I miss him so much my chest aches from it. Most people don’t realize a person can actually die from a broken heart. Stress-induced cardiomyopathy, or broken heart syndrome, is when the heart literally decides to stop pumping. The muscles weaken and give up. It occurs almost exclusively in women. Surprise, surprise. Men are selfish assholes. Every one of them.

My head knows Austin will never love me, but my heart yearns for him. Love sucks.

“Elizabeth!”

I snap out of my stupor and glance around the busy quad to find Jessie waving at me from a few feet away. She comes charging up, flailing a newspaper in her hand like she’s a duckling trying to take flight.

“Do you believe this bullshit?”

“Yes. No. What?” My brain is fuzzy. Since Austin, I haven’t been sleeping much. Every ounce of energy I’ve been able to muster has been funneled into studying for finals.

Jessie grabs my arms and pulls me over to a bench. She shoves the paper in my lap as we sit down.

“This article about Austin.” Jessie points to the top headline. I shake my head as my eyes strain to focus and make sense of the words. Seeing me struggle, Jessie explains, “He was kicked off the team. They said he was using performance-enhancing drugs.”

“That’s not possible.”

“I didn’t think so either, but he’s been so different lately. Irritable, on edge.”

“Austin would never use drugs,” I say unequivocally. “He just wouldn’t.”

Jessie shakes her head. “He’s not even going to fight it.”

“What? But won’t he lose his scholarship?”

“Yep. I told him, if it’s not true, he needs to fight it, and he bit my head off. Said there wasn’t any point.”

I mutter, “Why wouldn’t he at least try to fight it?”

Jessie shrugs. “He doesn’t care about anything these days. Monte has been such a loudmouth too. Bragging to everyone about how the only reason Austin’s been beating him all season is because he’s been doping.”

“I hate that guy.”

Jessie chuckles. “Me too. He always seemed sketchy to me.” Her cell phone goes off and she jumps up exclaiming, “Shit. I’m late. What else is new, right?”

She darts off in long, graceful strides.

I stare at the newspaper, befuddled. I can’t figure it out. I know he didn’t do this. Why won’t Austin fight for himself?

* * * *