“Tell me about Ethan. What did they do to him?”

“I can’t.” His eyes closed tight. “I wish I could. I do. I really do, but I can’t.”

It was done. No matter what I did, he wasn’t going to tell me and I couldn’t stay there knowing there was something about Ethan I should’ve known. A bitter laugh wrung from me. “This is f**king poetic.”

“What is?”

“You and me. Ethan wanted us apart when he was living and now he’s dead, and it’s working. Guess he won.”

“Alex, no.” Jesse dropped to the bed and caught his head in his hands. His elbows went back to his knees and his fingers grabbed hold of his hair. He started to rock back and forth. “Don’t say that. It’s not like that. If I could tell you, I would. I promise I would. There isn’t anything I haven’t told you—”

“Except this!”

He visibly flinched.

I swallowed back more tears. They were there, ready to spill. I couldn’t, not then. But I would. I promised myself, as soon as I got into the car, I could let them spill all they wanted. My voice wobbled, “Jesse, please just tell me.”

“I can’t,” he whispered back. His eyes were filled with misery.

“This is really what you’re doing? You really can’t tell me? I’m going, Jesse. This can’t keep happening, not if you don’t tell me.”

I felt Ethan again. He was in the room with us, haunting us so much. Would he have been happy by this? I’d never know.

“I can’t tell you, but I’m going to try and make it up to you.” Jesse grabbed my arm and hauled me in his lap. He wrapped both arms around me and buried his head into my shoulder. I felt his lips against my skin. “I’ll make it right. I promise.”

“You can make it right by just telling me.”

His arms tightened. He didn’t say the words, but I heard them spoken in silence. He couldn’t. It was all he’d been saying from the beginning and now I understood why this moment hadn’t happened how it should’ve been. My secret was out. Jesse’s should be out. He knew I would leave. It’s why he had kept it hidden for so long.

My heart splintered in half as I turned and pressed my lips to his forehead. Then I slipped from his hold. I didn’t say goodbye. I just left, but it was the same as the last time I left him. A part of me stayed in that room with him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

When I returned to my dorm room, I knocked. I wasn’t sure what was going on inside and I’d been glad I did. Hannah opened the door. Her jaw dropped, but then a guy rushed from her bed and out the door. She’d only had enough time to yell at him about a Kari girl before he was gone. The alarms went off in the next minute. Guess he’d gone through the backdoor. After that, everyone had woken up and we were called into a mandatory dorm meeting. Kara had been surprised to see me, as I was with her. I thought she had spent the night with Derek, but I never explained myself. Hannah figured out what happened by all my bags and so had Kara. I wasn’t sure what Jesse said to the guys, but I never asked either.

Cord was the one that answered that when he saw me in class the next week. Jesse hadn’t said a word to anyone. No one would’ve even known I had left if it hadn’t been for Kara. I wasn’t sure if I was happy to hear that or hurt even more. And then class with him and Jaime had taken another turn. The girls on my dorm spread the word about the break-up, if that was what it had actually been, so the girls in our class started to throw insults my way. At first, it was just a word I caught in their conversation, like whore, or skank. It was loser most of the times. They were outright calling me pathetic by the end of the week. Jamie was the first to rip into them. He chewed them out, followed by a quick appraisal of how they fit into those descriptions based from his first-hand knowledge. Then he followed that by one phrase, “Back off, bitches.”

Cord cast me an amused look.

I would’ve shared the same feeling if I hadn’t been painfully aware that Jesse still hadn’t called. He hadn’t texted. He hadn’t emailed. He hadn’t even sent a message through Kara, who checked in on me daily since I left.

Finals passed. Everyone left for Christmas break. I had been planning to stay at Jesse’s during the holiday break so I never considered going home. They still had games so everyone was going to celebrate the holiday together, but considering my situation, I was shit out of luck. The dorms shut down so I went home to an empty and cold house.

I expected to be alone for the entire break.

I was wrong.

Angie came over the day after Christmas. Marissa came the next day. Even Eric made an appearance. Things were better with my friends, but there was still a strained tension. I never told them about Jesse. Angie never asked and Marissa had never known I was living with him. Eric asked if I could go for dinner one night and I went, but it was just as friends. I made that clear. Towards the end of the first week home, Angie’s boyfriend had a party. It was a small one in his family’s cabin. She made me go and being back at Justin’s family cabin had been weird. Marissa was there with Sarah Shastaine, who hated me even more after Marissa told her that Jesse had been sneaking around with me again. After Sarah got drunk, she followed me around and asked questions about Jesse. The entire night went like that. I was asked what he’s doing now, if he has a girlfriend, if we were still f**k buddies, if he told me why he broke up with her, if I thought she could get him back, etc. It was exhausting. I had a few drinks just to handle her.

Angie eventually kicked her out.

I was grateful.

And because Marissa was still roommates with her at their college, she drove her home. She apologized for Sarah’s behavior the next day over brunch. Marissa drove to the house and forced me to go with her.

It was the second week when I got more visitors. Hannah and Beth showed up on my doorstep. They announced they were moving in for the last week. They didn’t say anything about Jesse, but they did share that Jamie was back in the house. He and Tiffany were back together, I hadn’t known they weren’t, and Kara wanted to come with them to see me. I was glad they hadn’t let her. Kara had seen Jesse every day over the holiday. I wouldn’t have been able to handle that.

Eric had a party at the end of the week before everyone went back to their colleges. No one knew how to react to Hannah or Beth. Hannah hit on Eric and Justin within the first hour. Marissa thought it was hilarious. Angie hadn’t known who to get mad at—Hannah, Justin, or me. Then Beth grabbed her cousin and told her ‘No Sex’ in front of the group. Hannah glared at her, but grumbled, “Fine.” They sat and drank with me in the living room throughout the rest of the party. After a while, Marissa and Angie sat with us, but they were still unsure of my new friends. I was informed that Sarah was angry with me because of Jesse so she would no longer be attending a party that I was at. I was grateful. I thought everyone else was grateful too. The rest of the party passed without any drama, except that Hannah staggered from a back room when we were leaving. Her clothes were inside out and her hair was sticking up. Eric came behind her. Her pink lipstick was smeared all over him.