This whole day has been too much.
I swallow hard.
“Joel?”Matt presses.“What do you say?”
For a split second, I imagine it—packing up, flying out, stepping onto a new stage every night in a different city.
The adrenaline.The crowds.The kind of high that only music can bring.
And then I see it?—
A hotel room across the world.
A phone that doesn’t light up with her name.
A life without her in it.
The thought is so sharp, so sudden, that I swear I feel my chest cave in.
I don’t even realize my grip on the phone has tightened.
Because I have no fucking idea what to do.
For the past thirteen years, I’ve been working toward this.I thought I knew what I wanted—where I was going.
But now?
I’m not even sure if want it anymore.
CHAPTER27
Anna
Idon’t know what the hell I’m doing.
My hands are clammy, my stomach’s in knots, and my pulse has been racing since the second Joel and I stepped into my apartment.I didn’t know what to expect when we got here, but I’ll tell you one thing I really didn’t anticipate—this weird buzzing that’s settled under my skin.
He left an hour ago and I keep pacing, trying to breathe through it, but nothing is fucking helping.
Because I can still feel him.
On my lips.
In my chest.
Somewhere deep in my ribs where he doesn’t belong.
The kiss was crazy.It should’ve settled things.Hell, it should’ve given me clarity to move on.Instead, it’s cracked something open—something I don’t know how to name and it’s slowly expanding through my system like a slow moving poison.And there’s only one antidote.
Shit.
I need to move.
I need todosomething.
I go to the fridge.Open it.Stare inside like the meaning of life is buried somewhere between the leftover takeout and a half-empty bottle of oat milk.
I shut it.