Even though I know he was helping Gran set up some things I doubt he even knew the details to, it was still beyond fucked-up that he didn’t tell me he knew her. Maybe I didn’t handle it the best—you know, forcing him to spend a night alone in a secluded cabin and subjecting him to the silent treatment over the course of a six-hour car ride—but I wasn’t wrong to react the way I did. No matter how you spin it, he lied to me and that’s fucked-up.

However, I’m over it now. And I miss him.

A lot.

Beyond the thoughtful dates, good kissing, and better sex, I loved talking to him. He laughed at all my jokes and seemed really, authentically interested in what I had to say. So many times over the course of my life, I’ve felt like the people around me didn’t see me.

It was the opposite with Jasper.

It felt like he saw parts of me that I didn’t even see in myself. It was so easy to be myself around him because he wouldn’t let me be anyone else.

But the due date for his book was two weeks ago and I doubt he stayed in Denver any longer than he had to. He mentioned his next book taking place in Texas; he’s probably already scouting the area—hanging out with some blond woman in cowboy boots and a crop top.

“He only rented the house he was in until the beginning of October.” I tell her of the fact that now haunts me in my sleep. “So even if he did decide to stay in Colorado for a bit, I don’t know where he’d be living.”

This is the totally valid, totally plausible lie I’ve been telling myself as a perfectly good excuse to never reach out to Jasper again. Yes, it’s flimsy, but it works for me.

And apparently only me.

“That’s dumb.” Elsie stares at me dead in the eyes, destroying my reasoning in two words. “Does he change his phone number with every move too? Or could you still type out a text like, ‘Hey, it was fucked-up that you lied to me, but maybe we could talk it out,’ or, I don’t know . . . literally fucking anything.”

Elsie’s been more high-strung than normal since Jasper and I crumbled to the ground. Part of me feels terrible, but the other—more prominent—part is wildly amused by the things she now says to me.

“I see what you’re saying, but I also feel like he could reach out as well. I might have called things off, but he’s the one who messed up. It was more than a misunderstanding. He completely left out knowing Gran. Maybe I could forgive him now that I’ve cooled off, but he has to apologize first.”