I whimper, and my insides twist. My breathing is shallow, and I have no words. “Jared,” I breathe his name and wrap my arms around him, holding him so tightly that I’m probably strangling him, but I just can’t let go.
His arms wrap around me, too, and we cling to each other. His hug is luxurious. His smell, the feel of him, the way his breath tickles down my neck, the heat of his hands as his fingers dig into my sides—it’s too much.
“We need a break,” Jared says again. “Some space. Take as long as you need.”
He scoots forward on the seat, but I don’t let go. I clutch him closer.
“I really should go, Amy.”
He pulls his head back, and I do the same, our eyes meeting.
He forces a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I can’t help you with this one. You need to figure it out yourself. We need to make sure this is right before we go any further. If we’re meant to be, we’ll be. If not …” He trails off and shrugs sadly.
His words feel like he’s gutted me with a blunt knife. I’m hollow, empty, just a raw, ragged mess. He eases me off his lap, and I stand on my weak legs, wrapping my arms around myself for comfort as my whole world feels like it’s falling apart.
Sadness consumes me, and when he leans down and presses his lips against mine, I kiss him back with all the passion that I have, putting all my feeling into it. The kiss is beautiful, poignant, and heartbreaking.
I don’t want him to go, but he’s right. I need to fix this mess myself. There’s no one else who can untangle this but me.
He breaks the kiss and presses his lips to my forehead. They linger there, and I close my eyes, savouring the feel of them.
“Bye, Amy.” He pulls away, and I hear the hitch in his voice, but he’s already walking away towards the door, pulling it open.
He strides through it, leaving me alone in my flat with my heart breaking and big, fat, devastated tears rolling down my cheeks.
twenty.five
Two days pass, and they feel like the longest two days of my life—worse so than when I had that stomach bug where I didn’t even move from my bathroom floor for thirty-six hours. Before this, that was the pinnacle of worst time of my life. I thought that was rock bottom. I was wrong. Now, that low seems like a distant memory and a far cry from the depressed state I’ve slipped into.
I’ve barely slept. I’m walking through life like a zombie. My emotions are all over the place, and all I can think about is Jared, Theo, and how the hell I can try to distinguish my feelings between the two of them. Where do my feelings for my train crush stop and my feelings for Jared begin? Or are they one and the same? Was what I had with Jared ever real? It felt so real at the time, but now, I can’t be sure.
Through my confusion … I miss Jared. I miss his voice, his smile, his sarcasm, and just the way he makes me feel when he holds me at night.
It doesn’t help that there are little reminders of him everywhere. Even dreary, monotonous stuff like showering and brushing my teeth are tinged with memories of him. The stuff that he left here on Saturday (before my life imploded with the big twin reveal) still sits on the neat little spots he chose for them in my bathroom.
Even my bed is betraying me. What used to be my favourite place in the world is now a shrine to my on-a-break boyfriend. His scent is all over it, agonising and torturous as it lulls me to slumber where I dream of a magic-performing Jared, who turns and suddenly splits into two. And then, when I wake, I’m surrounded by his smell, and I’m reminded again of what I’ve lost. Because that’s what it feels like, as if I’ve lost him, and it hurts more than I even care to admit to myself. I could change my sheets, get rid of the smell, but I can’t bring myself to do that. I love it and hate it in equal measure. When the smell begins to fade slightly, I even find myself spraying his deodorant around the room like air freshener and spritzing my spare pillow—his pillow—with his aftershave just to torture myself further. I deserve it.
We haven’t had any contact since he walked out of my flat and called time on us. The no-contact thing makes the time drag into one endless bad day and even worse nights where I cry myself to sleep.
Today is Thursday. I am seriously contemplating bending one of the fundamental on-a-break rules. I’m considering texting him.
His meeting with Gillian Jenkins was today, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him all day long. I stare at my screen, seeing the message that I just typed out sitting there. I delete and type again. My thumb hovers over the Send button as I debate on if I can send it or not. Does on a break mean no contact at all? Most likely. But I am desperate to know how his meeting went.
I groan and read the message again.
Hey. How did your meeting go?
Light, friendly, just a question.
Before I can change my mind, I press Send and then drop my phone down next to me on the sofa and frown, waiting for his reply. Suddenly, a thought occurs to me: what if he doesn’t reply? What if Jared isn’t interested in speaking to me again after the pain I’ve caused, driving a wedge between him and his brother?
I groan and push my microwave meal around its little tray with my fork. The TV is on, but I can barely see it or concentrate on it.
When my phone beeps to life, I jump so hard and pick it up so quickly that I almost drop it in my food.
It was good. Thanks for asking.
I chew on my lip, worrying over the lack of a kiss on the end. Does that mean anything? Has he done a Ross from Friends and found himself a copy-place girl he can spend his “break” with? Is she getting the kisses from the end of his texts? Is that the type of break we’re on? I seriously hope not because the thought of him with other girls makes my insides ache and my blood boil with jealousy.
I hit Reply, wanting to keep this small line of communication open.
Great news! Did anything come of it?
I debate on adding my own kiss on the end and decide against it.
Almost as soon as the status of the message changes to read, the phone rings in my hand. Jared’s face appears on my screen, and my insides jolt. I could weep; I’m so happy.
I put the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Hey.” The sound of his voice makes the hairs on my arms stand on end and my tummy flutter. “It would take too long to type it out, so I thought it would be easier just to call you,” he explains.
I nod, savouring the sound of his voice. “How are you?” It’s all I’ve been wanting to ask for the last two days, ever since he walked out of my flat and didn’t look back.
“I’m okay. How are you?”
“Good,” I lie, and it really is a total lie. I’m not doing good at all. All I can think every second of the day is the fact that I might have made a terrible, terrible mistake, but I just have no clue if that is right or not. “So, tell me about the meeting. I’ve been thinking about you all day, sending all the good vibes and Karma at you.”
“Oh, is that what I was feeling, good vibes and Karma? I thought it was nerves,” he jokes.
I smile and clutch the phone closer to my ear.
“Meeting went well. Really well actually. She loved almost all my ideas. She wants me to put together a proposal for the new specialist team and present it to the board in a couple of weeks. If that goes well and they approve it, I could be heading the department and taking on new staff, branching out, and expanding.”