Page 43 of The Chance

This pain that keeps me awake.

The restlessness that never ends.

I’m … tired.

Of pretending like everything is fine. Like I’m not falling the fuck apart with each day that passes, and I have to act like I’m just a rock star with a bodyguard as a best friend. That I’m not desperately looking for his face in every crowded room. Or waiting for every little morsel of communication he’s sparing me. As if I’m not hoping with all of my might that he’ll walk through the door at any moment, just to surprise me.

Wishing he’d fly thousands of miles if only to see me.

Find me.

Dreaming that he’d wake up and bedifferent.

Not straight.

He won’t.

And it feels like shit to think that.

I love Jordan as he is.

I’minlove with who he is.

But that’s all this will ever be.

Unrequited feelings. Longing.Destruction.

“I’m doing something.”

My heart rate kicks up when his statement draws me back and the sounds of his breathing, heavier than normal, registers.

No.

Nononono.

“What,” I croak out even though I know I shouldn’t.

“It’s a surprise. For you.”

The breath punches out of me.

“What?” I ask again, though this one is more of a squeak that works past my aching throat.

“A surprise—You sound like crap, Vida. You okay?”

My heart gives a painful thump in a too-tight ribcage.

Head drops back against the rough brick at my back.

No. I’m not fucking okay.

Because he’s in my ear, hearing me for the first time in weeks and asking me if I’m okay and I’m clinging to his words against my better judgement.

And I’m here. Standing on some random street in some foreign place, in the dark, with busted knuckles and a bleeding heart.

Alone.

So fucking alone.

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