Page 75 of Unlikely

When she doesn’t follow up with anything, I decide to call it a night, because I really have no idea what I’m doing here. If she were one of my brothers, I would just flat out ask, and yet here, with Zara, I don’t even know what I’m asking.

She told me she couldn’t spend the weekend with me, and that she was annoyed about it. Though it doesn’t exactly feel like the truth, I know I have to swallow it like it is.

“I’m going to go,” I announce.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “I can feel a headache coming on. I think I need to try and get some sleep.”

We say goodbye, the words exchanged in a monotonous daze, and a sadness unlike anything I’ve ever felt before washes over me.

I don’t like the unknown. I don’t like uncertainty.

Just as my eyes feel heavy enough to close, my phone vibrates with an incoming message.

I’m sorry I wasn’t good company tonight.

I stare at the lit-up screen, but the urge to respond to her doesn’t come. Instead, I reach for her necklace off my nightstand and stare at the heart and lock pendants that hang from the chain. There is a little inscription on the two teeth of the key. One is an R and the other is an L.

Raine and Lola.

By the time I realized just how important this necklace meant to her, too much time had passed to give it back. But here it is, my one connection to her, and what is clearly her connection to them.

It feels significant.

It feels like an answer to a question that hasn’t been asked yet.

It feels like an answer to a questionIhaven’t asked yet.

Another message comes through.

Goodnight, sweetheart.

Choosing to leave her second text unanswered as well, I place the phone and the necklace back on my nightstand, then bury my head under my pillow and try to ease my anxiety. I don’t like feeling this way, especially because I can’t pinpoint why.

For now, I need to sleep and hope that tomorrow is a better day. For both of us.

* * *

“Cle—”

“What?” I snap. My colleague Priscilla’s face falls, and guilt immediately washes over me. “I’m sorry,” I say. “You didn’t deserve that.” I put my half-eaten muffin down. “Is everything okay?”

She cautiously steps farther into the break room. “There’s a lady here looking for you.”

There is only one lady who ever visits me here at work, and I’m not really sure if I want to see her. I slept like shit last night, and my chest aches in confusion, and I have no idea what to say to her or how to get us back to where we were before the phone call.

Part of me wonders if it was all in my head, but the fact that she’s here validates my feelings, even if just a little.

“Do you think you could bring her back here for me, please?”

If Priscilla is confused she doesn’t bother voicing it, instead hurrying out of the room and returning only a few seconds later with an apologetic looking Zara, whose eyes are tired and sad. And I realize very quickly, despite feeling the exact same way, I don’t like seeing her like this.

Priscilla closes the door behind her when she leaves, and Zara takes the few steps to close the gap between us. She crouches down before me, placing her hands on my knees, looking up at me, brown eyes full of contrition.

“Hey,” she says softly.

Because I can’t help myself, I place my hand over hers. “Hey.”

“You look tired,” she muses. “Like you might’ve had a shit sleep because someone upset you before bed.”

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