24 actually hurt
I spend the entire Sunday pretending I'm busy.
Which is honestly impressive considering I have absolutely nowhere to be.
I sit through breakfast with Nola and Peyton while barely tasting anything, wander through campus with my headphones in without listening to music, spend an hour inside the library staring at the same psychology paragraph until I realize I've reread the sentence "behavioral response patterns" seventeen times.
And through all of it, one stupid sentence keeps replaying in my head on loop.
Get in line, Coleman.
It's not even the worst thing someone's ever said to me.
That's the annoying part.
It's just the fact that it came from him.
Because Jackson doesn't know this, but once somebody matters to you, they suddenly gain the ability to ruin your entire week with one sentence and a slightly wrong tone.
Psychology should honestly study that instead of rats.
By six in the evening, I still haven't gone back to the dorm.
Partly because I know Jackson's probably there.
Mostly because I know I'll look at him the second I walk in.
Which feels humiliating now.
The October air turns colder as the sun starts disappearing, campus lights flickering on one by one while groups of students pass by laughing too loudly on their way to parties or dinners or lives that probably aren't emotional trainwrecks.
I sit down outside near the student center steps and stare at my phone for a long minute before pressing call on my mom's contact.
She answers on the third ring. "Hi, honey."
And immediately my throat tightens.
Because suddenly I'm fifteen again, sitting at our kitchen counter while she works late and Logan pretends everything's fine and Dad's already halfway out the door emotionally even if none of us fully know it yet.
"Hey," I say quietly.
There's a pause. Then instantly, "What happened?"
I let out a short laugh before I can stop it. "Jesus. Was I always this obvious?"
"Yes." My mom's voice softens slightly. "Everly."
"I'm fine."
"That's not what I asked."
I lean back against the cold concrete behind me and stare up at the darkening sky.
For a second I think about lying.
Then I realize I called because I'm tired of holding everything in my chest like it's gonna explode otherwise.
So instead I say, "Do you remember the roommate situation?"
"The football player?"
"That already sounds judgmental."
"He's a football player. It comes naturally."
I snort quietly despite myself.
And somehow that tiny laugh cracks something open.
So I tell her.
Not all at once.
Bits and pieces at first.
How Jackson annoyed me constantly.
How we became friends without me noticing.
How he'd stay up talking to me at night.
How he listened when I talked about Dad.
How he started pulling away afterward.
Then eventually I tell her about Friday.
About the girl.
About him asking me to leave.
About the fight yesterday.
And finally, very quietly, "He told me to get in line."
Silence fills the call afterward.
Not awkward silence.
Heavy silence.
The kind where you can practically hear somebody thinking too hard on the other end.
When my mom finally speaks again, her voice sounds tired in a way that makes my chest ache.
"People make you feel important right before they disappoint you."
The words hit me so hard I physically stop breathing for a second.
Because she doesn't just mean Jackson.
She means Dad.
Always Dad.
Years later and he still lives inside every conversation about love like a ghost nobody invited.
I close my eyes tightly.
"That's bleak," I mutter quietly.
"It's realistic."
"That's worse."
My mom exhales softly through the phone. "Everly."
I stay quiet.
And then her voice changes slightly, gentler now.
"But that doesn't mean you deserved it."
My throat tightens immediately.
Because there it is.
The thing my mom almost never says out loud anymore.
Tenderness.
Not because she stopped loving us after Dad left.
Just because loving people became harder afterward, like she doesn't trust happiness enough to hold it properly anymore.
"I know," I whisper.
"No," she says softly. "I don't think you do."
Campus noises blur together around me while I stare down at my shoes, suddenly feeling exhausted all the way down to my bones.
"I just feel stupid," I admit quietly.
"You're nineteen."
"That's not comforting."
"It should be."
I laugh weakly under my breath.
My mom continues after a second. "And for what it's worth, boys who say cruel things when they're scared usually regret it later."
That catches my attention slightly. "You think he was scared?"
"I think people don't push away things they truly don't care about."
I swallow hard.
Because unfortunately that thought settles somewhere deep inside my chest immediately.
Dangerous.
Hopeful.
I hate both of those things equally.
Eventually the conversation drifts into safer territory after that, Logan coming home for Thanksgiving next month, whether my mom's working too much again, if I'm eating actual meals or surviving entirely on caffeine.
Normal things.
Comfortable things.
But even after we hang up, I stay sitting there for a long time anyway.
The campus has gone mostly dark now, cold wind brushing through the trees while students pass by without noticing me.
And suddenly everything catches up all at once.
Jackson's face.
His voice.
The way he looked at me before saying it.
The way it hurt afterward.
My eyes burn before I even realize I'm crying.
Not dramatic sobbing. Just silent tears slipping down my face while I stare at the ground feeling strangely hollow.
Because this is the first time I fully let myself admit it.
Jackson Bennett actually hurt me.
And somehow that hurts even worse than the words themselves.