Chapter 53
Emily's POV
The calculus textbook blurred in front of me for the third time in ten minutes. Finals were in three weeks and I was already behind on the review packet, but I couldn't focus because my phone sat face-up on the desk and I kept glancing at it like it might spontaneously combust if I looked away too long.
The last message in my thread with Ethan was from two days ago. His text. Not mine.
Can we talk on Saturday? Like, actually talk this time?
I'd read it maybe forty times since Wednesday night, and every time I did, my stomach twisted harder. I kept telling myself I'd answer later when I had the right words, except there were no right words because what was I supposed to say? That I'd been avoiding him? That I didn't know how to explain why I'd quit my job without telling him? That just thinking about having this conversation made me want to crawl under my desk and hide until graduation?
My phone buzzed.
I flinched, then forced myself to look. Not him. Just a notification from the library app reminding me I had a book due tomorrow. I set the phone back down and tried to refocus on the derivatives, but the numbers still wouldn't stick.
Then it buzzed again. Actually buzzed this time, vibrating against the wood surface with that specific rattle that meant someone was texting me.
Ethan: [I'm outside your building. We need to talk.]
The words sat there on my screen, stark and unignorable, and my first instinct was to pretend I hadn't seen it. Tell him I was studying, that I couldn't leave right now, that maybe we could meet up tomorrow or Sunday or literally any time that wasn't this exact moment when I was already exhausted and underprepared and definitely not equipped to have whatever conversation was about to happen.
But I couldn't do that. Not again. Not after two days of radio silence that hadn't been his fault, that had been mine because I was a coward who didn't know how to be honest without dismantling everything.
I looked at the message thread one more time. His text from Wednesday. My complete lack of response. Two days of nothing while he waited for me to care enough to answer, and I hadn't, because I'd been too busy or too scared or too selfishly focused on myself to give him even the bare minimum of acknowledgment.
God, I was such an asshole.
I stood up before I could change my mind, grabbed my keys and ID, and headed for the door. Didn't bother checking my reflection or fixing my hair or doing any of the things I normally did before seeing him. Just went.
The stairwell was empty, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead as I took the steps two at a time. My heartbeat felt too loud in my chest, this erratic drumming that didn't match my pace, and by the time I pushed through the side exit into the parking lot I was slightly breathless in a way that had nothing to do with physical exertion.
Ethan was standing under one of the streetlamps near the bench where we used to meet between his practices and my shifts, back when I still had shifts, back when things were simpler or at least felt that way in hindsight. He saw me the second I stepped outside, and his eyes locked onto mine with an intensity that made me want to turn around and run back upstairs, lock my door, pretend this wasn't happening.
His eyes were red. Not crying-red, but close. The kind of red that came from not sleeping, from rubbing at them too hard, from spending too long staring at a phone screen hoping for a message that never came.
I felt my throat tighten and my eyes start to burn. I pressed my lips together hard, trying to force the tears back down before they could fall.
"Hey," I managed, and my voice came out smaller than I'd intended, barely audible over the distant hum of traffic on the main road.
He didn't move. Just kept looking at me with those red-rimmed eyes, his jaw tight, hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets like he was physically restraining himself from something. Then he spoke, and his voice was rough in a way I'd never heard before, raw and unfiltered and so goddamn hurt that I actually flinched.
"You gonna cry too? I thought you didn't have a heart."
The words hit like a slap. I opened my mouth to respond—to defend myself, to apologize, to say literally anything—but nothing came out because he was right, wasn't he? Two days of silence. Quitting my job without telling him. Choosing an internship chance over answering a single text message.
What kind of person did that? What kind of person treated someone they supposedly cared about like they were an afterthought, an inconvenience, something to be dealt with later when it was more convenient?
I crossed the distance between us in four steps and wrapped my arms around him. My brain was screaming that this wouldn't fix anything, that a hug couldn't erase the hurt in his eyes, but my body didn't care. It just wanted to hold him, to press close enough that maybe he'd feel how sorry I was, how much seeing him like this made my chest ache in a way I didn't have words for.
He went rigid for half a second, surprised or maybe unwilling. Then his arms came up and pulled me in hard enough that I could barely breathe. His face pressed into my hair. His whole body was trembling slightly, like he'd been holding something back for days and was finally letting it out.
"I'm sorry," I whispered against his chest. "I'm so sorry."
His voice was muffled when he spoke. "For what?"