“WHAT DO YOU WANT?”
Her gaze dropped. She shifted uncomfortably.
“I… I was…”
“What were you going to do, Andrea?” I practically shouted. “Follow me around town all week? Beat me up? Boil my rabbit?”
Her thick brows came together in confusion. “B—Boil your rabbit?”
“Forget it!” I cried. “Honestly, what’s the end game here? You terrified me last week! What could possibly compel you to follow me through the City? You’ve been stalking me at work, putting all kinds of terrible ideas in my head…”
Her nose twitched and then it happened: a tear formed in the corner of one eye. It rolled down her cheek, even as a second and third tear joined it on the other side.
She was crying.
Fifty-Seven
HOLLY
“I— I don’t even know what I’m doing…” Andrea choked. I could tell she was totally exasperated. “I don’t have a clue, really.”
My first instinct was to hold her, to make her stop. To wrap my arms around her, the way girls do.
Are you kidding, Holly?
Whatever it was, she was monumentally upset. She was still a person. I wanted to fix it.
“Why are you crying?” I asked, my tone suddenly a lot more gentle. “I’m the one getting stalked here.”
Andrea shook her head. More tears dropped from her jaw, dripping down her jacket.
“I just… I don’t…”
All of a sudden I had a hand on her shoulder — a gentle hand this time. It was nuts! But still, something inside me told me it was right.
“Here.”
I handed her a tissue from my pocket. I had no idea if it was clean or not, but she took it anyway.
“Walk with me.”
Before I knew it, we were back on the path. Andrea was dragging her feet now, but we were still walking side by side.
“Look,” I sighed. “I get it. It’s hard, breaking up with someone. Especially if they’re the one who broke up with you. But you don’t—”
“I have to see him every day!” Andrea cried suddenly. “I have to look into his eyes!”
There was a lot of pain in her voice. A lot of frustration.
I took pity on her.
“I sit there miserably while he ignores me in the living room,” Andrea went on. “And he avoids me like the plague whenever we’re both home.”
“I get it.”
“No, you don’t get it it,” she countered. “It’s torture! It’s—”
“Yeah, but you can’t just go all totally psycho!” I shot back. “Do you know how you look, Andrea? Did you see what you did to his room?” She stared down again, at her shuffling feet. “No wonder why he avoids you!”