Page 114 of Don't Say You're Sorry

THREE AND A HALF YEARS AGO

I’m sitting in the dark on the living room floor, my back against the back of the couch in the apartment Adam and I were supposed to move into. I got the keys this week. I was going to surprise him today after Axel left for London. It was supposed to cheer him up. Our freshman year doesn’t start for another three months, but I wanted us to move in early so we could spend the summer here, just him and me. Finally, we’d have a place where we didn’t have to sneak around and hide the way we felt about each other. Where we could justbetogether, unafraid and unashamed.

But now he’s gone. And all I’m left with is this cold, empty apartment and the drawing he left me.

Sunshine,

I’m not sorry.

Love, Adam x

I throw it across the floor.

It’s dark outside. I have no idea how long I’ve been sitting here, calling and texting him and getting no reply. It feels like hours.

“Easton?” a panicked voice calls, and I tense, holding my breath. “Easton, I know you’re in here.”

Fuck. It’s Veronica. She sounds worried sick. Has she been out looking for me all day? She tried to call me a few times, but I didn’t answer. I texted her that I was out with friends and would be home later. Clearly, she didn’t believe the lie.

There’s no time for me to hide before she rounds the couch, her shoulders dropping with relief. That relief is short-lived when she sees whatever look is on my face.

“Easton,” she whispers, taking a cautious step closer.

My face crumples as two tears slip down my cheeks. When I speak, I almost choke on the words falling out of my mouth unbidden. “He left me, Mom.”

Her lip trembles as she sits beside me and wraps her arms around me. I hide my face in the spot between her neck and shoulder, and she rubs my back, just like she used to do whenever I got hurt when I was younger.

“Is there anything I can do?”

I stare at the drawing on the floor across the room. “Can you call him? He’s not answering me.”

She hesitates, and it makes me love her even more.

“You don’t have to make him speak to me if he doesn’t want to. I just want to know he’s okay.”

She takes her phone out, calls his number, and presses it to her ear. I hear the faint sound of his voicemail picking up. It doesn’t even ring.

He’s already on the plane.

Veronica wraps her arms around me again. She holds me until I stop crying.

CHAPTER 39

EASTON

PRESENT

At home, Adam, Carter, and I are standing on the driveway while Axel paces in front of us. Carter’s gaze never leaves him, slowly following him back and forth. He’s been helping us look for Veronica. I can’t tell whether he’s as concerned for her as we are or whether he’ll just take any excuse to be near Axel. Knowing Carter, it’s probably both.

“Where do you think she would go?” Axel asks no one in particular.

I have no idea. We already checked her bookstore and the local coffee shop she loves that’s not far from it. Other than that, I don’t know where she’d be hiding. My dad knows her better than we do, but he’s having no luck either.

“You don’t think she’s at the airport, do you?” Adam whispers to me.

I shake my head. Just as I’m about to tell him she wouldn’t do that—she wouldn’t leave us—my phone buzzes with a text.

Dad: I found her. She’s at Sophie’s house.