Broken Hill Hurt (Broken Hill High 3)

I pull out of his arms and climb off his lap. I sit on the edge of the bed and force myself to look up at him. “So, you’re calling it quits because I got a fucking ‘C’ on a test and a suspension for trying to break up a fight?” I demand.

He flies to his feet. “You nearly fucking died, Tora,” he yells. “I won’t have that on my conscious.”

Nate starts pacing the floor and I see the anger, hurt, and confusion clouding his mind, making me worry for the safety of my walls. After all, he’s no stranger to punching holes through walls when something isn’t going his way.

“So, that’s it?” I say as the tears really start to fall. “You’re giving up on us?”

“When it’s your safety and future in question, yeah. I won’t risk that for my own selfish needs.”

“What about my needs?” I yell, flying to my feet before him. “I need you, Nate. You’re my everything.”

“Don’t make this harder for me,” he begs.

“Then don’t do it at all,” I tell him. “I refuse to go down without a fight. I know you don’t want this.”

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” he says, stepping into me and pulling me in hard against his solid body. He kisses my forehead and doesn’t move his lips from me for a fraction too long. “I’m sorry, Tora,” he whispers as his voice begins to break. “I truly fucking love you, but we’re done.”

With that, he drops his arms from around me and walks out the door.

Sobs rip up my throat and completely overwhelm me as I crumbled down onto my bed.

How could he do that?

I’ve never felt heartache like this before.

He just… he left me. He finished something that had only just begun. We hardly had a chance to get started. I thought I had the rest of my life to love him. If I knew it was only going to last a few months, I would have loved him harder. I would have made him my whole world.

My mind swirls with a million different things. Each and every one of them to do with Nate yet, somehow, it’s a jumbled mess that I can’t even begin to understand.

How could he just tear my world apart like that?

I thought we were solid. He was it for me. I had our whole future planned out, and now it’s…. nothing. That future doesn’t even exist.

I will never move on from this. I will never find an earth-shattering, overwhelming, all-consuming, explosive love like this again and instead of thinking about how damn in love I am when I think about him, all I’m going to remember is that he’s the boy who crushed my soul. He tore me to shreds and didn’t look back.

Five years of teasing and bullying, five years of secretly giving me everything I’ve ever needed, five years of watching me from a distance and wishing I was his just thrown away because my dad got in his head.

Five years of loving me tossed aside.

I’ll never forgive him for this.

I’ve always stood by Nate. Every damn decision he’s ever made, I’ve backed him one hundred percent, but this one time, I don’t agree. He should have fought for us. He shouldn’t have let my father get in his head. This isn’t right. We belong together like peanut butter and jelly. He’s the moon to my sky and the king to my queen.

And yet, here I am wondering how the hell he could do this.

My tears quickly soak through my pillow as the pain in my chest continues to torture me. It was only a week ago that Puck pumped my heart for me, but for the first time, I’m wishing he didn’t. If I knew I’d be feeling this way just a week later, I’d have begged him to let me go.

I don’t want this life, not without Nate by my side.

He’s my world. My heart. And now it’s nothing.

I want to hate him so bad, but I can’t all I have for him is a deep, ingrained love that completely consumes me. How will I ever get past that?

I don’t know how long I stay crumpled on my bed, but my door eventually opens and for the briefest second, I think it might be Nate coming back to tell me this was some sick joke, but it’s not. It’s Brooke and the second she sees me, she collapses down beside me and pulls me into her arms. “What’s wrong?” she gasps, holding me tight. “Are you hurt?”

She’ll never understand just how hurt I truly am.

“He left me,” I say through my sobs.

“What?” she questions quietly. “Who left you. Your dad? Did he go back?”

“No,” I cry. “Nate. He broke up with me. He just… he left me.”

“What?” she gasps in disbelief. “No. He wouldn’t. He loves you more than life itself.”