Page 104 of Sunflower Persona
Chapter 33
Kori
The world doesn’t stop spinning just because my heart is broken. The sun still rises, birds still sing, and classes are still on schedule. Despite the hollow ache in my chest, I get up and drag myself to my lectures. Because that’s what I have to do. There’s no chance in hell I’m letting myself get behind because some asshole hurt my feelings.
The normalcy of the routine is a welcome distraction from the urge to wallow. I push any thoughts of my ex to the back of my mind and listen to my professors with more attention than I’ve ever mustered before. Maybe breakups are the key to academic success. Thinking about differential equations is way more enjoyable than dwelling on a broken heart.
I stay on campus longer than I need to. My room is lonely, and there are too many reminders of him around for it to be comfortable. It isn’t until the sun dips below the trees that I make my way back to Rutherford Hall. An ominous chill clings to the breeze, teasing the first real taste of fall.
It’s alarming how quickly the seasons can change, and the seasons of life are no different. One day you can be basking inthe sun, filled with joy and life, only for dusk to come, and the next to be filled with cold loneliness and despair. One sunset—one blink—and nothing is what it was before.
I’m not who I was before.
I walk into my dorm and freeze at the mountain of a man hunched over in a chair two sizes too small near the maglock entrance to the dormitory, with a bouquet of equally wilted sunflowers clutched in his white-knuckled fist.
As if he can sense my presence, his head snaps up, and his gaze finds mine across the room. His face is pale, his eyes are shadowed by dark circles, and there’s a deep bruise forming on his cheek. A sick sort of pleasure fills me knowing he looks as awful as I feel, but that doesn’t explain what he’s doing here.
He has no reason to be here.
Everything was made crystal clear yesterday. He doesn’t get to come here and try to take it back. Fuck that—no, fuck him and his bullshit games. He can’t rip my heart out and then try to shove it back in and pretend like nothing happened.
My heart picks up speed, beating wildly under the intensity of his stare. His eyes run over my body, and I freeze like prey caught in the sights of a predator. An unwelcome shiver runs to my core. My body hasn’t gotten on the same program as my head and heart. A lifetime passes in those brief seconds, and then I move, taking a slow step back as if that will somehow stop him from pouncing.
“Low, wait,” he calls out, springing from the chair as I start to flee.
“You lost the right to call me that,” I snap.
“Kori,” he amends, “please just hear me out.”
It only takes him half a dozen steps before he’s right in front of me, and I curse my traitorous body for relaxing for the first time since I left his place yesterday.
“What do you want, Gage?” I try to keep my voice down despite the venom coating the words.
There are too many eyes on us already, watching this train crash play out in slow motion. I don’t want to draw any more attention.
“You,” he rasps. There’s more emotion in that one word than he normally displays in a full conversation. “I fucked up yesterday, and I’m so sorry. Breaking up with you was the biggest mistake of my life. I freaked out and reacted without thinking. So this is me, begging for your forgiveness.”
He holds out the sad flower arrangement, but I don’t take the withering blooms. I cross my arms over my chest and keep my chin held high.
“Are you actually ready to talk about what caused you to freak out?” I ask.
“Yeah, I am.”
“Come on, let’s take a walk.”
He nods as he follows me out of the lobby and into the quad. This isn’t a conversation I want to have with an audience, but I’m also not about to take him up to my room. My resolve has its limits.
A bitter chill nips at my skin when I step outside, painting it with a layer of goose bumps as a shiver racks through me. I should have grabbed a hoodie, but that would mean going up to my room, and I don’t trust him not to follow me up and try to force his way back into my good graces. My grandma always told me never to trust a desperate man, and the desperation is clear on my ex’s face.
“Here.” Gage shrugs off his jacket and hands it to me. I’m not stubborn enough to freeze in order to make a point.
Tears well as the rough canvas envelops me, but I refuse to let them fall. It’s still warm with his body heat and the closest I’ll get to one of his protective embraces ever again. I wrap it around meand breathe him in, basking in the sense of security no matter how false it might be.
I find a bench isolated enough from the others and take a seat, urging him to do the same. He sits beside me and fidgets with the sad bouquet, twisting it in his hands without looking up from the bright petals.
“About yesterday,” he starts, but cuts himself off with a shake of his head. “Shit. None of this will make sense without context.”
“So give me context.”
