Page 70 of Revenge Cake

“What?” It’s a breathless, desolate question and it makes me want to reach out and touch his face.

I soften my voice. “I can’t love someone I don’t trust. I don’t have it in me.”

“Let me earn back your trust!”

I sigh. “No.”

He scowls. “You’re heartless. I don’t know who you are anymore. I don’t think I trust you either.”

His return to petulance hardens all of my earlier sympathy. I school my face into a blank mask. “Let that be your comfort when you never see me again.”

I turn around. This time he doesn’t stop me.

Just before I shut the door I hear it. It’s faint and unsteady. I don’t recognize it immediately because I’ve never heard him sob before, and it makes me want to cry out at the universe for being so unfair.

Fairness. It’s a fixation of mine too, but most of the time I’m able to keep my self-pity in check.

But why couldn’t he be as perfect as he seemed? Hasn’t my life been hard enough? Did he have to stop loving me after he learned who I really am? Did I really need that confirmation of my deepest fear?

When I get back to my bedroom, something compels me—call it a sickness—to pull out the frayed pink paper in my desk drawer.

Without giving myself a chance to reflect, I grab the list and draw a stark ink line at the bottom.

I don’t know if I’m driven by vengeance or my perfectionist need to cross off every item on a list, but the sight of it fills me with a sense of completion.

Item 5—Make him cry

CHAPTER 29

Logan

Street lights. Palm trees. The faint scent of the ocean from the cracked window. The slick leather steering wheel beneath my palms.

Now that I’m standing outside her apartment, I can’t remember the drive. She opens the door, looking almost alarmed when her eyes meet mine. “Hey,” she says as she lets me inside, and it sounds like a question.

I’m not ready for explanations yet, so I walk toward the hall. She must understand because she doesn’t ask any more questions as she follows close behind. I walk into her room, distantly recognizing that it smells like her. After she walks in, I shut the door.

“Are you ok?” Keira asks.

I swallow. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“I’m just a little disoriented.”

She frowns in concern. “What did she do?”

I try to laugh humorlessly, but the sound comes out breathless and strained. I don’t even have the energy to laugh anymore. “She dumped me.”

Her lips part. “She dumped you?”

“Yep.”

Something flares in her eyes that looks like triumph, but it quickly dies. Of course she’s happy about my breakup. She wants me, but she’s too good of a person to take pleasure in my pain. “Do you need to talk about it?”

I swallow. “No.”

“You look like you need to talk about it.”

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