Page 85 of Somewhere Only We Know
Registering Jack’s betrayal was so intense that I felt it inside my organs. Felt it eat away at everything good and pure and happy about today.
I thought of how much I had shown him. Exposed. How much I had given him. Not only a few kisses in dark places. A part of myself had been unlocked at some point today. A discovery of so many tiny and big feelings.
And that discovery had led to me risking my entire career with that karaoke performance. The triumph and clarity I had felt earlier was completely gone now. What had I done? What had I done because of some stupid guy? A guy I didn’t even know.
The entire day flashed through my mind through a different lens. Everything I had enjoyed and experienced was now dissected and analyzed by a stranger with a camera. Because that’s who Jack was to me now.
The streets grew quieter, and emptied out the farther away I went from the bars. The lights lining the steep streets burned yellow and were diffused in the fog that had rolled in from the harbor.
I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t bethat girlcrying in the street in the middle of the night.
Find me.
Even when I hated him, I wanted to see him.
I kept walking without knowing how the heck to get back to my hotel. What was the name of it, even?
Then I remembered who I was.
Be discovered. Then Ren would find me.
I took a few more shuddering breaths and straightened out my shoulders, feeling that familiar and practiced self-control pull me up toward the sky, like a string tugging on the top of my head.
I never cried. There were so many unshed tears when I missed my family. My house. When I was so tired I would have murdered someone to have an extra hour of sleep. I didn’t cry then, and I wouldn’t cry now.
I knew what I had to do. How to get out of this.
A group of people walked by me and I stared for so long that one of them, a petite Asian girl wearing an olive-green romper, scowled at me. “What areyoulooking at?”
American accent. Blast.
I moved on, smoothing down the front of my sweatshirt and fluffing up my hair. I headed back toward the bar, where it was more crowded, running down a steep set of stairs much too quickly. I dodged a couple making out against a lamppost, recoiling at the romantic scene.
When I reached the main road teeming with the late-night party kids, I stood there and took a deep breath, ready to expose who I was in some massive way. But before I could, something brushed against my leg.
I glanced down and saw a black-and-white cat.
It stared at me with green eyes and I recognized its stubby tail.“Hey! You’re the little buddy from earlier, aren’t you?” It had been so many hours since I had seen him in front of Lina’s store. Were we that close to it? I crouched down and petted him, setting off a purr machine. He flopped onto his back immediately, his paws curled up and his gaze fixed on something over my shoulder. I touched his downy fur.
“Lucky.”
That low, quiet voice settled through the night air—heavy and buoyant at the same time. I glanced up and there he was.
Hands tucked into his front pockets. Hair completely messed up yet still somehow gorgeous. That stupidLittle WomenT-shirt, which fit him outrageously well.
Jack looked miserable and relieved and a million other things.
The cat bounced to its feet when I stood, prancing away from us. I stared after it, not wanting to look at Jack’s face.
“Are you okay?”
The words were almost a slap to my face. He didn’t care about me. How dare he sound soconcerned.
“No, I’m not okay.” I hated the tremulous sound of my voice. It wasn’t from nerves, it wasfury. “Don’t even take one step closer.”
There was a beat of silence. “Okay. I won’t. Lucky, I’msorry.”
He knew the order of things: Ask me how I was doing. Apologize. He was good, that Jack. So good with people. I watched him get his way with everyone today, didn’t I?
