TWISTED PROMISES (Twisted Path Book 2

Chapter 12

Becca

There's no such thing as waking up from heartbreak.

I wish there was.

It'd be nice to open your eyes after a night of tossing and turning and just—feel better.

Imagine stretching, yawning, and thinking to yourself, Wow. Glad that emotional spiral is behind me. Time to get back to living my life.

But it doesn't work like that.

Instead, you just... lie there. Stuck in this strange limbo between pain and exhaustion so deep you feel it in your bones.

That's where I am now. Staring up at the ceiling of my tiny apartment, blinking against the watery blur clinging to my lashes. My eyes feel gritty. Swollen. Like they've been scrubbed raw from the inside. Which tracks, considering I cried myself to sleep last night—quietly, once the lights were off and the room went still.

I don't even remember falling asleep.

Just the ache.

The waiting.

The silence.

My hand gropes for my phone on the nightstand before my brain fully catches up. I don't know what I'm expecting. A text? A missed call? Anything to make the last twenty-four hours feel less like a punch to the chest?

The screen lights up. Nothing.

No missed calls.

No messages.

Not last night. Not this morning.

My throat tightens, but I swallow it down.

Don't cry, Becca. Not yet. Not until you know for sure there's something to cry over.

But I already know there is.

Did he do it?

Did he actually go through with it?

The questions loop in my head, over and over. And I'm not sure what hurts worse—knowing he probably did it... Or that he didn't bother to call me afterward.

Movement by the window pulls my attention.

My chest seizes—irrational hope and panic flaring all at once.

Is it him? Please tell me that it's him.

Maybe he came back. Maybe he snuck in while I was sleeping, which would explain why he didn't call—

But no.

As my eyes adjust to the brightness of the room, the shape comes into focus.

It's not Shane.

It's Nick.

He's crouched under my little Christmas tree in the corner, fiddling with something beneath the lowest branches.

I blink, still groggy, trying to make sense of what I'm seeing.

Is he... tucking something under the tree? Are those—

Wait.

No.

They can't be.

But they are.

Presents.

Well... sort of.

I sit up slowly, pushing the blanket off my legs. My eyes sweep the haphazard little pile beneath the tree. The bottom one is wrapped in birthday-themed wrapping paper—bright colored balloons on a blue background. The one on top of that? A crumpled section of newspaper, complete with a faded weather forecast from some random day in the past. And nestled between them... something that looks suspiciously like it's wrapped in paper towels?