Page 132 of Your Fault

“He doesn’t deserve you shedding a single tear for him, Noah. Not one.”

I knew what he was saying was true, but I wasn’t crying for just Nick or just me: I was crying for us, for Nick and Noah…because there wouldn’t be aweanymore, right? I would never be able to forgive him. Or would I?

I looked at the raindrops striking the window. It had been a long time since I’d seen a storm like that… The last time had been in Toronto, before my whole life turned upside down, before I fell in love, before everything.

“Anyway, I guess it had to happen…” I said softly, more to myself than to Michael.

It seemed as if that phrase remained there, lingering in the air.

“It’s not the first time either. It’s almost like I’m not capable of making men love me… My father didn’t. Neither did my first boyfriend, Dan. He cheated on me with my best friend. Now history’s repeating itself… I’m asking myself if that’s why I’ve been running away from everything with Nick, if there was a part of me that knew this had to happen and wanted to protect me from that pain…”

Michael took the cup from my hand and, without my managing to stop him, kissed me on the lips, pressing me into the pillows I was resting on. I blinked several times, perplexed, then pulled away with a face full of rage. Rage, and…something more.

“You’re an idiot if you don’t think you deserve to be loved, if you think the bad things that have happened in your life are your fault…” He stroked my hair. “I haven’t done my job with you, Noah. I really haven’t accomplished anything…”

Again, he pressed his lips into mine, and I felt so lost, I let him do it. My mind seemed to disconnect from my body, just as I had wished it would do since I took that car there. Michael’s handswere all over me, and maybe just as a reflex, mine started doing the same.

It was different, the way he touched me; his kisses were different, too. I couldn’t say whether I liked them because I wasn’t really there. I didn’t even know what was happening; my heart and my soul were crushed, blinded, waiting for someone to send a light into that bottomless pit and show me the way out.

When I woke up, it was five in the morning. My brain seemed to be functioning again, and I realized what I had done. It felt like someone had struck me with a mallet in the middle of my chest, hard and precise, and I had to drag myself from the bed to the bathroom to vomit.

I felt sick, truly sick, as if a virus were inside me, eating whatever life was still left in me. I looked down at my body. I was still in that white T-shirt, but my underwear had disappeared. Flashes of what had happened started to reappear in my mind, and I could do nothing to stop them. His hands, his mouth, his naked body on top of mine…

Oh my God.

I retched and brought myself up to my knees in front of the toilet to vomit again for minutes straight. It seemed like an eternity. Then I rested my face on the edge of the sink and started crying again. I didn’t even know how many tears I had spilled since the night before, nor did I understand how I had any left. I wanted to burn that shirt, shower in boiling water, scrub my body with steel wool… With all my strength, I wanted to cleanse myself inside and out and ball up in bed waiting for time to pass before I raised my head again.

Like a robot, I started picking up my things, trying not to make noise. I didn’t want to put my party dress back on, but I also didn’twant to walk out of there naked. I ended up taking a sweatshirt Michael had left on a chair. I’d burn the dress and that damned sweatshirt later; I’d throw everything I’d worn in the fire, burn all the memories and all the things he had touched, because—for God’s sake—I’d let him touch me, let him do even more…

When I turned on my phone to book a ride, I saw dozens of missed calls on my screen. Most were from Nicholas; he’d called me every five minutes for the past six hours… Jenna had called, too. So had my mom.

I rolled my eyes and ignored all of them, reserved a car, and left Michael’s apartment without making a sound.

It was raining buckets, and soon enough, I was soaked, but since I felt dirty, I let the water wash over me, and it actually made me feel better. For a few minutes, I tried to forget everything and concentrate on the plunking of the waterdrops against my face.

The car honked, waking me from my daydream, and I rushed over and got in the back seat. I’d have just as soon caught a plane to Canada, to somewhere with no memories of my boyfriend, where I wouldn’t run into any of his exes, but before then, I had to go to my dorm.

It didn’t take long to get there—Michael lived on campus, too—and when I looked out the window and saw who was waiting for me on the front stairs, I nearly fainted.

No. I couldn’t see him. Shit… I needed to get out of there.

But Nicholas had already seen me, and before I could tell the driver to take me somewhere, anywhere else, Nick had already opened the door and pulled me out of the car.

“Noah, please, I’ve been looking for you like a madman all night. I thought something had happened to you. I thought…” He looked so desperate, and I was such a disaster, that for a moment, I almost let him hug me, I almost let him hold me in his arms, I nearly begged him to get me out of there, to take me away, just soI wouldn’t have to feel anymore what I felt in those moments. But then I remembered the reasons I was in this state, it all hit me, and even more intensely because I had him in front of me right then. He was with me, and I could see and not just think about all I had lost.

I shook and thrashed so hard and so fast that for a few seconds, Nicholas couldn’t grab hold of me, but when he did, near the door of the dorm, he grabbed both sides of my face and forced me to look into his eyes.

“Listen to me, Noah, please, you have to listen to me.”

He looked so desperate… The rain had died down, but we were both soaked and freezing.

“Noah, this was all a big, stupid misunderstanding. I’ve been looking all over for you because I knew what you were thinking, and I was dying inside knowing that you thought I had cheated on you…”

I blinked, not grasping what he was saying.

“I’ve been a dickhead, okay? I know I have. I was an idiot, leaving you alone last night with our parents, and if you want to hate me for kissing Sophia, fine, but—”

His words pierced my soul, and I tried to jerk away from his grasp. He’d just admitted that he’d deceived me, that it was true, that he’d kissed her.

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