Chapter Twenty-Nine
EMERY
Tears rush down my face as I leave Sebastian. He doesn’t follow me, and somehow that hurts even more than what just happened.
Ordering a car on my phone, I head straight for the front door. Mason had just dropped me off after my photography class before going home, so I couldn’t ask him to take me anywhere, nor did I want him to worry about turning around and coming back.
But I can’t stay.
Not after that.
Thankfully I barely have to wait five minutes for the car to show up, and I get in the back seat, trying to keep my sniffles to a minimum. The drive into the city feels like it takes a million years, and I spend the whole time replaying everything. Did he really think I had something to do with his parents’ death?
The thought punctures a hole through my already damaged heart. I knew Sebastian would blame me for what happened to them if he found out what I’d been keeping from him. Except, I hadn’t prepared for him to accuse me of beinginvolved. He’d asked that very question the first day we met, but that was before he knew me—before I gave him everything I possibly could bar my final two secrets. Now he knew one of them, it was only a matter of time before he knew the other. My stomach twists. If knowing only one of those secrets has him believing I could have possibly played some part in his parents’ deaths, what is he going to think of me when he knows the whole truth?
The car pulls up in front of an apartment building. Using the card Sebastian gave me to pay foranything I wanted—which, so far, I’d only used on groceries—I pay the fare before getting out and making my way to the third floor.
I only have to knock once before the door is pulled open.
“Oh hun, what happened?” Lauren asks when she opens her apartment door to find me standing there, and I start crying all over again.
After ushering me into her apartment, Lauren tries to soothe me as my heart squeezes painfully in my chest. I’m not sure how long we sit on her small couch as I fumble through some kind of explanation as to why I showed up at her door at nine o’clock on a Tuesday night alone and devastated.
A fight. It’s the only thing I could come up with, although without any specifics, it’s a shaky explanation at best.
When my tears have dried up, Lauren leaves me on the couch, returning a moment later with a glass of water. “Here, drink this. It will help your head,” she says. I’d barely noticed the throbbing behind my eyes before now. “I have some pain killers around here somewhere too if you need them.”
“How did you know my head hurt?” I ask softly, taking the glass from her.
“Believe it or not, I’ve had my fair share of sad sessions,” Lauren says, a look of sympathy written across her face.
“Sad session?” I ask after a sip of water.
“That’s what I used to call them.” Lauren sighs. “For some reason, it made me feel better to give it a name. I could cry my heart out and feel as much self-pity as I liked for those few moments, but as soon as the session was over, that was it. No more tears. No feeling sorry for myself,” she says with a distant look in her eyes. “Not that I’m trying to say you need to do that,” she quickly adds. “It was just the only way I could keep going.”
I get the feeling she’s not talking about a bad break-up, but even as questions sit on the tip of my tongue, with everything going on, I decide not to pry.
When I’ve finished my glass of water, I place it on the small coffee table in front of the couch before pulling out my phone.
Nothing.
Sebastian had made me promise never to run from him again, yet there’s not so much as a text asking where I am. Whilst I might have fled the house earlier, technically, I wasn’t running away, except I still thought there might have beensomethingby now.
How could you think he’d care after what happened?
Pain rushes through me, along with the foolishness of thinking he might have tried to contact me.
“Are you sure you don’t want to call him? I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think. He might be dense sometimes, but that man loves you,” Lauren says, and my gaze snaps to hers.
“He doesn’t,” I whisper. Even if he had, there’s no way he still does after tonight.
“I may not know a lot about love, but one thing I’m sure of is that he does love you, Grace. And if I’m not mistaken, I’d say you love him back.”
Then why hasn’t he called me?I want to yell at her, but I already know the answer.
When I don’t respond, Lauren sighs before standing from the couch and leaving me alone. She reappears a few minutes later, placing a few folded blankets and a pillow at the end of the couch, all whilst I continue to stare at my silent phone.
After spending all night and this morning wallowing in self-pity, I finally pull myself together enough to get off the couch I slept on last night. It’s barely nine-thirty, but it feels later since I’ve been lying awake for so long.