Chapter 1
Chapter One
ALEX
“I’m not sure this is working anymore.”
I wasn’t sure anything in life was working anymore. This was just another thing to add to the list.
“Okay,” I muttered, my dignity being the only thing stopping me from begging him to stay. “Is it me?”
“No.” My boyfriend—wait, ex-boyfriend—stood before me. Killian’s blonde hair lay messily on top of his head as his lips pressed into a thin line. “Well, I don’t know, Alex. I think we need space.”
Which felt crazy to me because I never got the impression that we needed time apart until a month ago. We were close throughout high school, any distance between us feeling like we had been thrown straight into Hell. Then we go to college for a year, and suddenly it’s too much togetherness?
Killian was my first boyfriend, and I thought he’d be my last. Stupid me, apparently.
While I couldn’t say that I did not see this coming, it didn’t make it feel any better. My heart contorted into a shriveled-up piece of paper inside my chest the moment he asked, “Can we talk?” It, like I, already knew what was to come.
The walls inside my throat clenched, and each swallow felt like a golf ball forcing its way down my esophagus. As much as it was paining me to ask, I wanted to know. I needed a real reason for why he wanted things to end between us.
Vague answers that left me wondering and speculating felt like pins and needles poking at my brain—I hated them. No matter how bad the reason, it was better than being left in the dark.
“Can you give me more than that?” The fabric of the couch squeaked against my skin as I adjusted myself, pulling my knees to my chest and hugging them.
“I don’t know, Alex.” He let out a frustrated sigh. “I just don’t want to do this anymore.”
I choked down the lump in my throat and nodded once. Kill had never been one to elaborate, especially when it made things uncomfortable. Maybe I’d never get to know what changed my boyfriend’s feelings for me. Did he get bored? Was there someone else?
Am I to blame?
I pushed the racing thoughts to the back of my head as best I could because now was not the time to send myself into the mess that was my mind. There was always time to overthink when I was alone. Not when in the face of the man who was holding my heart in his palm, slowly crushing it.
Killian ran a hand through his hair, his eyes softening in a mix between guilt and empathy. “I’m not trying to be an ass, okay? I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“Yeah.” Only my eyes fell to the ground, but it felt like my whole body was falling. “If that’s what you want, Killian.”
“But you will always mean the world to me.” He kneeled before me and put his hands in mine before squeezing tight. “I don’t want you to think I never loved you. I did so damn much, Alex. This will be better for both of us, I really believe that.”
“Did.” I can’t help but whisper the word.
My ex paused, and his hands that used to feel so warm in mine but now felt strange, loosened. “Do. I still do love you, and all the time we spent together meant everything to me. I’m sorry.”
“All the time we spent together meant everything to me.” Did it, though?
It baffled me how one could spend countless hours, days, even years with someone and then toss them aside like they were shit on the bottom of their shoe.
I wasn’t an idiot. I knew people could change, drift apart, or simply get bored in a relationship.
The vast majority of relationships fail, so in a way, it was inevitable.
Still, to be with someone for five years and then suddenly believe things weren’t working out made little sense to me.
It couldn’t only be a “feeling,” it was something more.
All of that time together meant absolutely nothing to him, while it meant everything to me.
Maybe I simply grew too attached to a high school relationship doomed to fail.
Or perhaps it hit so hard because it wasn’t the first time someone I cared deeply for had abruptly ended things without any explanation.
But at some point, you had to accept that people lose each other and there would never be shit you could do about it.
I liked to tell myself that over the three long months after Killian and I split, I finally accepted that fact.
But it didn’t matter how much I lied to myself—it never felt true because it never was.
The chaos and stress of classes were the only things keeping me from spending my evenings wallowing in self-pity while thinking about him.
The fall semester started only two weeks ago, and I was already drowning in work. I sat with my friend in the library as he tried to explain the bits I was confused about. Unfortunately for him, I was confused about everything.
Somewhere down the line of endless torture, we switched from studying biology to my friend relaying his issues to me about his boyfriend and the state of their dorm. Even though they’d been living together for months, he was only now concluding that he wasn’t as clean as he once thought.
“Y’know, I kind of assumed Eli was the cleanest out of his siblings, but living with him makes me think maybe it was his sister keeping the house in shape.
” The pencil in Javier’s hand swung as he spoke absentmindedly.
“He isn’t a slob or anything, but I think when we lived with my parents, he was on his best behavior.
Now that it’s just us in our dorm, he doesn’t have to perform as much. ”
“Crazy,” I muttered, eyes lulling over the textbook.
“Yeah,” he drawled. With eyes peering at me, he set his pencil down and sighed, blowing strands of his black hair upward. “Sorry, you want to study, and I’m completely distracted.”
I leaned back in my chair, shoulders tense and jaw clenched. “It’s fine. I’m not getting it anyway.”
I slammed the laptop shut with a huff. I had a tough time in biology last semester, getting two failing grades on the exams and a low C on the final. It definitely was not my brightest work.
Javier insisted on studying with me when he learned I almost failed Intro to Biology. He was a year younger than me, but already in the second biology course, able to skip the first with all the college credits he earned in high school.
Little did my friend know, I was fucking helpless when it came to anything science-related. It was unfunny just how terrible I was at the subject. But one thing my high school valedictorian friend and his salutatorian boyfriend were not going to do was let me go down without a fight.
Javier’s boyfriend, Eli, had his own exam today, so he couldn’t join the study session. Javier and I had been studying for almost two hours, and in that time, he successfully taught me to do a total of two problems. So, yay me.
“You did good.” He slapped my shoulder with a grin. “Wanna stop by the dining hall for food?”
After two long hours of saying, ‘What the fuck does this even mean?’ I believed I earned it.
Javier and I gathered our belongings before heading to the campus dining hall.
It had just hit dinnertime, but the building was already filled with students.
Long lines at each station, continuous chatter at every table, and the inability to move without almost running into someone—just as I expected.
“This is why I don’t come here around five,” I said, unsure if he heard me in the loudness of the cafeteria.
“Salad bar is the shortest.” He gestured at the salad bar.
It was the least filling option for dinner, but it was also what could get in my mouth the quickest. “Alright.”
The blended smell of burgers, chicken, and gravy hit me all at once while we stood in line, the scents attacking my nostrils aggressively.
I stuffed my hands into my pockets and turned around, forgetting that there were people who had continued the line behind me.
My eyes awkwardly fell on the guy behind me, and I immediately darted my eyes.
Then it dawned on me whose eyes mine had just landed on—the ones I’d spent months trying to avoid and forget. The pit in my stomach did not stop me from spinning back around and feeling the need to put on a presentable smile.
“Hey, Killian,” I greeted stiffly.
Killian’s lips tugged up slightly but barely stayed for a second. “Hey.”
And then silence. Javier was now watching Killian, the two settling for a mumble of a greeting. The way my heart was squeezing itself inside of my chest could not be normal, and neither could the abnormal amount of sweat in my palms. Would it be socially unacceptable to bury my head in the sand?
Goosebumps prickled at the back of my neck, and I awkwardly rubbed it.
“Funny seeing you here, right? I mean, you’re here of all places at the same time that I am, and you also wanted a salad just like Javier and I did, even though there are plenty of other food choices—you chose the same as us because it’s a… big coincidence.”
I took a sharp inhale after my incessant rambling had finally ended, and I just knew the tips of my ears were pink. Over the years, I had gotten a lot better at keeping myself from word vomiting when uncomfortable, but it always had its way of coming back.
Killian nodded upward. “Lines moving.”
At least he didn’t acknowledge it.
There was a huge gap between the people waiting ahead in line and us, thanks to my ridiculous rambling. Taking away the chance to make a fool out of myself again, I focused on making my salad alongside Javier.
My hands shook the entire time I scooped the brown-tinted lettuce and poured heaping amounts of ranch all over to cover it. Meanwhile, Kill fixed his food as if it were just another Tuesday.