The ding for my email goes off, and I’m certain it’s from Professor McPherson, probably scolding me or kicking me out of the program. I stash my phone away because I just cannot right now. The only person I wish I could talk to won’t answer my texts or calls, and I’m not entirely sure he hasn’t just disappeared off the face of the earth entirely. If Rhett is to be believed, anyway.

Jack kissed me and then ran away.

He trusted me, and I let him down.

He opened up to me, and I wasn’t enough.

I’m never enough.

Not for Leila, not for Jack, not even for this damn animation program.

My legs carry me across campus. I don’t have a destination, though my stomach is grumbling, and technically, the campus center is straight ahead, so maybe a mountain of chicken tendies and an assortment of dipping sauces from The Watering Hole is exactly what the temper tantrum caused by a broken heart ordered.

I happen to glance at the library as I reach the campus center, and there he is in that damn Red Sox cap, looking like a blond god sculpted from lumps of Leila’s forgotten clay.

Jack.

Every single bone in my body aches for him and hates him all at once. What does that even mean? I didn’t know that was possible until I saw him, just walking casually, face blank, holding a stack of fliers in his hand. I want to follow him into the library, but that’s creepy, right?

My hand is frozen on the door handle to the campus center, debating whether to follow him instead of my rumbling stomach.

But Jack isn’t inside for more than a few short minutes. He stays just behind the doors, and from my vantage point, it looks like he’s tacking something to the corkboard in the entryway.

I wait until he walks back out before dashing across the quad and into the library. It doesn’t take me long to spot what he put up.

It’s a flyer for the Creative Writing Freshman Class’s Open Mic, and it’s happening tomorrow night in the Watering Hole.

He might be able to ignore my texts and calls, but he can’t stop me from going to a free college event.

This is a horrible idea.

Chapter 12

12

Ever since my birthday, Benny and Xavier have become inseparable. Well, technically, Benny is the one who won’t leave Xavier’s side, and Benny is the one who has started to dress like Xavier, right down to the muscle tees that his skinny-ass frame cannot pull off. X’s slick 1980s acid-wash jeans-and-open-button-downs vibe look hot as hell on X, but not so much on Benny—bless his heart.