Shatter (True Believers #4)(47)
Author: Erin McCarthy

But in the moment, I was hot, and damn it, I needed to feel hot. Jonathon was avoiding me, it was so obvious. Now that I was nothing but the stupid girl flunking chemistry, he clearly had lost interest. Which totally wasn’t fair, I knew that. He texted me every day and he had asked me to do things with him, but I was drunk. I was allowed to be irrational.

My pajamas were enormous, pink and blue plaid, and when I was dancing, at one point I stepped on the pant leg and ended up pulling them down and flashing the top of my ass to my friends.

Jessica laughed so hard she snorted. “You are lucky I wasn’t taping right then.”

“I would kill you if you posted that,” I said, breathless, collapsing on the sofa. I hadn’t had this much exercise since before Thanksgiving. Glancing at my notifications on my phone I saw Jonathon was out at a bar according to his check-in. With a girl named Miranda. I clicked on her name to see her profile picture. She was cute in a nerdy chic way. What the hell?

“Jonathon is out with a girl,” I said, my amusement evaporating.

“What?” Rory turned down the booty-grinding music. “I thought you said he was staying home tonight.”

“That’s what he said he was doing.” My cheeks suddenly felt hot. “Is he on a date?”

“She’s probably a friend.”

“I’m texting him.” I tapped quickly, my heart rate high and not from dancing. He answered immediately. “He says he got bored so he went out with a friend.”

I hated myself for doing it, but I felt dissatisfied with his casual response so I added, She’s cute. Which was stupid, because now he would know I clicked on her name. But then a picture of them was posted.

Looking very, very cozy. A hot, sick sensation filled my mouth. “Oh my God, look at this.” I shoved my phone at Rory.

“He said they’re just friends, right? You should trust him.”

“How can I trust him? I haven’t seen him in two weeks!”

“Yeah, but wasn’t that your choice?”

Because that’s what I wanted—someone to point out it was my fault. Not. “He could have tried harder.”

“Kylie bug, he texted you like five times a day. He asked you to dinner, to the movies, to just hang out at his place, to hang out at your place. I’m not sure what else he could have done.”

I threw a pillow at Jessica. “You guys suck.”

Jessica laughed. “Why are you mad at us? I think it’s perfectly normal and understandable that you needed time to yourself the last two weeks, but you can’t act like he was a shit who blew you off.”

“Jonathon is probably wondering where you stand,” Rory added.

“So if he’s wondering where we stand he goes off and nails some other chick?”

“Whoa. Now you’re jumping to conclusions. Big time.”

I knew I was. I could feel my anxiety rising and my childish need to finger-point increasing. I wanted to blame the vodka, but the alcohol wasn’t entirely to blame. Every day I had been struggling more and more to understand what I wanted and why I kept refusing to see Jonathon. I cared about him a lot. I missed him. I wanted to see his smile, hear his laugh, feel his mouth on mine.

But for some reason every time he suggested we see each other, I froze. I panicked. I had no idea why. Well, maybe I did. For one thing, I was feeling sad and not ready to talk about the miscarriage. I also felt like I would be letting him down if I didn’t have my shit together, that it was finally time for me to offer him a genuine display of gratitude and cheerfulness. That he would think me exhausting or pathetic or annoying if I was bummed out in front of him or if I wanted to talk endlessly. I felt like I needed to be happy Kylie and I wasn’t ready to be happy Kylie. I was starting to worry I wouldn’t ever be ready to be happy Kylie again.

At least sober.

None of that meant I didn’t want to be with him. Totally the opposite. I didn’t want to see him and give him reasons to not want me. Which was all I was accomplishing anyway, because he clearly didn’t want me. He wanted Miranda of the cute red glasses and bouncy hair and freckles. I felt my lower lip start to tremble.

“Oh no. We’re not doing that.”

I was pretty sure I was and Jessica couldn’t stop me. Except that I got another text from Jonathon. She’s a chem grad student, too. Super smart.

There was one thing that could shift my emotion from upset to anger and that was it. He was saying I was stupid. I could read between the lines and that was my hot button, no doubt about it.

“Oh, hell, no,” I said, hand coming up. “No and no.” I showed the text to Rory.

“I don’t think he means . . .”

I cut her off. “Rory, I need to borrow a pair of jeans. I’m going to The Church.”

“Um . . . Kylie, you’re like four inches taller than me.”

“Who cares? I have cowboy boots. No one will know my pants are too short.” I stood up and glanced around for my overnight bag. I had a clean tank top in there that I could pair with one of Rory’s sweaters. “I need makeup, stat.”

“Is this a good idea?” Jessica asked me.

“Yes.”

“Is this a good idea?” Jessica asked Rory.

“I suppose it depends on what the goal is.”

Wasn’t that obvious? “The goal is to show Jonathon that while I may not be a chemistry genius I’m not an idiot.”

“So enlighten me as to how showing up at the bar he’s at after you told him you couldn’t see him tonight is going to accomplish that.” Jessica held her hands out. “I’m serious, not trying to be a bitch.”

I didn’t have time to debate my highly intelligent point. “I want to show him that he wants to be with me, not some hipster.”

“Why? Because you want to be with him?”

“Of course I want to be with him!” I said, exasperated. “When did I ever say I didn’t?” Why were they having such a hard time keeping up?

“I guess you didn’t.”

“Now are you going to go with me or what?”

“Can I suggest a text to him first?” Rory asked. “You know, sort of like a ‘hey, we’re going out, maybe we’ll stop by The Church,’ and see what he says?”

I looked to Jessica. “Tell her how naïve that is.”

“That’s naïve.”

“What? Isn’t it better to be honest? What if he’s gone by the time you get there? Then you’ll really be pissed.”