening between us. To turn back while I still could.
But then, even as I thought it, Trenton’s harsh texts came back to me. The texts that I forced myself to look at while I waited for her. The ones that helped ground me in reality.
Trenton: Seriously, bro? I trusted you.
Trenton: Leave it to a Jenkins to go back on his word.
And the last one. The one that hit me right in the gut.
Trenton: Eve deserves better.
And he was right. As always.
“We can’t keep doing this, Eve,” I said the words feeling like molasses in my mouth.
Eve stepped back as if I’d just struck her. She sucked in her breath as the tears hung precariously on her eyelids. I cleared my throat, shocked by the coldness in my tone. She recovered quickly as she clenched her hands at her sides. “Why? Because of Trenton?”
I didn’t respond. It was a struggle just to maintain eye contact when her gaze was all soft and pleading, begging me to say the very words I wanted to say.
She gave her head a little shake, frustration written all over her cute little features. “He’ll get over it. He’s just being overprotective, it’s what he does. But Trenton loves you. He knows you. He’ll—”
“That’s exactly it,” I interrupted. “He knows me, Eve. He knows me better than you do.”
The words tasted like a lie in my mouth and her nose wrinkled up like she could taste it too.
She did know me. Of course she did. But because she was Eve—sweet, kind, loving Eve—she only saw the good in me.
Leave it to a Jenkins to go back on his word. Trenton understood the truth. I had to work hard to be a decent guy—to keep my temper under control and to stay out of trouble.
I tried to be a good guy, but deep down I wasn’t.
A good guy wouldn’t go after the girl he was supposed to protect. He wouldn’t kiss her while knowing full well that his best friend would take it as a betrayal.
“I don’t…” She closed her eyes and let out a short exhale of exasperation. “I don’t understand. You’re being all cryptic.”
Anger coursed through me, and the hot rush of adrenaline was a relief compared to that numbing coldness I’d been feeling for the past few hours since I’d first seen that Trenton had texted.
I took a step outside of my house and into the cold winter air. She didn’t back up—of course she didn’t. This girl wasn’t afraid of me. Even though everyone else was, even though she should be more afraid of me than anyone...she wasn’t scared.
I will hurt you, don’t you know that? I wanted to shake her until she saw the truth. Until she gave up and walked away.
But if I reached out right now, I wouldn’t shake her. She knew as well as I did that if I reached out to her right now, I’d pull her into my arms. She was right to believe that I could never physically harm a hair on her head, but she was too naive to realize that physical pain wasn’t the only hurt I could inflict.
If we stayed together, I could hold her back from her dreams. I wouldn’t be there for her next year when I went off to enlist. I would let her down the way my dad and brother disappointed me and my mom.
I would break her heart.
Leaving was the single worst thing you could do to a person. And that was all I knew how to do. Leave.
“You want me to spell it out for you?” I asked, my voice gruff with emotions. “Your brother knows me well enough to know that you and me….? We don’t belong together.”
Her brows came down in anger and confusion. “That’s not true.” Her voice rose in volume as she glared at me. “That’s not true and you know it.”
I kept my eyes hard and my expression blank. But my insides….they were falling apart. Not even losing my dad and Connor had been this hard. But then again, when they went away, I knew that they would be back. No matter how much of a mess they made, they’d always be my father and my brother.
But right here and right now, I knew that this was the end. That I was ending it.
My friendship with Trenton was likely ruined forever, and the one girl I loved more than life itself was never going to look at me again. Not like she used to. We wouldn’t be a couple. She’d never wrap her arms around me like I was her home and being with me was where she belonged. She’d never go up on tiptoe to kiss me with those soft, warm lips.