Page 102 of Heartless Game

“Come on, let’s get out of the way,” I said, leading her to the wall by the bathroom.

She turned to me. Her smile seemed tentative, but it was genuine now. “Thank you. I don’t usually go to hockey games, are they always this wild?”

“Always,” I said, and she laughed.

“I guess I better get used to them.”

With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I asked the question I was terrified to learn the answer to.

“Why do you need to get used to them?”

“Oh.” She brushed her hair behind her ear again. “I…god, this is awkward. My dad didn’t tell me Isaac had a girlfriend. And Isaac really should’ve been the one to tell you this, and he’s kind of an asshole—no, really an asshole—for keeping it from you.”

I could walk away. Pretend I’d never spoken to her, noticed her. Continue to fuck Isaac and sleep in his arms like everything was okay and the small, isolated world bubble we’d built wasn’t about to shatter into pieces and come crashing down around us. But I was TovahLewis, the same girl who’d survived despite everything. The journalist who never shied away from hard questions and harder answers. I wasn’t about to start now, even though I had a feeling whatever she said next was going tohurt.

“What should Isaac have told me?” I asked, already dreading the answer.

She shook her head. “That we’re engaged. I’m so sorry.”

41

Tovah

Ididn’t go back to the game. I walked blindly through the crowd, ignoring Eliana as she called after me with concern, shoving around people and running down the stairs and out of the arena, unable to breathe.

Once I was outside in the dark, chilly night, I doubled over, puking up bile. My mouth tasted rancid, and I gasped for breath, feeling dizzy and nauseous. I refused to cry, and as badly as I wanted to scream—at Isaac, primarily—I wasn’t going to lose my shit in public like that.

So instead, I walked. I walked around the parking lot, in circles around the arena, zigzagging across the grass toward the construction site where they were rebuilding Hallister Hall after it had burned down a few months ago. I lost track of where I walked, and of time, only cognizant of the aching in my chest and the tears spilling down my face after I lost the battle with them. There was a barrage of texts from Aviva; I ignored all of them.

Finally, maybe an hour or two later, I found myself back where I’d begun, outside the arena, near the parking lot.

Isaac’s car was there—and so was Isaac.

With Eliana.

She had her hand on his chest, and she was speaking to him urgently. He didn’t look happy, but he didn’t move her hand, either.

And on her hand—herlefthand—was something I hadn’t noticed earlier. I’d been too desperate to get away.

An engagement ring sparkled in the night, a beacon of devastation in the form of a diamond so huge I could see it in the dark.

This was it.

This was everything I should’ve dreaded but hadn’t known to.

The world rocked underneath me. Spun. Bile filled my mouth. I wanted to puke, scream, sob. Beat my fists against his chest. Hurt him.

But all of that would only make me hurt more.

I had to get out of there.

I had to find somewhere safe to go. Somewhere he wouldn’t find me. Somewhere I could nurse this pain and figure out what my next steps were. Maybe I would go to San Diego and stay with my mom. What did I have left here? I could become a remote student, finish my courses that way, and still become a journalist. But I couldn’t deal with the pain of listening to his lies, or worse, his truths, and then watch him marry someone else.

No. I refused.

I refused.

Almost blind with tears, I didn’t notice at first that they’d spotted me. But then Isaac was shoving her hand away and walking toward me quickly.

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