Page 66 of White Hole

He paused before getting in his driver’s door. “Yeah?”

“You and Elle… You okay?”

He smiled sadly. “I’m working on it.” He drove away.

Elle was a very private person when it came to her dating life, but things had come out a few weeks ago when Levi messed up big time. It wasn’t my place to push them back together, but it was easy to see how much he loved her. Especially with how hard he was trying to win her back.

Meanwhile, I hadn’t spied a single blond hair fromthat guythat tried to ruin me. He played a cruel prank on me, made even more cruel by the fact he claimed he wanted a “truce.” That was before he made me develop feelings for him, then fucked someone else.

I figured he had been fucking her the entire time. It was the only thing I could assume with him leaving me to meet an older woman, asexyolder woman, wearing nothing but a robe and touching him like she owned him. Some nights I couldn’tstopthinking about her red fingernails crawling up his chest and her pouty lips touching his cheek.

None of that mattered. I was better than him. I just needed to focus on my redemption plan, saving Kinsley from her foolish mistakes. First, was getting rid of the cheap piece of jewelry sitting in my backpack that held no sentiments for me. Returning it would make me ditch some dead weight I had been holding onto.

It was two weeks before finals. I waited for Cale and Sydney after our Russian literature class. Digging out the old bracelet, I held it out to her as the two eyed me suspiciously.

“Here. I think Cale wanted to give this to you.”

Cale took it from me and glanced at his girlfriend. “Thanks, Kinsley.”

“Sure, no problem.” I was going to walk away because Cale meant absolutely nothing to me, but I was on a mission. I needed a win. “Cale.”

He exchanged a glance with Sydney, who walked to the classroom door to wait for him. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I waited so long to return it. Your anniversary probably passed. I wish you two all the happiness, but I have to get something off my chest.”

He looked like I was going to give him a terminal diagnosis. He swallowed and squeaked out, “What’s that?”

“You were so immature and vain to break up with me the way you did. Just because I have scars doesn’t mean that I’m not beautiful in other ways. You lost the best girl you’ll ever have only because you were too stupid to—”

“What are you talking about?” His eyes narrowed and his cheeks flamed red.

“I’m talking about you breaking up with me after my accident because of myscars.”

“Kinsley…” He shook his head with his mouth open. “I didn’t break up with you for your fucking physical scars. I just meant, like, you know,mentalscars from what happened to you.”

“What?” Now I was confused.

“After the accident, you shut down. You weren’t the same fighter I knew. I mean, you obviously got that back now, but right after… you wereafraid. And the Kinsley I knew was never afraid of anything. She was better than me at everything. Hell, I told you I didn’t go to Harvard because I wanted to save money. I never got accepted. You were always better, better at everything... I-I was young, stupid. Didn’t know how to handle it. I was jealous of you. I’m sorry.”

“Oh.”

“You—” He stopped himself and checked where Sydney was tapping her foot down at the entrance of the class. “You’re beautiful… Um, hot, actually.” His eyes traced my body, and I got weirded out. “I never even really noticed your scars when we, uh, you know.” He cleared his throat.

“Okay.” I regretted bringing it up, but now that he clarified, I felt some relief; a past hurt healed. I was also a little creeped out; I didn’t want him to look at my body like he was. Not anymore. “Thanks.”

“Thanks for the bracelet.” He turned to walk down the aisle towards his girlfriend.

After class, I suited up for another marathon training session. The marathon was step two of my plan. I was going to beat my times and get another win. It was Thursday, so there wasn’t much going on unless I decided to go to the Ginger Lizard Lounge later.

It was closing in on the end of the semester. The wind felt like knives cutting into my face. It was dark well before 5 p.m., which made my evening runs shorter. Aiming to get a few miles in before dinner, I chose my old high school, which had a well-lit track.

As I ran the circles, I thought of all I had to do over the coming weeks. Xavier Cardell’s parents were hosting their annual holiday party, and this year, I was invited since I was friends with his girlfriend. Step three was looking stunning at the event.That guywould be there and I was not looking forward to seeing him, but wanted to leave an impression. Not that he had missed me. I had been just a hook-up. A toy. A fling. A game to him.

So why did he break down in tears in front of me if he was withher?

As a habit, I pushed that question out of my mind. It was the thought that made me have hope that we could be together, that there was an explanation that made sense. That somehow, I had misinterpreted what happened. I was only fooling myself.

Once I flushed the thought out of my mind, I ambled to the parking lot with my hands on my hips. When I walked next to the stadium bleachers, a figure jumped out from the stands and grabbed me from behind. It was the hard body of a man that grasped me around the mouth so I couldn’t scream, though I tried. I kicked my legs back to hurt him and he grunted, loosening his grasp of me.

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