Chris straightens, his entire body going rigid. “Jenni? What’s wrong? Where are you?”
“I’m at Murphy’s,” she cries, the words fractured and frantic. “Zach—he—Fuck, I can’t even say it—he asked me to help plan a birthday party for Honey and then he—he tried to—” Her breath hitches. “He tried to kiss me.”
The words echo through the quiet kitchen, and suddenly it’s like all the air has been sucked out of the room. Chris’s eyes go wide as they flick from his phone to me, confusion etched across his face.
I don’t know. I don’t know what to think or what the hell is going on.
“No,” Chris says. “He wouldn’t do that. He’s in love with Honey.”
My own phone buzzes. Zach's name flashes across the screen, and something vicious and protective rears up inside me. I don't think. I just react, slamming my finger down on the decline button so hard I'm surprised the screen doesn't crack.
The silence that follows is deafening.
Chris is staring at his phone like it might bite him. Jenni's cries have dissolved into static, but neither of us moves to pick it up.
“I can't,” I whisper, the words scraping against my throat like broken glass. “I can't do this.”
I can’t sit around, waiting for another message to come through, proving that I’ve been an idiot all this time.
I don't wait for Chris to respond. I don't wait for anything. I just run.
Past the hockey players through the living room until I’m outside, sucking in the cold air.
The front door slams behind me with enough force to rattle the windows, but I don't care. I need air. I need space. I need to breathe.
The evening air hits my cheeks, sharp and cold against my flushed skin, but it's not enough. Nothing will ever be enough to wash away what I just learned.
I stumble down the driveway, my lungs failing me. My chest is a locked vice, my legs are jelly. Perfect lawns blur past me, and houses that probably contain people with normal problems. People who don't have their hearts ripped out and stomped on by the two people they trusted most in this college.
I stop at the end of the street, gasping like I’ve run a marathon instead of just a few hundred yards. My chest is tight, my lungs are burning, and I realize I'm hyperventilating.
Get it together, Honey. Falling apart won't change anything.
But even as I try to calm my breathing, my mind won't stop replaying it.
Zach said he was busy tonight. Meetings. Back-to-back. That's what he told me.
Jenni said she had a date. With some guy she'd been flirting with.
But they're both at Murphy's.
Together.
They planned this.
No. Zach wouldn’t do this. He’s been through it all with me. He held me while I broke down about feeling like I was disappearing. He told me I mattered. That I was enough.
He wouldn’t do that and then… this.
But the dots on the map don't lie. The location share doesn't make mistakes. He'sthere.With her. Right where Jenni said they were.
I press my palms against my eyes, trying to stop the spiral.
Maybe there's an explanation. Maybe it's not what it looks like. Maybe—
This is exactly what I told myself with Jamie, though. Right up until I couldn't deny it anymore. Right up until everyone else had already seen the truth and I was the last one to catch up.
Everyone else knows. The anonymous texts prove it. If I didn’t believe them, then they’ve also got photos. It would also explain why Jenni has been pushing Chris, planting seeds of doubt while playing the concerned friend.