Page 87 of The Chemistry of Us

My world imploded from the inside out.

This wasn’t my world.

He made me feel like I was a part of it.

And he played me the entire time.

I love you?

I love you?

Don’t leave me?

“Just a fling, huh?” I reached for the first guy I could find and kissed him. “Good, now I know how it works. Find a willing victim and have fun. Besides, you’ll only ever be a pathetic loser who can’t even keep it in his pants, just like your dad.”

“SHUT UP!” Vaughan jumped to his feet, but I was already hauling the random stranger into the house. I went into the bathroom with him and locked the door.

He seemed more than happy to be sloppy seconds.

I didn’t touch him again, though. I waited ten minutes.

And then I left.

I left everything behind.

Vaughan.

The boy who broke me first.

CHAPTER 32

TRU

Now

I shouldn’t be goingon a date with him, not after the way that summer ended. He’d loved me, then discarded me, and still had the audacity to say he cared or that I didn’t understand when he was the one who started the snowball and then added massive heaps of snow and ice until it barreled down the mountain and took me out completely.

This was just…him winning a bet, us both putting our swords down and trying to walk away with the least amount of damage. It was what I had to tell myself when I carefully put on mascara and added my favorite lip gloss.

It was what I told myself when I did one more spritz of perfume than I normally do, and I repeated the same mantra, trying to convince myself when I put on my white Yankees crop top with low-slung baggy jeans and sneakers, showing off an insane amount of stomach and side boob.

It was just us burying hatchets.

Finally coming to terms with the fact that we could never be anything more than this.

My brain reminded me we’d kissed multiple times, and I’d gotten him off.

That was just…whatever. The body remembered things, and it was so easy to get caught up in the trap of thinking this time would be different. It wouldn’t. We both knew it wouldn’t.

One and a half more kisses—and one date and I’d be free of Vaughan. The draft would be happening in the next two weeks, which would distract him, and then graduation.

We’d be out of each other's lives. I had enough saved up to at least find a place and get my MBA, and it would be normal.

Life wouldn’t be about studying in the library or making out with my ex in order to make him focus and feel better.

It would be about closure.

I took a look at myself in the mirror, and all my brain fired back at me was one word.

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