What an asshole.
Tears stream down my face as I make my way back to the university campus as fast as I humanly can.
I’m such a goddamn fool.
I catch a bus and find an isolated seat in the back. I pull out my phone, half expecting to see a text or a missed call from Logan. Instead, I see notifications about our very public breakup. I turn off my phone and shove it in my purse.
How could he blame me for all this? Didn’t he trust me?
The rejection. The humiliation. I hide my face when I get to campus but that doesn’t stop the whispers and the stares.
I don’t care. The pain is pulsing in my chest like the aftermath of a bomb that just exploded. Everything inside me is empty. My heart is gone.
Making my way up to my room, I push the door open to see Jane on her bed listening to ethereal music and reading a magazine. She looks up and instantly reacts to my disheveled state.
“Riley.” She tosses the magazine aside. “Are you okay?”
She rushes over to me.
I shake my head as the tears start streaming again.
“Oh my god, what’s wrong?”
“The contract,” I say between sobs. “Did you take a picture of it?”
“What?” Her face contorts in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
Through heavy sobs, I explain everything to her – the text, the accusations from Logan, the breakup.
She shakes her head. “No, I didn’t have anything to do with that. I didn’t even see the contract!”
It’s true. I kept it in my wallet from the moment we signed it and it stayed there until Logan and I ripped it up.
“Besides,” Jane continues, “why would I do that to you? You could just as easily expose me if you wanted to.”
I nod. She’s right. Why would she blackmail me when she’s in the exact same position that I am? Besides, she has more than enough money from her fake relationship with Rupert. She doesn’t need more from Logan.
I sigh as I collapse onto my bed. I wipe away mascara-stained tears and let myself cry. My chest rises and falls with each sob.
“How could he accuse me of that?” I ask.
Jane sits next to me and pats my back as I cry.
“How could I let myself get so invested in him? How did I let it become so real? I feel like my heart’s been ripped out of my chest.”
“Oh, Riley.” Jane hugs me. “I’m so sorry.”
“He cares more about his reputation than anything else. I should have known.” I shake my head. “I should have known that a guy like him could never fall for a girl like me.”
I bury my face in her shoulder.
“I know, I know.” Jane rubs my back. “Damn, I wonder how that blackmailer got that contract.”
“I must’ve left my purse unattended at some point. Maybe in class or at the library.” I sigh, annoyed at my own negligence.
“Are you gonna try and figure out who it was?”
“Does it matter?” I slump deeper into the bed. “The damage is done.”
“I’m so sorry, Riley.”
I look up at her and sigh. “Me too. I guess I can go to New York now, guilt-free.’
Jane smiles. “That’s the spirit. And you know what else we should do guilt-free?”
“What?”
“Ice cream. Come on, my treat.”
I shake my head. “I feel like death. No, worse than death. I feel like a rat that’s been through the washing machine.”
Jane laughs.
“Trust me,” she says. “You’ll feel a thousand times better going to get ice cream with me over crying in bed and feeling sorry for yourself. Come on, it closes in fifteen minutes.”
After some more convincing on her part, I drag myself out of bed and put on some comfortable jeans and an oversized blue hoodie.
As we walk to the ice cream parlor down the block, I think about everything that happened.
Even though I’m mad at Logan, I want to believe deep down that he didn’t mean to accuse me of blackmailing him, or of being unfaithful in this way. But I can still hear his accusations in my head. I can still see the betrayal in his eyes. And even before all that, I could see just how nervous he was to be there upholding his Corazon persona in front of all those journalists. He never cared about me at all.
The stress of it all manifests as a lump in my throat. I try to push it down with a few scoops of mint chocolate chip, but even the ice cream can’t numb the pain.
***
“Just this way,” Clara, the smartly dressed blond, leads the way through the lobby of the New York City lab.
I follow along with ten other interviewees.
“Being hired by us means an extremely competitive salary and two weeks of vacation days to start. We like to treat our researchers with the highest respect we can. That’s how we expect to get the best work out of our employees.” She smiles. “Let’s turn right and take a tour of the atrium.”
We follow her through the brightly lit hallways.
“This place is amazing,” a short woman next to me says. “I’d love to work here.”
Clara points down the hallway. “The cafeteria is just down that way, with some amazing sustainable and plant-based options. Do you guys think you’d like working here?”
Everyone else nods. I force a smile and nod along with them.
As Clara continues talking about the benefits of working at her lab, I stare longingly out the window at the New York City skyline. A part of me feels defeated. I never imagined myself moving away from Seattle but at this point, it’s an inevitability, whether I get this position or not.
“Hey, do I know you?” The short woman asks. “You look familiar.”
“Oh, it must be a coincidence.”
“No…you were dating that hockey player! What was his name? Logan something…”
“Logan Drake,” I say. Saying his name feels like saying a dirty word.
“Right! My brother is a huge hockey fan.”
“Well, we’re not dating anymore.”
Her face goes solemn. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
She smiles, the light appearing in her face again. “It’s probably for the best, right? Now you can move to the big apple!”
“Yeah.” I swallow past the lump in my throat which still hasn’t quite gone away.
I’ve spent the last week hating Logan so much. Even just saying his name fills me with anger. How could he rope me into this mess? How could he blame me when it was clearly his psycho ex-girlfriend who messed this all up?
Or at least I think it was Catherine…
She’s the only person who was near my unattended purse when the contract was still in my wallet. She’s also the only person I know who’s vindictive enough to sabotage a relationship. How could it be anyone else?
I sigh. Does it even matter? Even if Logan wasn’t blackmailed, we would have had to break up anyway. But that doesn’t stop me from thinking about a whole host of alternate scenarios, none of which involve me being single in New York.
The other interviewees and I follow Clara down a corridor to the atrium. The large rounded room is full of plant life, and the stained-glass ceiling tints the sunlight with jewel-toned blues, reds, greens, and yellows. This small paradise separates the hospital and the laboratories.
“We have revolutionary equipment that will be the future of sports medicine,” Clara says. “By working here, you will work with experts who will teach you decades of experience. Our labs are fully stocked and ready to be used. With New York’s various elite sports teams, there will be several professional teams needing our services.”
Clara smiles as she looks at me, clearly excited that I’ve had experience with sports medicine.
“Well, that’s the end of the tour. I’ll be interviewing you all individually over the next few days. Anyone want to volunteer to go first?”
Everyone’s hands go up but mine.
Later that afternoon after wasting time at the bookstore down the block, I spend three hours with two doctors as they grill me on hypothetical injury scenarios involving soccer players, ballerinas, and even a golfer. On day two, I show off my anatomy skills by performing a dissection of a fetal pig. On the third day, I complete a long-answer test which seems way more intense than anything I had to do in school.
Needless to say, I’m exhausted by the time I get back to the five-star hotel that the hospital put me up in. The room overlooks the city where I can see the baseball diamond, the new hockey arena, and the mega-hospital. The sound of the busy city buzzes below.
As I stand forty floors up, looking out at the world below me, I can’t help but feel like something is missing. Everything is perfect on paper – the hospital, the job, the position – yet my gut screaming that something’s not right.
I look at my phone. The screen has been blank for days.
The amount of times I’ve almost dialed Logan’s number is embarrassing.
I toss my phone onto the hotel bed and stare out at the city in a blank daze.
I’m mad at Logan for so many reasons. I’m mad that he was still so obsessed with the Corazon trophy. I’m mad that he accused me of blackmailing him. But the reason I’m mad at him the most is that I miss him. And I hate that I miss him. I hate that I want him here in this swanky hotel with me. I hate that all I want to do is cook a meal with him and play video games together. I hate that I have to turn off my phone because knowing he’s not texting me is breaking my soul into pieces.
And, most of all, I hate that I still love him.
