I leaned back and cupped her damp cheeks, stroking my thumbs over her soft skin. “Please stop crying,” I begged her, my own chin wobbling. “You’re breaking my heart, Coralie. What happened that night was not worth this spiral. It’s not worth the mental head dive you’ve taken.”
She shook her head and rested her forehead on mine, closing her eyes. I sobbed, every part of me aching for her and what we used to be. I hated it’d taken me getting drunk for her to realize what’d really happened. How had she not known about me getting arrested? It felt like everyone knew, but then again, Coralie had never listened to rumors.
Unless, apparently, they were about me and Brittany.
“I don’t deserve this,” she whispered. “I don’t deserve you. Not after everything I’ve done. Not after everything you’ve had to endure alone. I swore to always be by your side. To always be your best friend. Someone you can lean on. And I fucking left you, Mila.”
Her shoulders shook with her next sob. I pulled her head to the crook of my neck, squeezing her in my arms. I had no idea what this heart-to-heart meant for us. I had no idea what this breakthrough meant for our future. I wasn’t even sure if we could ever be anything close to what we used to be.
But regardless of what had happened between us in the past, I was willing to let bygones be bygones. Coralie needed me. She was spiraling over this, and after witnessing her melt down, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that if she’d known what her abandonment had cost me, she wouldn’t have done it.
She’d have stuck around.
I just didn’t understand why she’d done it to begin with.
Seven
Coralie
Jessica set her coffee down on the table, then handed me mine. I shot her a small, thankful smile and took a sip as she dropped into the seat across from me. “Are you okay?” she demanded, her voice not really gentle, but also not unkind. “You were so out of it, Cor. It scared the shit out of me. Don’t ever go MIA again without letting me know where you are, understand?”
I nodded my head, staring at my coffee as I wrapped my hands around the cardboard cup. The heat from it slowly seeped into my palms, centering me. And fuck knew I hadn’t felt centered since I’d found out what happened that weekend that tore my goddamn world apart.
“Mila… when she was drunk, the night I went to pick her up?” Jessica nodded, urging me to continue. “I was wrong, Jessica. We both were. She… did you know she was fucking arrested?”
Jessica’s jaw dropped in disbelief for a full minute before she snapped it closed, her teeth audibly clacking together. I winced. I hated that sound. It made my own teeth ache. “Arrested?” she asked incredulously. “The timid, sweet Mila we knew got fucking arrested?”
I nodded, drumming my fingers along my cup. “Her parents apparently hate her. All she had was Brittany, and…” I swallowed thickly, trying to push down the self-hatred and guilt clogging my throat. Fucking choking me. “She told me they were never together, Jessica, which just proves my theory. She was testing me, to see if I felt the same way about her as she did about me, and I fucking failed. I failed so badly, I destroyed everything.”
“Cor… it’s not all on you,” Jessica said, reaching across the table to grip my wrist. “She could have outright said?—”
“She could have, yeah,” I agreed, “but I didn’t have to be a bitch, Jessica. I didn’t have to leave that fucking party. Regardless of my feelings about seeing her with Brittany, I should have stuck around to make sure dumb shit like getting arrested didn’t happen. We always got her out in time, Jessica. And the one time we didn’t…” I let my voice trail off.
Jessica didn’t say anything either because she knew as well as I did that we should have been there. Even if the party hadn’t gotten raided, someone could’ve spiked Mila’s drink, or she could’ve drank too much and gotten seriously hurt. We’d failed her in more ways than one, and we’d been so goddamn blinded by my own hurt feelings that we hadn’t seen the bigger picture.
“What do you plan to do now?” Jessica asked after a few minutes of silence had passed between us.
I slumped back in my seat, dropping my hands to my lap. “Make up for everything I ruined,” I told her honestly. “We had some kind of breakthrough last night, Jessica, and I refuse to do a damn thing to destroy that. I miss her. I… I fucking love her still, despite everything that happened between us.” I swallowed past the sudden lump in my throat. My heart fucking ached. “I need her.”
Jessica sighed. “I know you do,” she said quietly. “Just be careful, yeah? After everything, Mila may not want you anymore.” I flinched. The thought of Mila not wanting me anymore was equivalent to being stabbed in the damn heart, but I knew Jessica was just stating the real possibilities. I might have done irreparable damage. “I don’t want to see you get your heart broken.”
I nodded once, staring at the table as pain slicing through my chest like a double-edged blade as I thought of Mila no longer loving me. No longer wanting me. It fucking hurt.
“If heartbreak is what I get in the end…” I blew out a harsh breath. “Then maybe it’s what I deserve.”
I nervously tapped my foot as I waited outside of Mila’s last class. After she’d fallen asleep last night, I’d taken a picture of her class schedule so I could bring her some coffee when she was done with classes for the day. I had no doubt she’d have a lot of homework and would need the caffeine kick to power through it all. It used to be her routine when we were in high school. I just hoped it still was and that I’d perhaps gotten it right.
I didn’t want to get anything wrong again—not with her.
I was so nervous though. What if last night was just a fluke? What if she chose to just walk right past me as if she didn’t know me?
The doors to the lecture hall opened, and students began filing out. Mila’s pink hair caught my attention, and I had to consciously stop myself from fidgeting so she wouldn’t pick up on how fucking nervous I was. I needed to be chill. Laid back. The Coralie she was used to. She’d already worried so much after my disappearing act. If she saw I was a nervous wreck, she might only worry more.
She had enough to deal with without me being a fucking loser.
Mila stopped in front of me, a tentative smile tilting her lips. “Hey,” she breathed. “What’s up?”
I thrust the coffee in her direction, my cheeks going the slightest shade of pink when she laughed and stumbled back a bit so the cup wouldn’t smash into her chest. She grabbed it, her smile widening. “I brought you coffee,” I told her, my heart beating double time at the sight of her beautiful smile. She hadn’t smiled at me like that since everything between us got ruined. “I might’ve peeked at your schedule last night after you went to sleep, and I noticed one of your classes is math, and you hate math and struggle with it, so I thought the caffeine?—”