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“And why do you have to leavenow,when next semester is three months away?”
“You could come. Spend the summer with me at home.” Her expression looks hopeful, but she knows I can’t.
“I can’t afford to, and you know that.”
“Mom and Dad would—”
“No.” I shake my head. “No.” I could never take more from them than they’ve already given me. They already pay for my dorm with Addy, even when she’s gone in the summers, and they have groceries delivered weekly, and our meal plans on campus have been paid for by them, too, and it’s already more than I feel comfortable accepting when they’ve done so much for me by simply being there.
But now Addy is leaving.
She’s leavingme.
My bruised and battered heart falls into the pit of my stomach as it bottoms out.
I know it isn’t the right response. I know I should understand, and be supportive, I do. But my thoughts are running a directpath from my brain to my heart—being crushed beneath the weight of my disappointment—and my own sadness, my own frustration, my own anger, reaches a boiling point.
I wrench my arms away from her and spread them wide. “Together, Addy. That was the whole point! Living in the big city, sharing a dorm, experiencing it all—together!I applied here to be withyou.And now you’re just going to leave, like it doesn’t fucking matter?”
LikeIdon’t matter.
My tears fall with such intensity I can’t see two feet in front of me. Addy is a blur of curly hair, and two hands reaching up to cover her face, her shoulders shaking as she starts to cry, too.
“It matters. So much. This is the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make,” her voice wavers in the onslaught of her tears.
And I believe her. Deep down, I do. But it feels like she’s abandoning me, choosing someone else over me—the one person in the world I thought would never.
I tell her so, and then I storm out of our dorm room.
I burst out onto the sidewalk.
And crash straight into Jude.
______
Jude
I jumped on a flight as soon as Boss told me the news.
Great news,for him and Addy, but I know Declan. I know how much she’s been struggling these past few months, I know how much Addy means to her, and I know how much this is going to wreck her.
I make it to the door of her building just as she comes tumbling out of it, crashing into me.
Blue, sad, exhausted eyes meet mine.
“Jude? What the hell? You’re really here?” Her tone softens with her last statement, and I know I made the right call.
I swipe at her tears with my thumbs. “I’m here.”
“How did you—why—I don’t understand.” She shakes her head as more tears spill free.
“I heard about Addy moving, and I didn’t want you to be alone when she left. I knew how upset you’d be, and I—”
She shuts down immediately, and I watch it happen with a sinking feeling in my gut. She shutters herself, shuttingmeout. Something she’s been doing too often lately.
“Don’t do that, Little D. Don’t shut me out.”
“But I don’t want to do this right now,” her words splinter apart at the seams. She crosses her arms at her chest, turns on her heel, and walks away. “I can’t,” she cries.