“You’re losing your edge,” Ben said when we were back at the parking lot, guzzling the remainder of our water bottles. “I could’ve easily overtaken you on the way back.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Tradition? Courtesy?”
I tossed the empty water bottle onto the front seat of the car. I knew he was telling the truth; the whole way back I could feel him right behind me, and if he had gone to pass, I just wouldn’t have had it in me to hold him off. “So why didn’t you then? You could be gloating right now. Maybe I am losing my edge.”
“I don’t think so. But there is something going on.”
“Well, you’re right. You might as well know,” I said. “I broke things off with Allie.”
He gave me a surprised look. “You did?” he said. “Why the hell would you do something like that? I thought things were going great and shit.”
“The whole thing with Declan,” I said. “When we went to the city.” I shook my head. “I have never felt more afraid in my entire life. And it was my fault because I was too distracted with Allie.”
He kept looking at me, but not saying anything, as though he were waiting for me to continue. “So that’s what’s bothering me.”
“And...?”
“What do you mean?”
“What else happened? Don’t tell me you broke up with her just because Declan happened to wander off. Kids are always doing shit like that. That’s like saying you broke up with her because he picked his nose and tried to eat it.”
“Declan might pick his nose, but he doesn’t eat it.”
“Okay, fine, that was a bad example. But you get my point. What was the other reason you broke up with her for?”
“There wasn’t.”
“Oh, man.”
“What?” I said. “She’s single now. You can go date her.”
He regarded me as if he thought that last comment was in very poor taste, which it was. I held my hands up. “Never mind,” I said. “Just forget I mentioned anything.”
“No, I’m not trying to give you a hard time about it.”
“You’re not? Because that’s exactly what it seems like you’re doing. I don’t even need to have an acceptable answer for you, or my mother, or anyone, about why I broke up with her. I did it for my own reasons, and seeing as I was the one going out with her, that’s what matters.”
“You’re right,” Ben said. “Can’t argue that. And we can drop it after this. But if you’re telling me that you broke up with her just because of that, and you still have all the same feelings you did prior to this happening, well... that just seems pretty short-sighted to me.”
“Do I have a flashing sign over my head that says I am looking for relationship advice? I must, because that’s all anyone seems interested in talking to me about.”
He started to say something but I brushed past him, got my bike, threw it on the rack, got in the car, and drove off.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Allie
“You can’t just lie around and mope.” My mother stood in the doorway to the guest bedroom, looking down on me, both literally and figuratively. “You’ve been here for two whole days, and you’ve spent the majority of the time in this bedroom. Not acceptable. What happened with Cole is unfortunate, but you’ve got to get on with things. You can’t let this completely derail you. Now let’s get up; we’re going out.”
She strode across the room, threw the curtains back, and yanked up the blinds. Sunlight poured into the room, and I squinted against it, wanting nothing more than to burrow underneath these covers, hopefully for forever.
Was I being dramatic? Yes, I was, but I couldn’t help it. I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to pull myself out of this funk. Did I ever envision that I would be one of those people who simply could not function after a breakup? No. But then again, I’d never been broken up with before. Cole was my first for basically everything, and the fact that we were no longer together was more painful than I had ever imagined would be possible.
“Sweetie.”
My mother came over and sat down on the edge of the bed. She brushed my hair back from my face and waited until I was looking at her before she continued to speak. “I know things did not work out how you had hoped. How I had hoped. You and Cole are great tog