It’s like a kick to my nuts seeing it lying at my feet.

“No, no, no, no,” I chant in agony as I squat to pick up the key. “Not you, Sela. This could not have happened to you. Not to my Sela.”

I don’t want to believe it because I literally don’t think I can stand to know Sela suffered that way. I don’t want to believe it because it makes me a monster for what I just did to her.

I stand up and pull my phone out of my pocket, quickly choosing Sela’s number at the top of my favorites list. On the second ring, I note that I can faintly hear a corresponding sound coming from the bedroom.

“Shit,” I mutter, and run back to our bedroom, where I see her phone lying on the nightstand beside the bed. I disconnect and look wildly about the room, trying to figure out what to do.

A quick glance down at my watch and I note that Sela couldn’t have been gone for more than five minutes, ten at the most. She could still be down at the next BART stop, waiting for public transit to whisk her away from me.

I snatch Sela’s phone from the nightstand and sprint for the front door. I pat my front pocket, relieved to feel my car key in there should I need it, and practically careen off the doorjamb as I try to cut into the hallway. I grab the knob and pull it shut hard behind me, not even stopping to lock up.

I have to catch Sela before she can get away.

Someone above is looking out for me because the elevator shows up within seconds. I jump in, jab the lobby button, and urge it to go faster. I start throwing up prayers to whoever may be listening to let me make this right with her. I’m so ashamed of the way I threw her out of my life, and how easily I discounted her claim of rape. It may be the worst mistake I’ve ever made, and I hope to God I can fix it.

When the elevator stops and the doors slide open with a soft whoosh, I bolt out and then turn left and dash for the front doors. I practically run over John, our doorman, and apologize to him as I hit the sidewalk.

The BART stop is one block down and half a block over, and luckily the sidewalks are fairly empty. It’s past the morning rush hour but it hasn’t hit lunchtime yet. I race around the corner of Mission and Fremont at a Mach 1 sprint, and my eyes immediately go to the bench in front of the bus stop. There’s only two people there waiting, and neither of them are Sela.

My chest heaving for air, I look both ways down the street, desperately hoping to catch a glimpse of her. I squint, peer hard…willing her to appear.

Fuck…I can’t even remember what she was wearing.

Totally fucking useless.

She’s gone and I know it, so I start a slower paced jog back to my building. I utter another apology to John as I brush past him into the lobby, head over to the service stairwell, and take the stairs down one more flight to the garage. Sela has to be going to her apartment and I can easily beat her there by driving. I’ll just be waiting at her front door for her, and hopefully by then I’ll have something monumental figured out to undo this clusterfuck I’ve created.

TEN YEARS AGO…

“Bryce is such an asshole,” Whitney says as she leans her elbows on the rail bordering the upper level of the mall. It overlooks the food court below, and the smell of greasy burgers and stale Chinese food filter upward. My nose crinkles in disgust.

“Agreed,” I say as my eyes slowly roam around the upper level, checking out the action tonight. I’d already scanned the food court below, and nothing of interest was going on down there.

“He didn’t say why?” she asks.

“Nope,” I say calmly, although my stomach curdles when I think about the very public brush-off I got yesterday after school. Bryce and I had been dating for three months, and my face flushes with embarrassment when I think of all the proclamations of love I’d given him. He was my first real boyfriend in high school and I had fallen head over heels.

Bryce was very tall with sunny good looks that would have been common in Southern California, but only made him stand out like a beacon in our school in Menlo Park. He was the star of our basketball team, every girl wanted to be with him, and every boy wanted to be him. Some of the best days of my life were spent just strutting through the hallways between periods, my hand grasped tightly in his as he’d walk me to my next class.

It was like a dream, and I was giddy, and happy, and in love.

And then he crushed me by dumping me after school in the parking lot standing outside the driver’s door of his Mustang, surrounded by his buddies. I thought he’d be driving me home as he did every day after school since basketball season was over. Instead, he simply told me, “Listen, Sela…I want to break up.”

I was stunned, and sure I heard him wrong. “What?”

“It’s the end of my senior year. I’m heading off to college in a few months. I don’t want to be tied down, especially not with a girl as young as you. You’re not going to be able to hang with me and it will just be awkward, you know?”

No, I didn’t know.

I didn’t understand at all.

“But I’m sixteen,” I told him lamely.

“Tomorrow you’ll be sixteen,” he pointed out, and one of his friends snickered loudly. At least Bryce had the grace to shoot him a dirty look and a small shake of his head.

“And you’re breaking up with me the day before my birthday,” I said in wonder and not to him in particular, and not a question either. Just a statement as to his douchiness.

Bryce just shrugged and reached for his car door. But then, as an afterthought, he said, “Look…you’re a nice kid and everything…”

I tuned him out as I turned and walked away. That’s all I needed to hear from him.

He thought I was a kid.

And now my eyes roam the busy Saturday night floors of the mall, bustling with shoppers and teens just hanging out, looking to have some fun. My eyes cut over to the Gap, directly across from me, and I see three guys walk out. All in jeans, T-shirts…look about my age, maybe a little older. Two of the guys are okay, but one is really cute. He’s carrying a bag in his hand and laughs at something one of his friends says. He then pauses, takes his phone out of his back pocket, and answers it. His eyes travel left as he talks with a smile on his face, sweeps across the expanse of the mall, and then his gaze lands right on me.

While he converses with whoever is on the other line, he stares at me…lips quirked upward and eyes bright with interest. I smile back at him, conveying interest because he’s really, really cute with light brown hair that’s worn a bit long and what looks to be brown eyes.