Choosing You (Gravity Hill #3)

34. Chapter 31

C harlie and I learned a lot about each other over the break. She also uploaded her midterms early, so she stayed with me at the house for the past two weeks. Thankfully, Tal and Toby had to go back to school for the first week since their midterms were in class, so I only had to avoid them last week. It wasn’t hard, they still love to party, and I…guess I don’t anymore.

Spending all that time with her really made me see her differently, and hearing her talk about her late mother with such care made me feel like I could get there, too.

Charlie: Is it weird that I kind of miss you?

Chuckling at the screen, I type out a response.

Me: It’s been four days, clingy much?

Charlie: Don’t let it go to your head… wanna get lunch?

I haven’t had a break since we got back. It might be nice to get out of the dorm and have human interaction. Practice has been a joke, and no one’s speaking to me. Other than football, the dining hall, and classes, I haven’t left my room.

Me: I guess I could grace you with my presence.

She sends back a thumbs up, and I sit up and stretch at my desk. Since Henry moved out, I haven’t been able to move anything, as if the mere memory of his stuff will suffice while I move forward with Charlie, however long that lasts. Nothing I can do about the bed height, but I can manage for the rest of the year. I’ve already filed the paperwork to move to an apartment.

Throwing on a coat and shoes, I head out to Gator Coffee Co. She didn’t specifically say where to meet her, so I’m assuming. But with the only other thing on campus being the dining hall, I figured she meant the better option of the two.

They’ve decorated for Halloween, purple lights strung in loops around the checkout counter. Fake spider webs are tucked into corners, plastic pumpkins dot every table. It reminds me that the twins’ birthdays are coming up. Tal was born Halloween night around eleven fifty PM, and Toby graced the world with his presence at exactly midnight on November first.

“Can I help–”

My head turns to find Henry standing on the opposite side of the counter, jaw slack, eyes wide. He doesn’t finish his question, just shuts his mouth and waits. He looks so fucking good, no bags under his eyes, he grew out his beard, and it makes him look so fucking sexy.

Even with his eyes narrowed and his arms crossed, he’s beautiful.

“Hey,” it comes out before I can help it. After all this time, all I’ve got is ‘hey’? “How’s the apartment?”

“What can I get you?” He responds almost robotically.

“Henry,” I exhale, “can’t we at least talk?”

“Talk about what, Banks?” His words are clipped, barely spoken through a tight smile. “We aren’t friends, we aren’t anything if I remember correctly, so what exactly do we have to talk about?”

The guy from the last time I was here with Charlie walks out from the kitchen door and smiles at Henry. It’s a private smile, not something someone was meant to see. A smile that says I’ve got a crush on you .

“It’s your break time,” he winks, and Henry blushes. My blood boils, rushes hot through my veins, and I have to clench my fists by my sides to remind myself there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it.

Henry ducks through the door as Koda–I think I remember his name being–runs his hand along Henry’s lower back. When he gives me his full attention, I can see his smugness written all over his face.

“Can I get you anything?” His smirk makes me want to rip the skin right off his face. Turn him into a pile of flesh and bone, then bury him sixteen feet underground.

“You beat me here!” I hear her, but I can’t take my eyes off him. Fury rots under my skin. If I clench my fists any tighter, I just might split the skin on my knuckles. “Pretty Boy, you alright?”

Sliding my eyes to hers, I nod, unwilling to open my mouth and have something come out that’s going to draw attention to the already strenuous scene.

“Get it togo,” I insist, turning around and pushing the door so hard it rattles on its hinges. The glass wobbles in the frame, and I almost throw my fist through it, just to see something other than me break.

Charlie rushes out behind me, laying a hand on my back between my shoulder blades.

“Don’t touch me,” I snarl, leaning over. I think I might throw up.

Her hand moves, but her feet stay rooted in place beside me. Seeing Henry blush at another guy feels like he socked me in the stomach. I know I made him feel worse, I know I did , and yet I hate the blush that spread across his face… because it wasn’t me who put it there. Which means they must’ve… No, no, Henry wouldn’t do that to me. Not even after everything I said to him.

“Let’s go to my dorm,” Charlie’s harsh whisper sounds in my ear.

I don’t nod or acknowledge that I heard her, but I follow her anyway. Shuffling my feet after her, I force myself to keep walking, trying my best not to turn around and storm back into the cafe.

At the dorm, she slips her key into the lock, throws open the door, and all but shoves me inside. Standing inside of her room feels strange, we’ve always been in my domain when we get together, or a neutral place. Her dorm’s bigger than mine, perks of being an advisor, I guess. It’s painted a deep red, with her bed shoved in one corner and the nightstand beside it littered with mugs.

She leans back against the door, arms crossed with a stern look on her face. “Go ahead, look all you want. When you’re done, you can tell me what the fuck that was back there.”

Pictures are tacked to one wall. I recognize the two men who must be her brothers and the two friends we met at the start of school. So many pictures of her living .

“How did you…” I can’t form the question without it coming out accusatory. As if she never had any love for her mother. I lift my hand without realizing it and touch the picture of her and her mother, smiling while taking what looks like a selfie.

“Find happiness?” She sighs, crossing the room to stand in front of me while I look at all of her pictures. Her memories, captured in film. “I got tired of feeling sorry for myself and decided to live when she couldn’t.”

“I don’t feel sorry for myself,” I scoff.

Her eyes slid my way, brows raised. “You’re the walking definition of feeling sorry for yourself.”

When I open my mouth to defend myself, she stops me with a hand.

“You’re about to tell me you’re pissed off, not sad. Right?” She waits for me to respond, but I can’t. “Thought so. Being pissed off about your mother’s murder is perfectly acceptable. Blowing up everything in your life that makes you happy so you don’t feel guilty for living without her is not.”

“You don’t know half of the things that have happened since my mother’s death,” I defend, but it sounds flimsy even to my ears.

“So tell me. Tell me all of the things that happened. Self-sabotage? Isolation? Anger? Depression?”

“All of the above.”