Page 72 of Palm South University: Season 3

“Guys, please.” My voice is so small compared to theirs, like a bird chirp competing with a train horn.

“Sounds like someone’s threatened,” Adam shoots back. “Don’t worry, Grayson. Can’t steal a girl who doesn’t want to be stolen. You should be fine, since you spend so much time with her and really make her a priority in your life.”

“Not helping, Adam!” I shout as Grayson beats his fists on the table.

“Enough!” he growls, turning to me with wild eyes. “Do you love me?”

My voice cracks, throat thick with an unswallowable knot. “Of course.”

“I’m about to walk out that door.” He thrusts his finger toward the back door, the one Skyler and Clinton both blew out of earlier. “And if you love me like you say you do, you’ll come with me.”

He glares at Adam once more before doing exactly as he said he would. He doesn’t look back, doesn’t wait for me to come, just plows through the door, letting in the last sliver of fading sunlight before it shuts again, leaving Adam and me alone.

I don’t know how much time passes, how many times my heart beats and breaks before I look up from my hands at him. Seconds stretch into years, years reduced to just seconds as I watch one of my best friends try not to fall apart. The skin is stretched tight over his jaw, his eyes hard on the door, fists clenched at his side.

“Adam,” I whisper, throat raw.

“Just go.”

My eyes flood with tears, Adam’s face blurring as my heart splits in two, one jagged half breaking away from the other. “Please,” I beg. “Look at me.”

“What?” he snaps, tearing his eyes from the door to find mine. His chest is heaving, nose flaring. “You love him, right? So, go.”

I choke on a sob, tears spilling down my cheeks like boiling hot water, and I feel every scar they leave behind. “I don’t want it to be this way.”

“Well, it is.” His voice breaks but he clenches his jaw against it. “Go, Cassie.”

I cry harder, shaking my head.

“Go!”

Ripping myself from the chair, I try to ignore the pain in his voice as I turn my back on him, following Grayson out the back door. Something crashes to the floor behind me just before the door shuts, but I don’t look back. My arms crossed tight over my middle, I close my eyes, shuddering on a breath that burns with unfair reality more than it heals with oxygen.

I spot Grayson across the street, seated on a bench outside the Communications building. He breathes a sigh of relief when he sees me, standing, knowing then that I loved him enough to do as he asked. But with every step toward him, I hate myself more.

How long did I really expect it to last? How long could I expect Grayson to understand, knowing the way Adam feels… the way I feel?

It’s not unfair, what Grayson’s asking. It’s not unfair of him to feel the way he feels. But I still hate it all the same.

Because Adam was right — I didn’t lie. I do love Grayson.

But my heart still splits in two, because the words I didn’t say before I let him believe I chose another man over him will forever haunt me.

I do love him, but I love you, too.