Forcing Gravity (51 page)

I didn’t think it was possible for a person to cry as much as I had in the past week, but I guess it was. Until the day before, my eyes had been in a constant state of puffiness, so I covered them with sunglasses whenever I needed to leave my dorm. Social engagements were cut
out,
I wasn’t returning phone calls, and the only person I’d spoken to was Henley
,
only because she slept five feet from me.

Ethan had called me daily, multiple times, but I refused to call him back. He’d ruined everything
,
and I wasn’t nearly ready to forgive him or even hear him out. Everyone
else
had left messages
throughout the week
– Garrett, Skylar, my dad, even my mom, but I
didn’t want to talk to anyone. I just wanted to curl up and shut out the world, beca
use quite honestly, nothing
felt
right
. Without Jase, it was like a light had gone out.

I never thought I’d be one of thos
e girls who fell apart when she broke up with her
boyfriend, but I’d also never felt the depth of feelings I felt for Jase
before.
I’d never loved some
one with such reckless abandon, and
I had no idea how amazing falling headfirst in
to
love could be. So I
dove in
and
let the wind rush past me. But then w
hile in the middle of the free
fall I was abruptly jerk
ed
bac
kward, and now it felt
like I was drifting through the nothingness,
empty and lost and confused.

I wanted so badly for him to just call, to tell me he was wrong and that he knew the kiss hadn’t meant anything, but he never did. And today it was so much worse, because it was the night of his premiere – the one he’d invited me to a month earlier because he wanted
me to share his big night with him, and I’d been so looking forward sharing his night with him.

Even if I’d had
to watch
him walk the re
d carpet and talk to media with Ellie
, I would have known that he was mine. Watching him charm the reporters and smile his secret smile for the cameras would have made me grin from ear to ear, and then we would have watched the movie
together. He would have discreetly taken my hand once the lights went out and no one could see us, and at the party afterward, we would have talked and laughed and counted down the minutes until we could go back to his place and he could unzip
the charcoal gray
dress I’d be wearing
,
that
I’d bought
just because I knew he’d love it.

My beautiful dress hung sadly in my closet and the Jimmy
Choo’s
I’d practiced walking in up and down the hall of my dorm would remain pristine in their box, which was probably better anyway since I’d be terrified of scuffing a pair of $700 shoes through sheer clumsiness. Oh well, maybe one day I’d have an excuse to wear them.

At least I hadn’t cried all day. That was something. I
t
was a milestone.

I sat in the middle of my bed with my arms looped around my knees and sighed. Outside the sun was drifting down in the late afternoon sky, and soon it would be dark. It was
fine,
it matched how I felt inside.

I wondered if Jase would be taking a
real
date to the premiere. Would he do that?
I hoped not
. It would kill me to know he’d moved on so quickly when the feelings I’d amassed for him over the past few months, although terrifying, hadn’t diminished one bit.
I loved him. It was that simple.

I’d fallen in love with a boy who wore his heart on his sleeve
and who’d
been through a hellish break-up and who’d let me in when he’d shut out those closest to him. He was sweet and sensitive and so talented, and he was funny and caring and over-the-top
charming
at times. Girls across the country adored him because he was beautiful, but I’d gotten to know the person he was off-screen, and that guy was a million times better than the guy the rest of the world got to know. He was special, and he’d been mine, but
then
he’d pushed me away, because of something that wasn’t my fault, that he didn’t understand and that he didn’t even question. And that was what
killed me
.

He knew me. He knew I’d never hurt him – or so I’d thought. He’d believed so readily that I could betray him, and for that, I hated him. I hated him, and I loved him, and my heart felt like it
had been
ripped in two.

“Hey s
weetie,” Henley called cheerfully as she slipped into our room and tossed her tote bag of books onto her bed.

“Hey,” I called glumly, looking over at her bright and cheerful expression. I wished she’d stop smiling.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, as she took in my morose demeanor. “You were doing so well when I left for class.”

I shrugged, as Henley crossed the room to sit next to me. Her arms encircled my shoulders and pulled me close, so I laid my head on her shoulder. As soon as my cheek felt the soft cotton of her shirt, I felt the tears well up in my eyes
,
and the floodgates opened.

“
It’s
premiere night,” Henley said, understanding dawning on her face, and all I could do was sniffle and cry harder as she rubbed my arm with her hand. “It’s okay. It’s fine. We’ll just do somethi
ng that will take your mind of
f
o
f
jerkface
, okay?”

I pulled out of her embrace and buried my head in my pillow, the weight of the day and the feelings that suddenly overwhelmed me too much to bear.

“I just want to take a nap,” I mumbled into my pillow. I was so tired, and closing my eyes felt like the best thing in the world in that moment.

Henley sighed. “Okay, I’m going to go out and get some ice cream and cookie dough and some stuff to make nachos in the microwave. I’ll be back in about an hour. You sleep, and when you get back, we’ll have a girl
’
s night and pig out, and I will have you laughing by the end of the night.”

I ignored her and closed my eyes, shutting out the world. I was pretty sure nothing was going to make me laugh that day, and that was it. Time was the only thing that was going to help me, and I couldn’t make it go any faster than it already was.

***

I awoke to a pitch black room when I felt someone sit on the bed beside me. A second later, light flooded the room, and I squeezed my eyes shut in protest.

“Henley,” I grumbled, trying to push her off the bed. “Turn off the f-
ing
light.”

“Just talk to him,” Henley said, and I realized she was across the room.

My eyes flew open as I turned to look at who was sitting next to me. Looking as battered an
d bruised as I was, Ethan
was
there
looking down at me. I blinked a few times, not sure what to say.

“Hey,” I finally said for lack of anything better. My feelings and emotions toward him were so clouded in that moment that I felt awkward around my best friend for the first time in my life.

He reached out and smoothed my hair back from my forehead.
“Hey, Lo.
I’ve missed you.”

I watched the way he looked at me with a reverence he only reserved for those he truly cared about, and I realized in that moment that as mad as I was, I’d missed him too.  He might have ruined things between Jase and me, but
I didn’t think that had been his intention. I’d already lost someone I cared so much about, and I knew, as Ethan sat next to me, I couldn’t lose him too.

“I missed you too,” I said, sitting up and wrapping him up in my arms.

He sighed, long and loud, as if letting out a wealth of emotion that had been pent up.
His head tucked in next to mine, and he hugged me fiercely and without abandon.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, repeating what he’d said on message after message he’d left for me.

“I know,” I said, forgiving him completely in that moment, because above all else, he was my best friend and the person who’d been there for me since as far back as I could remember. He was
far
too important for me not to forgive him.

He pulled back and appraised me, shaking his head. Then he sighed resignedly. “There’s someone here who wants to talk to you,” he said, rising to his feet.

“What? Where are you going?” I asked, as he walked to the door.

He turned around and look
ed
at me, smiling a small smile. “Call me later, okay?”

And my heart sank. Were we not okay? Was he really in love with me, and by knowing I didn’t feel the same way, he was breaking off our friendship? Oh, my God, I couldn’t take that.

“Ethan, wait.”

He blinked a few times before crossing the room back to me. He cupped my face in his hands.

“We’re okay,” he said. Then he kissed my forehead, letting his lips linger for a few beat
s
before his hands fell away.
“I just – I owe you, so let me just make things right, okay?”

I nodded, not sure what he was talking about. Before I knew what was happening, he was gone, and I was alone. The
n
half a second later, the door opened again, and my heart nearly stopped.

Closing the door softly behind him, Jase turned and faced me, his secret smile on his face and his eyes locked on me.

I stood up in an instant, crossed the room and threw my arms around his neck, not caring that he’d dismissed me so harshly outside his house. In that moment, with him standing in my room, all I wanted to do was
feel
close to him again.

After a few seconds, his arms wrapped around my waist, and he pulled me so tightly against his chest I thought I might stop breathing, but I didn’t care.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, knowing I had no plans of letting him go anytime soon.

“I love you
so much, Logan
,” he whispered in my ear.
“I’m so sorry.”

I pulled back to look at him, and he was watching me carefully.
I swallowed, as I fell into the depths of his green eyes, getting lost in the emotion I saw there.

I swallowed hard, not sure what to say.

“Jase, this has been the worst week of my life,” I said, as I tried to hold onto the emotions simmering just below the surface – mixed
with the love I felt for him were
anger and hurt and relief that he was standing in front of me, but it didn’t change that he had initially thought I’d betrayed him.

“I know,” he said, as he leaned his forehead against mine. “It’s been awful for me too.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I cried, no longer
able
to hold back my tears as they welled up in my eyes
.
“I promise, I didn’t cheat.
I know what Chloe did to you, and I would
never
hurt you like that. You have to know that.”

He took in a staggering breath. “You don’t understand what it looked like from my perspective. I know how you feel about Ethan, how close you guys are, and I always wondered if there was something more between you, and then I saw you kissing him, and I just lost it.”

“He kissed me. I didn’t kiss him, and what you didn’t see was me pushing him away and yelling at him. I don’t have feelings for him, Jase. I love
you.
”

I was suddenly so desperate for him to trust me that my emotions got the best of me and the tears in my eyes spilled over.

He
leaned forward and kissed the first one that fell. “I believe you,” he said, kissing my cheek again and again as the tears fell harder. Then he hugged me to him once again. “Please don’t cry, Logan. Please. I know you didn’t do anything wrong. Ethan explained everything.”

“Ethan?” I asked, pulling back to look at him in question.

“Yeah, he came over tonight with Henley and demanded that I hear him out. I have to say, I’m not exactly used to people demanding things, but I was so miserable without you that I didn’t really have it in me to tell him off.”

“You were miserable?” I
asked, not sure I believed him
.

He nodded. “Didn’t you hear
what I said
? The past week has been
one of
the worst of my life. I missed you, and I was angry, and I felt so empty without you, but I couldn’t get that image out of my head. All I could think was that you’d picked him over me, and I just hated it. I didn’t feel like this when Chloe left. S
ure, I felt betrayed, but I
was more embarrassed than anything else. I did
n’t love her like I love you
. Logan,
losing you almost killed me.”