Page 8 of Point of Contention

She slammed the door and I jumped, but a split second later, her arm slinked around my shoulders as she guided me toward the stoop. As I took the first stair, I looked up and my heart shattered into pieces.

Professor Clements stood in the open doorway, looking down at us. His expression was pensive, a hint of sadness in his deep golden-brown eyes. He didn’t meet my gaze for long, and his inability to look at me tightened a fist around my heart.

In his disappointment, I saw myself through his eyes.

A broken shell of who I was only a month ago.

No longer did he look at me and see the determined girl who was about to take the publishing world by storm.

Because she wasn’t here. I wasn’t her anymore.

I’d lost her somewhere between meeting Cabot Reed and bending over a spanking horse for him.

He didn’t say a word as we ascended the steps. Didn’t even meet my gaze as I stepped past him inside the house. His intent focus was on the town car at the curb, and as I crossed the threshold, I remembered something Cabot had once said.

Swiveling my head, I looked between Professor Clements and the black car, wondering for the first time what his connection to Cabot was. When Cabot first dropped me off here, he’d known who the old brownstone belonged to and questioned why I hadn’t used the professor as a reference on my internship application. I’d assumed he just knew of him because of the publishing industry and the small bookish world in New York because Professor Clements was a well-known educator at Columbia and had been since long before I was born. I’d never bothered to ask if their connection went deeper than merely an awareness of one another.

I almost laughed at that thought. I hadn’t askeda lotof things.

Each step further away from the black town car at the curb felt like stepping out of a fog. I’d been completely stupefied by Cabot Reed. Consumed by him, obsessed with him. Willing to lose everything for just a taste of him.

And I’d succeeded in doing just that.

By the time we reached my room upstairs, my legs felt like molasses and exhaustion tugged at my limbs. I crawled into bed and curled up beneath the blankets, turning my back to the door. Greer tucked the covers around me and leaned down to kiss my temple. Then she smoothed my hair and whispered, “It’ll all be okay. We’ll figure it out.”

The problem was, I’d already figured it out. The moment that announcement was made, I think I knew.

Listening to her footsteps retreat, I squeezed my eyes shut as pain ripped through my chest. As soon as the door closed, the first sob shook my shoulders and I released the tears I’d held back all morning. Agony and regret tore at my chest. Guilt and shame took their turns at me, too. Ripped open, I felt at once hollow and empty, yet stuffed full of these warring, horrible feelings.

And beneath the battering of emotions, the ache of loss blossomed slowly in my chest.

So much loss.

The loss of my dreams. The internship that would have catapulted my career.

The loss of a man I’d only just met, and a love I had only just glimpsed.

Because I knew in this moment, after everything that had happened since the moment we met, the good and the bad, from the way he’d eclipsed all rational thought, the way he’d stepped into my life and filled it until there was no room for anything else, I knew that I couldn’t keep him.

Not if I wanted to keep myself.

Hours later, when I could ignore my screaming bladder no longer, I finally uncurled myself from the fetal position and stretched. Everything ached, a physical,palpablethrobbing that stemmed from my chest.

I’d experienced heartbreak before, plenty of times, but this was something else entirely.

I couldn’t breathe deeply enough to fill my lungs without a flash of pain.

For the first time in years, I desperately needed my mom.

After washing my hands, I dared to look up into the mirror. Mascara darkened circles around my eyes and trailed down my cheeks. Redness and puffiness distorted my features. I took a moment to wash my face and brush my teeth, desperate for normalcy.

When I stepped out of the bathroom, I glanced up at the arrangement of three circular iron muntins in the wall; no light shone through the colorful stained glass. I had no idea what time it was when I knocked on Greer’s door, or if she’d even be home. Was it still Monday? I couldn’t recall if she had a shift tonight.

“Come in.”

I opened the door and found her propped up on pillows, her phone in one hand and the television remote in the other. She muted the television and patted the bed beside her.

I closed the door and padded over to her, then crawled onto the bed and pulled my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them as I rested my head on my knees and looked at my best friend.