December 19
Great Falls, Montana
She cut her hair. No. She butchered it. All of it gone.
Kevin knew this because he’d been keeping tabs on her.
Stalker. That was the word that aptly described him.
Digital stalker. He generally hated social media.
If it weren’t for Perry, he wouldn’t even have an account.
Yet now he was on some sort of site every day, sometimes until three in the morning.
Hour after hour, day after day, all he did was stare at her pictures, read her posts over and over again.
It didn’t help that some of his clothes still smelled like her.
Crazy stalker. Obsessive stalker. Dying-to-speak-to-her-just-one-more-time kind of stalker.
It was torture, but he’d become somewhat of an expert on self-inflicted pain.
A few days ago, Connie had posted a long thank-you letter on her wall.
Jazz had asked her dad to start a bursary program and South Star had donated a substantial amount of money to Connie to pay for Beth’s college tuition.
Connie was just the first of many. They’d returned from their trip nine days ago and Jasmin was already doing great things.
It was a good reminder of why he’d ended it. She was flourishing and he, being the miserable prick that he was, would have only brought her down. Now more than ever, he knew he’d made the right decision to cut ties, kill everything they had. She’d been through enough and was better off without him.
She’d made amends with her father, started a new program, and somehow still managed to socialize with the locals at a karaoke bar. All in the space of nine days. He’d known it wouldn’t take long for her to get over him and she was happy now. Very happy.
Seeing pictures of her and that…Dalton guy was like a punch to the throat. He had his arm around her while they sang, and there were pictures of them laughing and being all cutesy.
Kevin clicked through picture after picture, his jaw growing tighter as he gritted his teeth. He couldn’t stand seeing them together and yet he couldn’t look away. That’s what he’d lost. No. That’s what he’d thrown away. But for good reason.
She was happy. That was all he wanted. He wanted her to forget about him, and all the toxic shit that came with him, and just be happy.
It didn’t matter that his chest was so heavy he could barely breathe.
It didn’t matter that it was killing him to see her with someone else. She was the only thing that mattered.
He grabbed his phone from the side table and scrolled through his contact list. Just like every other day, he had to resist the urge to call her.
He should’ve deleted her number when he deleted his off her phone, because he played this game with himself all the time.
He wanted to call her to apologize. He was trying his best to make things right with everyone around him—his mother, Momma B.
He’d apologized to Dom and finally held that ball with Kay.
It felt like he was beginning to heal, but as one part of his life came together, the other continued to fall apart.
He couldn’t make it right with Jasmin and regret was eating at him as much as the guilt.
Every day as his finger hovered nervously over her name, all he did was look up at the computer screen and that alone reminded him to stay out of her life.
She was much happier without him. He scrolled past her name and typed out a text to someone else.
Even as he pressed send, he knew it was a stupid idea, but at that moment he didn’t care.
He wanted to distract himself with something else, stop thinking about Jasmin for just one night.
Kevin: R U at home?
It took a few minutes before she responded.
Claire: Yeah. I’ve been waiting 4U to come by
Kevin: I’ll be right over