The look on his face was like my father’s when he had stared at my mother and asked for an explanation for her behavior. There was a similar vein in his neck, blood rushing rushing rushing, and I suddenly felt like I had slipped out of time, out of place.

I knew that I had to say something, anything to explain this to him, but the only thing my brain supplied was a steady stream of I fucked up I fucked up I fucked up and now I can’t fix it.

Jasper studied me, waiting. I wanted to do what I had done during my parents’ arguments as a kid—turn around and hide away in my room to cry—but I couldn’t do that because now I was the one on the other side of the battlefield, even though I had no idea how I had gotten here. The thought of it made me feel sick.

When a few seconds had passed and I didn’t say anything, Jasper gave a nod, the jerky motion betraying the disinterested look on his face, and said, “All right. I think it’s best if you go now.”

“Jasper, wait—”

On instinct, I reached out to grab his sleeve, but he immediately ripped his arm out of my grasp. “Don’t touch me,” he said, voice alarmingly quiet. “I don’t want anything to do with you, Williams.”

Before I could utter a word, the door slammed shut. A second later, the music rose again, now even louder than before.

I turned around in a trance. The corridor before me was blurry and I almost bumped into someone as I walked back to my room, too focused on watching my shadow on the wal next to me. It was no longer JasperandSeth. Just a single shadow person with strangely long legs and slouchy posture, walking like the world was resting on his shoulders. Not in a cool, heroic Atlas way. Atlas was strong. Without Jasper, Shadow Seth looked pathetic.

I wasn’t Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot or even bloody Miss Marple. I was the kind of unimportant side character who would be found dead at the beginning of the novel, the talk of the town when the detective arrived. Have you heard about the body they found? Young lad walked into the trap with open eyes.

A right idiot, him.

When I made it to my room, Gabe wasn’t there for once and couldn’t witness me crumbling onto the bed. I pulled out my phone, unsurprised to see a new notification from The Chitter Chatter.

Seth cheats on Jasper with Amelia Campbell.

I wanted to climb out of my skin and throw the useless bag of bones into the basement next to the skeleton. It had been right all along. Love like you dream of doesn’t exist. Never has, never will. Sooner or later, everything goes to shit. It’s best to accept it now. I thought I had accepted it, but the crushing weight on my chest suggested something else.