I quickly stepped backwards and half-hid behind an overgrown bush, feeling it scrape along my legs. My mouth opened and small puffs of air escaped me. I felt like I had just been hit by a bus, multiple times. Seeing him with another girl, Breanna, at that, three weeks after my life felt like it had ended, was the tip of the freaking iceberg and I was sinking way faster than the Titanic.
Part of me wanted to run over and scream at him and ask how he could betray our friendship like that, especially right after he’d kissed me and made me believe that he had stronger feelings than just friendship toward me. But the little bit of strength had me pulling rational thoughts of out the deepest parts of my brain and keeping me hunched behind the greenery.
It didn’t matter if I ran over to him right now so he could give some sane, normal excuse as to why he was walking my worst enemy (whom I really didn’t give two shits about any longer) out of his house, and to her car, which was parked RIGHT beside his Camaro. He could protest with some elaborate, amazing response that had me nodding my head in understanding; “Oh, Breanna was just here for,” … yeah, I had nothing.
But the reality of the situation would outweigh any excuse he had. What the heck would Dawson do with me now? I was completely torn inside. Broken. And at the moment, I was feeling completely and irrevocably unfixable.
I thought he was the only person who would be able to put me back together but I was wrong.
I was going to have to do that on my own.
If there had been anything left of me still unbroken, Dawson had just finished the job. It was clear that he didn’t need me as badly as I needed him and I wasn’t about to pull him under, too. Seeing him with Breanna did do something for me though: it made me angry. So freaking angry that I felt my blood boiling underneath my skin. Like my veins were surging with fire.
And that was good.
Because anger was something. I could use it as my shield. I could use it as a lifeline, like I was using the burning edges of the rope to pull myself out of a certain Hell. I’d use the anger to pull myself out of this godawful mess.
I didn’t need anyone to help me. I would put myself back together on my own.
Dawson and I had been right the night we’d kissed.
Things were definitely going to change.
Chapter Nine
PRESENT
Ivy
As I stood in front of my new (to me) home, I honestly felt at peace. It may have been slightly crappier than all the other homes that lined the street but at least it was mine, and at least it was in a town that I have been in love with since I was born.
I didn’t think I’d ever be able to come back here. I hadn’t stepped foot in this town for the last six years but then all of a sudden, when the
re was a job offer for me here, I didn’t have a second thought about coming back.
It worked out perfectly. My old neighbor, Judy, who worked at the main bank in our town, had called and told me that there was an opening for an accountant. She knew that I would be perfect for it; I had graduated with honors from my community college and then gone on to complete my BA at an online school while I worked my way up in a bank up north. And not to mention all the practice I’d had with balancing money and figuring things out. I’d finally gotten my Uncle Timothy on his feet after a couple years of us struggling with his debt and gambling issues.
“Well, it looks…” I turned to glance at Mia who was standing with one eyebrow lifted and her mouth set in a grim line. “It looks… nice?”
I laughed. “Relax, I’m going to fix it up, as soon as possible. Just be happy that you can come here on your breaks instead of a tiny two-bedroom house up north with Uncle Timothy.”
“His house wasn’t that bad,” she protested, looking back at my house again. “We’re still going to visit him on holidays. Right?”
My heart softened. “Of course. He did take care of us…” I paused. “Well, I guess I should say that we all took care of each other during the last six years. He’ll miss us more than he’ll admit.”
She chuckled. “Yeah, he’ll miss the breaker always needing turned back on after we’d run our hair dryer and straightener at the same time.”
I threw my head back and let out a loud laugh. Poor Uncle Timothy. He had gone from being a gambling, recovering alcoholic, living on his own as a gas station attendee, to raising two teenage girls who’d just lost their parents and were completely broken. He hadn’t been the best guardian… but he definitely got an A for effort.
Mia and I both filled our arms with overstuffed cardboard boxes and heaved them through the entrance of my house. It smelled like dust and mildew, but I could work with that. Nothing a little lavender scented Fabuloso couldn’t cover up.
Once we had all the boxes in the house (which took us a lot longer than I would like to admit, considering there weren’t very many) we scattered them around my bare living room and both collapsed onto the ground.
“I wish you and Eric hadn’t broken up. He could have carried all these in here while we stood mindlessly by the door, pointing in which direction they needed to go.” Mia huffed, causing her golden-brown hair to fly up past her forehead.
I let out a sad sigh, thinking about Eric.
Eric was my boyfriend of the last year and a half. We’d met one day at a coffee shop while I was trying to work through my statistic homework. I ended up breaking my pencil in half from the sudden burst of anger I’d felt when I kept getting an equation wrong. The snapping of the wood wasn’t all that loud but apparently, he’d heard it.