Chapter 28
No. No. No.
The phone feels like a brick in my trembling hands. The screen blurs as tears I refuse to shed cloud my vision. The words on the display might as well be written in a foreign language because my brain refuses to process them.
This can't be happening.
This can't be real.
My world tilts on its axis and I grip Chris’s granite countertop so tight, my knuckles turn white. The cold stone beneath my palms is the only thing anchoring me to reality right now.
“Honey?” Chris's voice cuts through the static in my head. He's standing in the doorway of his kitchen, his brows drawn tight. “What's going on? Are you okay?”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. How do you explain that your life just imploded in under sixty seconds? That everything you believed just might be a lie?
My phone buzzes again.
Another unknown number.
I should throw the damn thing in the sink and break it, but my thumb is already moving, unlocking the screen.
Unknown: Told you to check Zach’s location. I’m embarrassed for you.
My vision tunnels. Murphy’s. That’s where Jenni said she was, and I could’ve sworn I heard him.
Panic claws at my throat as I swipe open the location-share app. I swore I’d only use this while he was away, but I need to know.
I need to know it’s all a lie.
Zach isn’t there. He’s with his coach… like he said.
When the map comes up, I choke on my own breath.
Two dots.
Zach.
Jenni.
Side by side.
At Murphy’s.
My chest caves in on itself. My stomach freefalls, crashing through bone and concrete until there’s nothing left but rubble.
Chris steps closer, worry etched all over his face, but his phone buzzes before he can say anything. He frowns at the display, swipes, and brings it to his ear.
That’s when the sobbing starts.
The sound that comes through the speaker isn't human. It's raw, broken, and animalistic. Jenni's sobs pierce through the phone with such intensity that I physically recoil.
“Chris,” she chokes out between gasps. “I—I need help.”
Chris straightens, his entire body going rigid. “Jenni? What’s wrong? Where are you?”
“I’m at Murphy’s,” she cries, the words fractured and frantic. “Zach—he—Fuck, I can’t even say it—he asked me to help plan a birthday party for Honey and then he—he tried to—” Her breath hitches. “He tried to kiss me.”
The words echo through the quiet kitchen, and suddenly it’s like all the air has been sucked out of the room. Chris’s eyes go wide as they flick from his phone to me, confusion etched across his face.
I don’t know. I don’t know what to think or what the hell is going on.
“No,” Chris says. “He wouldn’t do that. He’s in love with Honey.”
My own phone buzzes. Zach's name flashes across the screen, and something vicious and protective rears up inside me. I don't think. I just react, slamming my finger down on the decline button so hard I'm surprised the screen doesn't crack.
The silence that follows is deafening.
Chris is staring at his phone like it might bite him. Jenni's cries have dissolved into static, but neither of us moves to pick it up.
“I can't,” I whisper, the words scraping against my throat like broken glass. “I can't do this.”
I can’t sit around, waiting for another message to come through, proving that I’ve been an idiot all this time.
I don't wait for Chris to respond. I don't wait for anything. I just run.
Past the hockey players through the living room until I’m outside, sucking in the cold air.
The front door slams behind me with enough force to rattle the windows, but I don't care. I need air. I need space. I need to breathe.
The evening air hits my cheeks, sharp and cold against my flushed skin, but it's not enough. Nothing will ever be enough to wash away what I just learned.
I stumble down the driveway, my lungs failing me. My chest is a locked vice, my legs are jelly. Perfect lawns blur past me, and houses that probably contain people with normal problems. People who don't have their hearts ripped out and stomped on by the two people they trusted most in this college.
I stop at the end of the street, gasping like I’ve run a marathon instead of just a few hundred yards. My chest is tight, my lungs are burning, and I realize I'm hyperventilating.
Get it together, Honey. Falling apart won't change anything.
But even as I try to calm my breathing, my mind won't stop replaying it.
Zach said he was busy tonight. Meetings. Back-to-back. That's what he told me.
Jenni said she had a date. With some guy she'd been flirting with.
But they're both at Murphy's.
Together.
They planned this.
No. Zach wouldn’t do this. He’s been through it all with me. He held me while I broke down about feeling like I was disappearing. He told me I mattered. That I was enough.
He wouldn’t do that and then… this.
But the dots on the map don't lie. The location share doesn't make mistakes. He's there. With her. Right where Jenni said they were.
I press my palms against my eyes, trying to stop the spiral.
Maybe there's an explanation. Maybe it's not what it looks like. Maybe—
This is exactly what I told myself with Jamie, though. Right up until I couldn't deny it anymore. Right up until everyone else had already seen the truth and I was the last one to catch up.
Everyone else knows. The anonymous texts prove it. If I didn’t believe them, then they’ve also got photos. It would also explain why Jenni has been pushing Chris, planting seeds of doubt while playing the concerned friend.
What if I've been blind again? What if I’m the same stupid girl I was then? The one who trusts too easily, who wants so badly to believe the best in people that she ignores every red flag waving in her face.
The consolation prize.
Jonathan's words echo in my head, and for the first time, I wonder if he’s right. Maybe I am pathetic. Maybe I do make the same mistakes over and over because I don't know how to be anything else.
My phone buzzes again. Zach's name lights up the screen.
I stare at it, my thumb hovering over the answer button.
What would he even say? What excuse could possibly make this okay?
I don't know what to believe anymore. I don't know if I can trust my own judgment when it's failed me so catastrophically before.
I decline the call and turn off my phone entirely.
I can't do this. Not tonight. Not when I don't even trust myself to know what's real anymore.