EPOV of Chapter 13. Originally submitted for the Fandom for Mental Health package.
Thanks to my beautiful team. My prereaders Nic and Sri and my beta Iris. Love you girls.
Of course she's with him. Like it could've ended any other way. I don't think anyone sees me clear out of the basement. They're all so fucking focused on the new couple. I can't breathe. For the first time in my life, I'm going to pound the shit out of someone. I need to not be down here. I lost her, and it hurts.
It fucking hurts.
I can barely see the door in front of me through this blur, but I walk outside and sit on the steps. It's not really warm enough to be outside.
I lost her. I lost her.
I lost her. I lost her. I lost her. I lost her. I lost her. I lost her.
My head falls to my hands, and I surrender myself to the feeling. Really? How did I expect this to end? I couldn't just man up and tell her how I felt? I couldn't just dump Tanya, forget about Jake's stupid fucking rules, and ask her out? What happened? How did we go from holding hands in darkened basements and nearly kissing at the dance… to her with Jake? What am I missing?
I hear the door open behind me, but I don't care enough to even wipe the tears from my face.
And I regret it immediately when I figure out who's sitting beside me. There are only two people here who I don't want to see right now, and she's one of them.
I hate her right now.
Not really.
I hate myself.
This is my cowardly doing.
But how could she? Maybe Jake was right all along… Maybe she wasn't really that into me.
Fuck Jake.
Oh, God. What if she does fuck Jake?
What could she possibly be doing out here? What could she possibly say to me?
I hope she doesn't think there's something she could say right now that would fix things.
If she says sorry, if she tells me she's made a huge mistake… What? What do I do? We work it out, right?
But she doesn't. She just gets up and goes back into the house.
I'll call her tonight. I'll tell her how I feel. Fuck Jake. Fuck him. If I just tell her how I feel… I can fix this.