“Thanks for coming,” she says when I turn to face her. “I guess I didn’t really want to go alone.”

“Anytime.” Silence falls over us again, and I work to push past my feelings of shame in order to be supportive. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Audrey instantly understands what I’m referring to, straightening out in her seat as we pull up to an intersection. “No. Yes.” She sighs. “I don’t know.”

The light turns green and we lurch forward.

“Everything just feels, like, lonely,” she confesses, leaning her elbow beneath the window, and my heart sinks. “We were always together. I feel like I’ve lost a limb.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. Even though I know their relationship was never solid, it hurts to hear how different they felt about each other. I don’t know if Parker ever actually loved her, but she thinks the world of him, even after he broke her heart.

“God, listen to me. Complaining about my breakup when you’re going through shit that actually matters.”

“You’re allowed to feel what you need to feel.”

“I shouldn’t complain,” she says, lowering her voice. “I just . . . I really thought we had a future together. I didn’t think it would end like this. And I don’t even understand why it ended at all.”

I purse my lips, discomfort stirring in my belly. “There wasn’t anything that hinted this might happen?”

“No!” she says emphatically, making a left turn and bringing us closer to the downtown core. “I was totally blindsided. Things were fine, and then all of a sudden they weren’t. Anyway, enough about that.”

Despite my supposed history of acting, I’m having a really hard time pretending I don’t know the precise reason her relationship crashed and burned. Instead, I think of ways to change the subject.

“I broke up with Damien.”

She turns to look at me. “Really? Are you okay?”

“I think so. I haven’t decided yet,” I say. “Being with him was starting to feel very suffocating.”

“Then it’s a good thing,” she concludes firmly.

“Maybe.” I recall the brief, unburdened feeling I had after leaving his bedroom, but the slew of nightmares I’ve had since that night makes me uneasy. “I’m not looking forward to seeing him at school tomorrow.”

“I’m actually surprised you didn’t do it a lot sooner, considering the circumstances,” she admits, scanning the street for a parking spot. I keep an eye out, too, watching people stroll along the sidewalk.

“He had a way of making it really hard to turn him down,” I mutter, rubbing at my wrist.

We turn the corner, and she slides into a spot, shifting the car into Park. “I never liked him. Something always rubbed me the wrong way.”

“Really?” I frown as I click my door open and step onto the pavement.

“He worshipped you.”