Page 16 of Pieces of Me

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Since Bri doesn’t drink, she’s always the designated driver, and so with Colton and his girl in the back of her car, she pulls into the parking lot of the only place open after seven in our tiny farming town of Blessing, North Carolina. We all get out once she’s parked, and I take her in my arms when I realize she’s shivering. “Cold?”

“A little.”

I remove my hoodie and place it over her head while waiting for Jasmine and Mason to show up. A few minutes later, they arrive with two more people in tow. With my arm around my girl’s shoulders, we file into the diner as if we rule the place. We all grew up here or in Justice, the next town over. Brianna’s from Justice, but her grandparents are here, so she spends most weekends with them. After high school, most of the kids stay and work on their family farms. Some go off to college, never to return. I can’t remember the last time, before me, someone ended up doing both.

Miss Sandra, the server, smiles at our group of misfits and doesn’t bother telling us where to sit. We join a bunch of tables together, and Bri catches me up on her week while the others chat about the food they plan on devouring. I listen, wholeheartedly, until I catch sight of the lone girl sitting in a corner booth, laptop on the table, black coffee beside it, her eyes right on mine. “What the fuck?” I whisper, slow to get to my feet.

“What is it?” Bri asks, but I can’t take my eyes off of Jamie. Goddammit, I’dalmostforgotten about her and the rage she made me feel.

The weed, the booze, the girl I’d planned on losing myself in later tonight—they had all played their part in my need to escape. But now she’s here.Again. And I can’t fucking take it.

I practically storm toward her, slide in on the seat opposite. Her eyes widen when I seethe, “What the fuck are you still doing here?”

“I’m… I’m just exhausted. I’d been driving for so long, and I needed a break. I’ll leave—”

“You don’t get to do this, Jamie!” I cut in. I don’t know if I’m yelling or if the THC is fucking with my head. “You don’t get to come intomytown! Intomyhome!” I look away when I stand—the withheld tears in her hazel eyes almost breaking my resolve. “This is my safe space, mysolace!” I fume, my chest rising and falling, breath harsh against my throat. I turn quickly, my jaw set, anger pulsing through my veins. I don’t care that I’ve just made a scene. That the people I walked in with are all watching me.

“Holden, wait!”

Those two words... coming from her... they break me. Detonate the bomb that had been ticking slowly inside me for five. fucking. years. “Wait?!” I roar, spinning to her. She’s on her feet, her chin raised, shoulders squared as if prepared for an onslaught. She’s ready for an onslaught? I’ll fucking give her one. “I did wait, Jamie!” I yell, my finger pointed between us. “I waited every single fucking day for you to come back! You left me with nothing but a cryptic piece of paper and a broken fucking heart. And still. I waited. I waited the rest of the school year and all fucking summer.” My voice cracks, and I don’t bother hiding it. “That entire summer, every time a car drove by my house, I’d think it was you, but it never was! And so Iwaited! I waited for you throughout my first year of college!” I push out a breath, try to reign in my anger. “Every single time a girl with brown hair worn in a fucking bun just like yours would come into my vision, I’d chase after them, thinking it was you—that you’d come to your fucking senses. But it never was. Because you never fucking came back for me!”

“I’m here now,” she croaks, and I almost come undone at her words. For years, I dreamt of those words, would hear them whispered in my ear when no one was around.

I take a step forward, let my resentment form in my gut, come out in the harshness of my tone. “I don’t want you here!” I yell. “I don’t want you here, ruining everything you touch, tarnishing my memories of this place!”

She wipes at her tears. “Holden…”

“Leave!” I throw my arm toward the exit, hitting someone behind me.

Colton steps beside me, his palm flat against my chest as he pushes me back. Away from Jamie. Away from my anger. My rage. “That’s enough, H. Just get in the car, and we’ll call it a night.”

“No.” I stand my ground, never once taking my eyes off Jamie. “I’m not leaving until she does.”

He pushes me again. Harder. Firmer. “No, you’re leaving now,” he says, and I’m jealous of the calm inflection in his tone. “Bri, get him in the car.”

Bri.

Fuck.

I don’t even know where she is, what she’s seen. It’s not until I feel her beside me, her fingers linking with mine, that regret sets in. She’s never seen me like this. I’ve neverbeenlike this. “Come on, baby,” she says, tugging on my hand. I let her lead me away, my heart racing, pulse pounding in my eardrums. My adrenaline’s still pumping by the time I make it outside, let the cool air fill my lungs. Bri guides me into the passenger seat like a fucking child, and I take the few seconds she’s gone to think about what I’ll say to her. When she gets in, she faces me, her hand reaching out, cupping my jaw. My eyes drift shut at her touch. “Breathe, baby,” she says. “Inhale the positive. Exhale the negative.”

I open my eyes, but it’s not her I see. It’s Jamie. And Colton. His hand is on her shoulder, his head dipped to look into her eyes—eyes I’ve spent minutes, hours, days getting lost in. He’s speaking, and she’s nodding, and then he’stouching her face, wiping her tears with the pad of his thumb, and it’s instant, this fucking twisting in my stomach…

It’s the same feeling I had when Dean walked into the room at the lawyer’s office.

Red hot rage mixed with something I don’t want to admit. Not even to myself.

Jealousy.

“Just breathe, babe,” Bri says. “Breathe.”

I turn to her. To the girl who doesn’t ask, doesn’t judge. “I can’t.”

10

Jamie

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