Page 161 of Unbroken Rules (Rules 3)

My feet sink into the sidewalk.

She’s right there.

The girl who’s been haunting my every waking moment for ten months is right fucking there. On the other side of the street.

Winter.

My Winter.

My Winter who’s not mine anymore…

She’s walking out of a store, brown hair stopping at her belly button. She’s wearing a leather jacket—it’s starting to get cold out—and a white scarf. Her hair is longer. Much longer. And it’s brown again. I did like it black, but her brown hair was always more natural to me. She hasn’t seen me. I doubt that she will unless she looks directly into my direction. What is she even doing in this neighborhood?

She looks even more breathtaking than I remember. Shit, how does she look like that? I notice a few guys doing a double take as they pass her on the sidewalk. She doesn’t even come close to noticing, so clueless, so ignorant as to how flawless she is. Same old Winter. With her hands in her pockets, she absentmindedly kicks a rock on the sidewalk. She seems to be waiting for something. What are the chances? What are the odds that I would see her again in a city crawling with people?

Maybe it’s a sign.

I’m not sure why I do what I do next. But I don’t need to know. I don’t care to know. I just start walking, unable to control my feet as I cross the street with my eyes dead set on her. A car honks at me, but I’m so focused on getting to her that I barely hear it. I have no clue what I’m going to say. Hey, how have you been? Remember me? I’m your garbage, compulsive-liar ex-boyfriend?

My heartbeat increases considerably when I reach the sidewalk. But then…

Then it stops.

My legs deny me another step.

Who the fuck is that?

I watch the six-foot-something dark-haired guy who just walked out of the same store Winter did come up to her. I can’t see his face from where I am. But I don’t need to.

I see hers.

I see the way she smiles when he reaches for her hand and traps it into his. I see the way she laughs when he tells her something. I see how quickly he pulls her closer, cups her face, and kisses her. She kisses him back, pushing to her tiptoes for more.

Just like that… the shitty walls I spent a year building around myself come crashing down all at once.

They’re picked apart brick by brick until my selfish, beat-up, bruised heart is left completely uncovered.

Shit, I really lost her.

But for some reason, it’s just hitting me now, which is dumb because the year I spent without her should’ve made that clear already. No, the automated message I got when I called her the day after she walked out of Vic’s apartment should’ve made that clear.

The number you dialed is no longer in service.

She’d changed her number.

I was a mess for a good two months after that. Drinking, going out with Vic, trying to feel something other than pain in any way that I could. But then, I had to go back to Florida for a month and ran into Will randomly. He told me that one day, when the time was right, we’d figure our shit out. That he and his girlfriend were rooting for us.

From that moment forward, I began seeing this breakup as a pause, a detour. I kept clinging to the hope that eventually, after everything, after I’d have found Marcus, we’d be together again. But seeing her right now… smiling at another guy, laughing at his jokes, kissing him…

I swear I’d forgotten it was possible to hurt this much.

God, she’s so far gone.

She’s… someone else’s baby now.

Of course some other guy would show up and want to be with her. I mean, lo

ok at her. Plus, not every guy is as fucking stupid as I am. I bet she even has no problem sleeping with someone else, unlike me. I haven’t had sex in ten fucking months while she’s been dating someone this whole time.