Chapter Thirty-eight
Brynn
I can’t breathe again.
I’m so tired of not being able to breathe.
But it’s different this time. Worse. I’m frozen. I can’t even swallow. It’s like when I got kidnapped and they jabbed me with that needle that made my body stop functioning, but this time the jab was… verbal. Unimaginable.
It can’t be real.
Maybe this is a nightmare.
I’m still asleep, and Killian is in bed next to me. I’ll wake up, and he’ll be there, and this…
Maybe none of this is real.
It feels real, though.
I make a slight wheezing noise as I draw in and release a few shaky breaths.
“Brynn,” he says softly, and my composure breaks like a fractured dam, emotion welling up and spilling over, tearing apart the obstruction that once stood in the way.
My voice comes out in a strangled whisper, sounding like my throat is full of gravel. “You’re engaged?”
“Not exactly. It’s complicated.”
I shake my head. “Not really. It’s a yes or no question, Killian. Are you marrying her?”
My heart already feels ripped down the middle, but it wasn’t a clean break and one piece dangles from the other, held together by a single thread of increasingly fraying hope.
His silence is so loud.
If it’s a no, he would say that.
Silence can only mean yes.
I nod, my lips quivering as I try my best to hold it together, but my best isn’t good enough.
“Why would you do this to me? You made me fall in love with you. I thought you were mine.” I shake my head, backing up against the wall as tears blur my vision. “I’m going to be sick.”
My vision is too blurry as I slide down the wall to make out any clear details, but Killian strides toward me, and I close in on myself because I can’t bear him touching me.
“Don’t. Don’t you dare touch me.”
He stops short, standing in front of me. I can feel him looking down at me, but I don’t look up. I can’t look at him right now. It hurts too much.
“Please let me explain,” he says, his voice rough with emotion.
I shake my head. “There’s nothing to explain. And I don’t have anywhere to go. I don’t even have my car this time,” I say, bursting into an even more violent fit of tears.
“Brynn… I’m so fucking sorry.”
I shake my head, sucking in a breath and pushing myself up off the floor. “I have to get out of here,” I say between hitching breaths.
I turn around and walk into the bedroom, but as soon as I’m through the door, I don’t know what I’m doing in here. My head is a mess and everything feels so foggy.
The only reason I can think that I walked in here is for my toothbrush, so I go to the bathroom to grab it. Then I realize my brush is here, too, and all my other things. I hurry to the closet to grab my pink travel bag and then I come back and shove all of it in.
Killian comes into the bedroom, but I shove him out of the way and storm back into the living room.
I don’t know what I’m looking for.
Toast is in her bed, but she’s awake and alert since I’ve made so much noise.
I need to grab her food.
I go to the kitchen, doing my best to ignore the blonde goddess who’s going to marry the guy I’m in love with, but that suffocating thought just triggers another wave of not being able to breathe.
“Are you okay?” she asks quietly.
“No. That’s a very stupid question. I am not okay. I am homeless without so much as a fucking car and I just found out that everything I believed was a lie again and I just… I don’t know how much more of this shit I can take.”
She ignores the insult mixed in there and says, “The other bed in Addison’s room is still free if you need somewhere to go, at least for tonight. I can give you a ride if you need one.”
I sniffle, swiping the tears off my overheating cheeks. “I have a cat. Are cats allowed?”
“Not technically, but Addison isn’t allergic, so we can sneak her in.”
I nod woodenly, grabbing my granola bars out of the cupboard and shoving them in the bag.
I don’t know what else I need and to be honest, I don’t care. I just need to get the hell out of this apartment.
So I grab my school bag and Toast’s bed, and then I scoop up Toast. “We’re gonna go for a little ride, okay?”
She looks up at me curiously, then licks my hand because she sees that I’m upset.
Sloane doesn’t say anything else to Killian.
My old coat that he brought home earlier is bundled up on the counter near her, so she points to it. “Is this yours?”
I nod.
She grabs it, then she grabs the Zeta welcome kit Addison sent home with Killian earlier, too. “I know that’s yours. I packed it,” she murmurs.
We walk out without another word to him, and I hate the certainty I feel that out of all the things I’m leaving behind, my heart is the one thing I’ll never get back.
Tears well up in my eyes again, but I don’t fight them. There’s no point.
Sloane and I don’t have a lot to say to each other, anyway, so it’s no trouble to sit in her car quietly with tears streaming down my face.
I’m numb by the time we get to the sorority house. I follow Sloane and she scans in, then she holds the door to let me in, and I murmur a habitual, “Thank you.”
She nods, starting toward the stairs, but she halts before we go up and turns to face me. “I know you weren’t aware…”
“No. I wasn’t,” I say quietly.
“So I don’t blame you for anything, or dislike you over it. I just wanted to get that out of the way.”
I try to muster the barest upturn of my mouth, but I just can’t, and the effort exhausts me. I reach for the railing of the staircase because I know the way to Addison’s room, and maybe this is as far as she wants to take me.
But then she stops me with a, “Brynn.”
I stop and look back at her.
“You didn’t know then, so it’s okay. But now you do.”
I hold her gaze for a moment, my eyes bloodshot and my face puffy. She’s out of sorts for Sloane Whitley, but she’s still the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. Maybe even prettier like this because she looks more real somehow, like flesh and bones with a beating heart instead of perfect plastic carefully stored behind a clear but impenetrable shield.
I smile sadly. “Yeah. Now, I do.”
I don’t know if it’s the promise she’s looking for that I’ll stay away from him, but to be honest, I don’t have it in me to reassure her right now.
He just broke my heart, so I don’t have the energy to look after hers.
Ugh, not more fucking tears.
I turn and head up the staircase before she sees them. I trudge to the second floor and down the hall, and I stop outside Addison’s door.
I feel like an absolute asshole knocking on it at this time of night, knowing she’s likely asleep, but I tried texting Stacie in the car and she didn’t answer.
Maybe now that Killian is out of my life, she’ll let me move back in, but I won’t know until morning, and I need somewhere to sleep tonight.
The door opens and Addison answers, a fuzzy pastel sleep mask pushed up to her forehead. Her eyes widen at the sight of me, and her expression turns immediately supportive when she gets a good look at me.
“Are you okay?”
I shake my head no, my lips turning down and the goddamn tears starting again.
“Come in.” She opens the door and steps back to make room for me. Her gaze drifts to Toast, and once she has the door shut behind me, she grabs the pink bag that’s stuffed full now that Sloane shoved my coat in it.
I drop the bag on the ground, then bend down to put Toast’s bed in the corner. I gently put her down on it so she knows she can be here, then I turn back to Addison. “Is it okay if I sleep here tonight?”
“Of course.” She nods, sitting down on the edge of the empty bed. “What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t talk about it,” I amend, shaking my head. “I’m so drained, I just want to to go to sleep.”
“Of course.” She stands up. “We can talk tomorrow.” Her gaze drifts to my bag. “We should unpack some of your stuff quickly though, so you can go to sleep.”
I nod my agreement, but I can’t seem to move.
She waits a minute, and when I just stand here like a glitching robot, she says, “I’ll do it.”
I watch, feeling a bit detached, as she takes all the things I brought with me out of the big pink bag. It’s a random assortment of crap because I grabbed mindlessly, but she tries to organize them on the desk.
When she gets to the bottom, she puts the empty bag in my closet with my coat, then turns back to me. “I didn’t see a blanket.”
I look at the empty bed, realizing it’s stripped completely bare and I didn’t even think to grab a pillow.
Perfect.
“I have a basket of blankets,” Addison says quickly, going back to her corner and grabbing a woven basket she keeps between her bed and the door. She brings the basket over to me and holds it up. “Take whatever you need.”
“Thank you,” I say softly. “I hate to ask, but you don’t happen to have an extra pillow, do you?”
“Of course I do. I even have an extra Squishmallow if you want one.”
I crack the tiniest smile. “I’m okay, but thanks.”
“You sure?” she asks, reaching back and holding up a cute fluffy cow. “He’ll be lonely over here anyway.”
“Well… if you’re going to twist my arm, I guess I could use a cuddle buddy.”
She hands me the stuffed animal, and I tell her, “Thank you so much.”
She knows I mean for much more than the Squishmallow, but she plays it cool. “Of course. If you don’t need anything else, I’m going to get back in bed. I have a sadistic professor who creates equally sadistic pop quizzes every Tuesday, and I need some sleep to be ready for it.”
“Of course. Go to sleep. I’m gonna do that, too.”
“Good. Don’t forget to set your alarm if you need to.”
“Oh. I’m glad you said that,” I murmur, looking around. “Did I even bring my phone?”
“It’s on your desk. If you need to borrow a charger, there’s a purple lightning cord in the top right drawer of my desk.”
“Thank you. You’re a lifesaver.”
“No problem at all. G’night, Brynn.”
“Good night.”