“I’m not mad. I just don’t want any damn coffee. Look, this has been swell, but I’ve got to get to work.” I moved around him, careful not to brush against him.

“I’d like it if you could come by the studio and sit with me sometime,” he said before I could leave.

I should have left it. I should have ignored him and kept on moving. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I had to end this before I allowed anything resembling friendship to infiltrate our non-relationship. I was not going to repeat past mistakes.

I pivoted on my foot and turned to face him again. His eyes met mine and then skittered away nervously.

“Why would I do that, Flynn?” I demanded. He didn’t say anything. But I pressed on, making sure I communicated exactly what I needed him to hear.

“Why would I want to spend time with you? It’s been six years since I’ve seen you and truthfully I could have gone another six quite easily.” My heart slammed into my ribcage and I felt a strange twisting in my gut as I threw my words at him like knives.

He didn’t look at me. He stared resolutely at the floor and I wasn’t entirely sure he heard me at all. He closed in on himself and that annoying twinge manifested as guilt.

I let out a frustrated breath and turned around, my back to Flynn and pushed through the coffee shop door and out into the humid, August heat.

I stood there a moment, looking up and down the quiet and desolate street, my chest painfully tight.

I wanted to look over my shoulder, back into the coffee shop. The urge to turn around was overwhelming. But I wouldn’t let myself. I denied myself the right to look again on the man I had just torn down as easily as I had done six years ago.

But it was for the best.

If there was one thing I knew it was that Flynn and I only brought each other pain.

And I had learned that the past was best left behind us.

8

-Ellie-

I was drunk.

I had just lost the contents of my stomach along the side of Shane’s Chevy Challenger, which stopped all efforts on his part to put his hands down my pants.

“Fucking hell, Ellie!” he screamed, pulling the over on the side of the backcountry road to have a look at the damage.

“You pinstriped his car, Ells!” Dania cackled from the back seat. The sweet smell of the joint between her lips wafted my way and I waved the smoke out of my face. My throat started to constrict and mouth began to water.

I was going to puke again.

I shoved the passenger side door open and collapsed on my knees as I heaved again. My head was pounding and my stomach clenched in a vice. Why had I agreed to a shoot out with Stu? Why had I thought it a good idea to slam back six shots of Evan Williams?

I collapsed into the gravel, my face an inch from the pile of vomit I had just expelled.

“Come on, Ellie! We’re already late!” Reggie yelled. I groaned and rolled my face into the dirt.

Welcome to a typical Saturday night, full of bad alcohol and shitty choices.

“Pick her up, Shane and get her back in the car!” Dania said and I knew she was annoyed. I was ruining her night. She had plans to meet up with a guy named Brock at the field party we were heading to. She was wearing her f**k me red shoes and slut on a mission halter-top.

Reggie and Stu were trying to be discrete as they felt each other up beside a stoned Dania and I was once again drunk and trying to fend off the unwanted advances of Shane.

My life was stuck on an endless loop and I wanted desperately to hit the fast forward button.

“She sure as f**k ain’t gettin’ in my car if she’s gonna barf again,” Shane grumbled, the driver’s side door slamming shut as he got back in, leaving me sprawled out on the side of the road.

“She’s a hot mess. Leave her ass here,” Stu suggested. Clearly he wasn’t aiming to become my BFF anytime soon.

“We can’t leave her here. Get out and pick her up, Shane!” Dania demanded, her voice heavy and thick from the weed she had smoked.

I heard a car door open and hands lift me up in a less than gentle manner. I was shoved unceremoniously back into the front seat and the door slammed, catching my hair.

“Oww,” I moaned, trying to move my head. My scalp was on fire as my hair pulled taut against my skin. I fumbled for the door handle and whimpered as I tried to move my head.

“My hair,” I slurred.

Dania leaned over the back of the seat and rubbed my head. “Your hair looks beautiful,” she giggled. Shane pulled back out onto the road, my head knocking into the window as he swerved. I grabbed the hunk of trapped hair at the base of my skull and gave it a vicious yank. It came loose, leaving a good portion stuck in the door.

My scalp burned and I felt sick again but I swallowed down the bile that filled my mouth and closed my eyes. Dania and Reggie were laughing in the back seat; smoke filled the car as they lit up another joint. They passed it to Shane who took it and sucked it between his thin lips.

He held it out for me to take but I shook my head.

“It’ll stop you from getting sick again,” Dania urged, rubbing the back of my head. There were times, even when she was high and acting stupid, that I could remember why she was my friend. For all of her faults, there was a streak of gentleness that made her almost bearable.

And I made sure to notice it when I saw it. I didn’t miss the way she rubbed her protruding belly when she thought no one was looking. I recognized the soft, dreamy expression on her face when she talked about the baby she was carrying, even as she tried to deny she felt anything.