Page 1 of Those Heartbreak Scars

Chapter One

America

“There is no better way to get over a personal crisis than to take a little holiday to the Amalfi Coast.” Dove blows smoke out through pouty fish lips as the music from the nightclub ahead grows louder. “You’ll see.”

Her arm hooked through mine, we stumble our way to the best nightclub in Positano with one goal in mind. We’re going to drink and dance and drink some more.

And maybe for a couple of hours it won’t feel like the end of the world. “After the last few months I really hope so.”

After almost losing my best friend to a brain tumor… and now I’m failing my doctorate. How am I supposed to tell my parents I screwed up so monumentally when they’ve done everything to support me? To raise me to be strong and independent and smarter than this.

“Professor Wanky McWank-Face is so last season, babes.” Dove sucks on her watermelon flavored vape as we make our way over the beachside path. “Him and his stuck up wife deserve each other.”

“She’s not stuck up.” If anything, she’s lovely. It’s just that she has no idea her husband was screwing me behind her back. Until a couple weeks ago when he introduced me to her in the faculty parking lot, I didn’t know either.

And then I received the graded assignment I submitted just before I found out about Alfie’s wife. I went from high honors to a failing grade. My study buddy couldn’t understand how ourpapers, which we’d written together, could have such bipolar marks. But I could. Especially after the professor sent me a text to meet him todiscussimproving my grade.

“She’s the head of faculty. Tell me again how you think she doesn’t know that her husband is sleeping with his students? Grading his students according to his own dick-ish behavior?”

“I really don’t think she does. And I don’t think anyone deserves to be treated the way Alfie’s treating her.” After watching my best friend and her fiancé break up due to another man, I wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone. I refuse to be the cause of it.

“You don’t deserve it either. Nobody deserves someone like that to be in charge of their future.” She puts on a masculine voice while stroking my arm sleazily. “Blow me, beautiful, and you’ll get high honors. Break up with me, and you can forget about achieving your doctorate.” She rolls her eyes, her voice returning to normal. “He’s a prick.”

“I’m such an idiot. I should have seen it coming.” The worst part is in hindsight I really should have. He told me I was bright and had a promising future, and I took that at face value. When he offered to take me out to dinner to talk about my options going forward, I found myself saying okay, because I was flattered over the prospect that he’d singled me out.

I touch the tip of my thumb to each finger over and over.

I had no way of knowing they were married. They don’t have the same last name. Or work in the same department. And he certainly wasn’t sporting a ring on his left hand. But that’s not the point. I tap my fingers faster. Getting involved with my professor was a monumentally fucked up idea. The man is my teacher. I can’t avoid him without avoiding the lectures I need to attend to pass a class I need to graduate.

But I can’t bear the idea of being face-to-face with him when I’ve been on my knees and come face-to-face with the rest of him. And I can’t bring myself to admit to my friend that the only person to blame here is me.

Because I couldn’t find my voice to tell him that shifting our relationship like that wasn’t the best idea. And I really did find him charming. “God, I am so naive.”

Luckily, the blessing in this scenario is that my heart was never vulnerable. My ego, on the other hand, is battered and bruised.

“He’s a dick, babes. An itty-bitty dick.” She wiggles her little finger and then wraps an arm around my shoulder while blowing out another watermelon scented cloud. “Like Nathan is a dick. They’re all terribly dick-ish. In fact, the only good thing about them is when they have those big monster dongs, and they know how to dick you down just right. But even then, they’re still dicks.”

“Holy shit. You did not say that.” I snort laugh as I finally stop the repetitive movements. Stimming helps soothe my anxiety when it starts to become overwhelming. Her spin on things is what I need to not let it get me too down.

“What you need is to let loose.” She turns a slightly lazy, too wide grin, and feverish eyes on me. She’s been drinking since we stepped onto the plane. Straight vodka on the flight. Cocktails in the bar across the street from our Airbnb. “We don’t need to think about our poor choices right now. We need to drink and have some fun. Dance. Boys are dead to us. Dicks, and men, and men who are dicks. Your bell end professor. Nathan. All of them… Dead. To. Us.”

I’m not the only one whose life is in upheaval right now, but I’m not sure I would classify her problems as simply poorchoices. Nathan, her manager, is a bigger asshole than my professor. And the lawyers she took her contracts to basically told her there was nothing they could do to get her out of them without destroying her career.

An arm around her waist, I tug her to a stop on the sand a few yards from the club. I noticed on the flight over that the oval bruises on her neck weren’t as well covered as the bruising around her left eye, though they are carefully concealed now. “I’m worried—”

Her eyes turn round as the first bars of a familiar new club anthem play. “Do you hear that? They’re playing my song.”

“They’re playing your song.” I grin back at her.

“I love it when they do that.” Taking my hand she spins under it and then sashays toward the club entrance. “We need to celebrate. We need to dance.”

The bouncers let us pass.

Dove drags me toward the bar. “We need another cocktail. Do your thing, girl.”

I order drinks in fluent Italian. The bartender mixes sweet, tart lemon cocktails and slides them in front of us.

“Let’s go dance.” Dove tosses back two-thirds of hers and then leads the way onto the dance floor. Her hips are swaying before we make it into the crowd of writhing bodies.

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