The Girl Who Wrote The Dating Manual

chapter twenty-two

“Candice?” Ava asked, as soon as I’d stumbled through the door later that night hunched in my sweater and shivering from my prolonged time in the cold.

            “Yeah,” I called weakly, dusting snowflakes off of my hair and trying to maintain an air of cool composure. “It’s me.”

            Ava rushed into the room, wearing a long-sleeved pajama shirt and long flannelette pants with pugs decorating the fabric. Her long dark hair was swirled into a low messy bun with wisps of fallen hair around her panicked face, and her green eyes were wide and feverish. She ran over to me and hugged me, and I slowly sagged into her grip, needing the companionship and knowing that I wouldn’t have it for much longer. I just didn’t know how to tell Ava that.

            “Oh, thank God,” she murmured against my hair. “I was so worried about you.”

            “I’m fine,” I promised her, stepping back from her fragile grip.

            “Candi, I’m so sorry,” she said hurriedly, the words bursting from her lips almost as if of their own accord. “I thought you knew. I thought he told you. God, I ruined everything!”

            “No, Ave, you didn’t,” I assured her. “Really. I needed to know.”

            “Did Chance find you?” she asked, her eyes skittering around nervously. “Because I called him, and—”

            I nodded, cutting her off. “Yeah, he found me.”

            “What happened?” She nibbled on her lower lip.

            I looked away and cleared my throat, trying to force back the tears. I hated that I’d become that heartbroken little girl I swore I’d never be. “We broke up.”

            It sounded so strange, coming from my lips. It seemed so surreal that I, Candice Mae Sinclair, would be the kind of girl to date, fall in love, and break up with someone in a way that I never had before. That I’d be heartbroken…. It sounded wrong.

            Ava’s hand slowly covered her mouth, and her eyes filled with tears, as if she were the one who’d been broken up with—again. “Candi, no…”

            I shrugged. “Yeah. It’s over. I broke it off with him. He lied to me, and he kept things from me. And I can’t do it.”

            “I’m sorry.”

            I shrugged, and she shot me a disbelieving look. “Ava, I’m okay.” Lie. “Really, I’m fine.” Lie.

 

            “But there’s something else I have to tell you,” I whispered, unable to meet her eyes.

            She looked like she’d rather saw her own arm off than listen to this. “What?”