Page 76 of Love JD

I tried not to spiral. I tried to hold it together while my systems crashed and my heart broke like superheated china, but like everything else I’d attempted, I failed miserably. I stumbled back to my bedroom, shaking and fighting the urge to throw up, and I barely made it to my bed before collapsing.

It didn’t get much better after that. I drank electrolytes. I tried to eat, but I threw up everything I ate and shook with chattering teeth like it was ten degrees in the house. I knew this was my body reacting to something inconsequential, that the realization that I didn’t belong with Zev shouldn’t be a big deal. I’d known this. I knew going into it that I didn’t have any right to get so attached to Zev.

I didn’t have any right to get attached to anyone, really. My mom hadn’t wanted me. My dad had barely tolerated my existence long enough to keep me alive into adulthood. It made perfect sense that I didn’t fit with Zev, so there was no reason to get all twisted up in knots over it. It was what it was.

Tell that to my fucking body, I thought as I lifted my head from the toilet for the third time that morning. I wiped my mouth, coughing around the burn of bile that coated my throat.

My phone rang, buzzing in my sweatpants pocket. My head spun, and I could barely lift it, let alone answer the phone at the moment. I rolled my forehead on my arm.

No. I had to answer because if it was Zev, then he would worry. I didn’t want him doing something stupid and possibly cutting his trip short. I’d already screwed up his future as it was.

With a trembling hand, I reached for my phone. Maybe if I didn’t move my head… I tapped the green answer button. “Hello?” I asked as brightly as I could.

“Isla,” Zev sighed. His voice washed over me like a warm shower on a frigid day. I closed my eyes against that, hating the way my body responded to him. “Are you okay? I called a few times.”

“Of course,” I replied, forcing a smile so it touched my voice. “I’m just binging a show.”

“Oh, okay,” he replied, his voice clearly relieved. “I’m sorry I’ve been so busy. The PR teams couldn’t make it in until this morning, and we’re… well, it doesn’t matter. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” I smiled again. My pulse beat against the back of my eyeballs, bouncing against my temples and ricocheting down my neck like a spiked ball. “I’m just chilling.”

“You sound tired,” he remarked warily.

“Eh,” I replied, trying to sound casual. White speared through my closed eyelids, and I felt myself slipping away. “I stayed up too late. Narcos is kind of addicting.”

“Oh, yeah, I like that one,” he chuckled. “Okay, well, if you need anything, please text me, okay? I’ll be in meetings all day, but I can step out.”

“No worries,” I replied, my fingers gripping the toilet seat in desperation. Please hurry. Please hurry. Please hurry.

“Alright, I’ll talk to you later. Enjoy the binging.”

“Thanks,” I squeezed out.

He hung up, and I slumped, letting the phone fall heavily to my side. I hadn’t had an episode like this in months. My eyes squeezed tight, leaking tears. I hated that I was doing this. I hated that I’d caused Zev to fight for his literal life right now. I hated that this episode only demonstrated exactly why we would never work together.

Sighing, I curled up on the tile floor and let darkness wash over my aching eyes.

I dragged myself through Monday in a literal blur of spinning vision and relentless vomiting. I covered myself with the bathmat at some point, desperate to stop the bone-deep rattling that caused me to shiver like I was freezing. At some point in the middle of the night, I managed to wake up enough to stumble back to the bed. But I forgot my phone, and I wanted to kick myself for it, but my brain wasn’t working right.

Some part of me knew that was bad.

I couldn’t remember why.

I fell into a heavy sleep again, still shivering because I’d only managed to get the corner of my comforter over my shoulder.

Sunlight cut through my sleep at some point. I opened bleary eyes, but my limbs felt too heavy to move. I sank back into dreams instead.

Chapter twenty-six

Zev

The COO of GreenTech looked especially like Jabba the Hut this morning in a dark green suit that perfectly complimented the sheen of sweat on his pallid skin. Beside him, the CEO lounged in a black leather office chair with his knee propped up on the boardroom table. If the COO was Jaba the Hut, then the CEO was a jazz-playing, grotesquely thin alien to match. He had a long face with a gap between his nose and mouth that brought to mind the word “lugubrious,” and he shaved his head so it reflected the overhead fluorescent lights garishly. Neither of them was my favorite person. At the moment, they also were public enemy number one for the other people in the room.

On the other side of the table, Earth Care’s representatives glared with ice pick sharpness, two of them women and one a younger guy whose ears turned red when he got heated. Which, in the last two days, had been a lot. I checked my phone to see if Isla had texted me back. She had, but like all her messages in the last forty-eight hours, she’d been reserved.

Zev:

Everything okay? You’ve been quiet.

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