*NOTE: Check out the Audiobook version of this chapter voiced by kaelking12 (Kristen Maglonzo)! Featuring music by The Pretty Reckless and Liza Anne!
Alex
Dear Nobody,
Elias has a girlfriend.
Elias...
...has a girlfriend.
And I know it shouldn't matter.
That I shouldn't care.
That after a year of living out our lives in totally different ways, in totally different places that I should've expected him to find someone else.
But the second he broke the news, I caved.
Just silently collapsed in on myself underneath a kind of weight he'll never understand.
The kind he'll never feel.
The word "girlfriend" slipped out of his mouth and sunk into my skin deep enough to rattle my old scars.
And right when I thought he'd stop mentioning her.
Right when I expected him to end the conversation, he kept pushing.
Kept saying things like "we ended last summer", when we didn't.
Kept implying that him and I were nothing but a three-day fling, when we weren't.
At least, I thought we weren't.
But maybe I'm alone in that.
Maybe I'm holding on to a moment because I'm not ready to call it a mistake.
Or maybe I just didn't mean anything to him at all.
'Cause if I had, he wouldn't talk to me this way.
He wouldn't act this way.
Things wouldn't be this way.
A boy who actually cared about me would be so much more careful with his words.
He wouldn't let pins and needles fly out of his mouth and push themselves straight into my insecurities.
He wouldn't fight with me.
He wouldn't follow me around just to force me to read a book filled with letters made of lies.
Letters I can't bring myself to believe in.
Because the truth is, I don't know which version of him to trust.
The Elias I fell for.
Or the Elias who didn't catch me when I did.
I don't know who he was when wrote this book.
But I wish he hadn't.
But wishing won't change what he's already done.
His words are everywhere.
Scribbled inside my skull.
Bleeding into my veins.
But no one knows.
No one's aware "Jersey's" sitting silently in Elias's classroom holding a nightmare in her hands.
They think she's still out there waiting for her happy ending.
They assume that there will be a happy ending.
YOU ARE READING
Find Her, Keep Her (CFTM Sequel)
Teen Fiction2016 WATTY AWARD WINNING CHEATER, FAKER, TROUBLEMAKER SEQUEL Written by Jenny Rosen & Kristen Maglonzo For rehabilitated bad boy, Elias King, falling in love again means losing everything--including his life. When a ghost from his past tears him aw...
