The same sky that had watched me let her.

A thousand thoughts crashed through my mind, but the one that kept clawing its way to the front was how I’d never seen a blue that came close to the color of her eyes.

I swallowed, but the lump in my throat refused to disappear.

Closing my eyes, I let the weight of it all settle over me.

I had made my choice.

And now, I had to live with it.

* * *

I was half-asleep, caught between exhaustion and restlessness, when I heard it. A soft creak. Bare feet against the floorboards.

“Jamal is the worst driver on the planet,” Beverly complained. “Do you know what I just suffered through?”

I should’ve rolled over. Should’ve done anything but lie there with my face buried in the mattress, praying she’d keep talking.

“He picked me up because I refused to get in a car with Reese after that disaster of a date—” Her voice was sharp, dripping with annoyance, as if she had been holding it in the whole way home and needed somewhere to dump it.

Jamal had only picked her up because I’d told him to.

Because I knew she wouldn’t call me.

But the way she was ranting, it was as if nothing had ever happened, as if there was no reason I shouldn’t have been the one driving her home.

“He wouldn’t stop talking about Tiffany,” she continued, completely unbothered by the fact that I hadn’t responded yet. “The entire drive, Blake. Like I even care what Tiffany’s new lip gloss shade is. Like I care how majestic her hair looked in the sunlight.” She snorted quietly. “Every two seconds, it was, ‘Tiff this, Tiff that, did you know Tiff once outran mall security in platform heels?’ I swear, he’s obsessed. You should’ve seen him. Kept checking his rearview mirror like he thought she was following us or something.”

I let out a slow breath, wincing as my ribs protested.

She was still talking.

“And then I told him to change the station because if I heard one more Mariah Carey song, I was going to lose it.”

“I mean, I—” I heard her drop her bag onto my floor. “I mean, I love Mariah, but Jesus, there’s a limit.”

I felt the corner of my mouth twitch.

“He barely even acknowledged me,” she huffed. “I could’ve been a ghost sitting in his passenger seat. He was too busy going on and on about Tiffany’s laugh and how Tiffany’s smile makes him feel things and how Tiffany, Tiffany, Tiffany, Tiffany⁠—”

I heard the shuffle of her skirt hitting the floor.

What…? I let one eye crack open just enough to see her pacing my room, pulling her earrings off one by one and tossing them onto my dresser. She hadn’t noticed me yet—not really.