Page 88 of First Impressions of You

“No,” he grunts, searching my eyes frantically. “Don’t do that. I don’t care if you can’t say it back.” His voice has taken a soothing, soft quality. “I can wait. I’ll wait however long you need. I’m not going anywhere. Just please.” His voice wavers when he pleads. “Don’t walk away.”

“Winter,” I whimper. I want to leave before my heart shatters to the point I can’t put it back together. But just the mere thought of walking away from him is enough to crack my chest wide open. There’s no easy choice. If I stay with him, leaving him in January will rip my heart apart. If I leave him now, my heart will bleed every time I have to see him again for the next couple of months.

I move in his arms, and this time he doesn’t try to stop me. I slide down, my legs feeling like they’re filled with lead.

“I…” I feel a sob coming up my throat, so I try to swallow it back down. “I can’t do this anymore. We can’t… I can’t. I need to go.”

His eyes plead with me, begging me to stay, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t hold my arm. He doesn’t reach for my hand. As I turn on my heels to leave the dressing room, all Winter does is watch me go. And I hate myself for putting that pained look on his face and breaking my own heart while I do it.

Chapter 25

It’s been two days. Two days since that last moment in the dressing room.

Our dress rehearsal is tomorrow, and at this point I’m not sure what it is going to happen. I’m scared of breaking down as soon as I see him. And I’d have an audience of family, friends, and park employees to witness it.

My mind hasn’t stopped replaying that last conversation we had in a relentless loop. I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a precipice.

I can’t handle all of it at once. My heartbreak and my worry for Olivia are threatening to bury me alive. It’s just all too much.

Julia’s the only one whose head is just above the water, and she’s trying her best to keep us all floating. She’s even attempted to cook for us, but one meal was enough for her to resort to takeout.

The day woke up on the wrong side of chilly, a cold gust of wind coming through the open door of our balcony as I make my way to the kitchen, following the aroma of freshly brewed coffee.

“There’s milk in the microwave,” Julia tells me from her spot on the couch. The fact that she’s still home and hasn’t left for class yet tells me that I, again, woke up way earlier than I needed to. With my coffee in hand, I join her on the couch.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asks me with concern.

I shake my head.

“Have you talked to him yet?”

I shake my head again.

“Will you—”

Whatever Julia’s about to ask me is interrupted by the unexpected opening of a door. We both look at each other, surprised by the noise and even more surprised by the sight of Olivia rushing out of the bedroom.

“What happened?” we ask in unison.

Olivia’s never up before she needs to be. Sometimes not even when she needs to.

“I woke up out of the blue,” she says out of breath. “Like, I don’t know. Something woke me up. Then I went to check my phone because I thought I’d missed the alarm, but it was just seven in the morning, so I was gonna go back to sleep because I only have class in the afternoon today, but then…” She walks further into the living room now. “Then an email pinged. The dean wants to talk to me. Today. Now.”

“Now?” I yell.

“Well, at eight. But yeah.”

We jump out of the couch and sprint to action. In less than twenty minutes, we’re on the sidewalk waiting for an Uber to take us to the Elysian Fine Arts Institute in North Hollywood. It’s just a twenty-minute drive, thankfully not through any highways since traffic is already insane at this time. It’s another ten minutes of rushing through campus to get to building where the dean’s office is located.

We get there just in time, the clock turning to eight a.m. right as we knock on his door.

“Come in,” a gravelly voice calls from inside.

“Do you want us to come with you?” I ask Olivia, gently squeezing her hand that is wrapped tightly around mine.

She eyes both me and Julia before shaking her head. “No, I think I need to do this on my own.”

“We’ll be just outside,” Julia tells her reassuringly.

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