The Girl Who Wrote The Dating Manual

chapter twenty-one

I knew I couldn’t stay there forever, holed up in that nook in the apartment block as people coming back from late-night classes drearily filtered back to their rooms. As much as I wished I could disappear into a hole in the wall and forget everything that had happened, snippets of conversations and memories filled my mind.

            I remembered the sound of Chance’s voice cracking as he told me the story. The look in his hazel eyes and the thickness of his swallow as he tried to get the words out.

            I’d known something was off about this story; I’d had some kind of feeling that there was a large piece of the puzzle that seemed out of place; leaving me with more questions than answers.

            But I’d never, ever guessed it had anything to do with this.

            I wiped away my tears feebly, knowing that I was all cried out. My eyes felt puffy and my face felt stiff and sticky. I scrubbed my shirt across my face and cleared it of tracks, before bringing my knees to my chest and wrapping my arm around it.

            By now it was almost nighttime, and in the window across from my nook I could see that the sun was slanting low in the sky and dusk was descending, turning the skyline purple and blue. Stars began to speckle the sky, and if it hadn’t been for my current mood and thought process, I might have found it beautiful.

            I leaned my head back against the wall and shut my eyes, taking in deep breaths. But still, I couldn’t get the image out of my mind of Chance with a wife and a baby. If Zoëy were still alive, we wouldn’t be together. He’d be married and with a child.

            “Candice?”

            I jolted and turned my head to the side just in time to see Chance running past the nook I was situated in.

            “Candice!” he called again, and I realized he hadn’t seen me. He was just running aimlessly through the halls in search of me. Obviously he’d heard about what happened—that was the only plausible answer to why he’d be here—and I wondered how he’d found out. Had Ava called him and told him?

            I slowly stood up and dusted my jeans, knowing that sitting here wallowing would do me no favors. I needed answers.

            I found Chance in the hallway that branched off from the one I’d been in, and he’d slowed from the jog to a slow walk, his hands braced behind his head as he searched the hallway helplessly.

I leaned against the taupe plaster wall, and crossed my arms over my chest.

            “When were you going to tell me?” I asked, and tried to hide the embarrassment I felt at having my voice crack when I spoke.

            He spun around, eyes wide. “Candice?”

            I didn’t dignify his question with a response. “I said, when were you going to tell me?”