What if I've been blind again? What if I’m the same stupid girl I was then? The one who trusts too easily, who wants so badly to believe the best in people that she ignores every red flag waving in her face.
The consolation prize.
Jonathan's words echo in my head, and for the first time, I wonder if he’s right. Maybe I am pathetic. Maybe I do make the same mistakes over and over because I don't know how to be anything else.
My phone buzzes again. Zach's name lights up the screen.
I stare at it, my thumb hovering over the answer button.
What would he even say? What excuse could possibly make this okay?
I don't know what to believe anymore. I don't know if I can trust my own judgment when it's failed me so catastrophically before.
I decline the call and turn off my phone entirely.
I can't do this. Not tonight. Not when I don't even trust myself to know what's real anymore.
“Gemma, please.” My palms flatten against the counter of the front desk, my chest heaving. “I know it’s past visiting hours, but I need to see her.”
She doesn’t even bother to glance up from her computer because she’s too bored with the fact that this is a weekly conversation for us. “Rules are rules, Zach. You know this.”
“Yeah,” I grit out, running a hand through my hair, tugging until my scalp burns. “But this isn’t me trying to sneak into her room for a hookup. It’s important.” My voice is breaking, much like my life if I can’t figure this out. “I really need to see Honey.”
She finally drags her gaze away from the computer and gasps.
“What the hell happened to your face?”
I know I look like hell. That’s what I get for showing up at Chris’s door uninvited while some girl is spreading lies about me.
“It’s nothing. I’m fine.” My jaw still aches from the hit. There will definitely be a bruise there that I’ll need to explain to Coach, but that’s the least of my worries right now.
“Uh.”
“Please, Gemma. Just let me up.”
“I’m sorry, Zach.” Gemma’s voice is softer now. “She’s not here.”
My stomach drops. “She’s not?”
Gemma takes a deep breath before tapping a few keys on her keyboard and scanning the screen. “Her key card hasn’t been used since five when she left. Her room is empty.”
“Fuck.”
It’s nearly midnight.
Where the fuck is she?
Panic courses through my veins because this isn’t like Honey. She wouldn’t just leave the hockey house and not go home.
I stumble back from the counter, my phone already in my hand. I’ve called her six times in the last hour, and it’s always gone straight to voicemail. She hasn’t read my texts, and she turned off her fucking location share.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
“If you see her—” I start, but Gemma cuts me off.
“I’ll tell her you came by,” she says with what I think is sympathy. I don’t hang around long enough to check.
I shove through the doors and pull out my phone, ready to call Chris and rip into him for lying to me. I thought he understood.