Chapter 28

We probably wouldn't have found her if it weren't for the picture of her that leaked on the internet. Tori, Blake and I called Sophia a ridiculous amount of times and sent her even more text messages, but she didn't answer her phone or answer any of our messages. She didn't even open them. She always had her read receipts on, at least for me so I would be able to see when she was purposefully ignoring me.

I knew I was the last person Sophia probably wanted to talk to, but I just wanted to know that she was okay. She'd run off after realizing other people had overheard our conversation and even Tori didn't know where she was. We expected her to eventually come home. We didn't expect her to crash somewhere for the night.

As it turned out, she'd chosen a nearby park to crash at. Maybe she hadn't exactly chosen it so much as she'd fallen asleep there while hiding from the world. Whatever the case, we knew where to find her thanks to the picture someone had posted of her sleeping on a bench.

"Her phone is just going straight to voicemail now," Tori said from the backseat. "It's probably dead. I just hope she's still at that park."

"The picture was taken during the day, so if she's not she can't have gotten too far," Blake said.

I didn't say anything. I was the one driving so I just kept my eyes on the road, going through everything I wanted to say to Sophia in my head, knowing fully well that when the time came my dumb ass would pansy out and barely manage an apology.

I may or may not have sped a little to get to the park faster – in my defense, I wanted to increase our chances of actually finding her there – and before we knew it, we'd made it.

We walked through the park for a good ten minutes before we found her. She was sitting by herself on a large rock near a small lake. She'd managed to find the most random corner of the park to hide away in.

It was Blake who actually made the discovery, although Tori and I would have followed suit. He just happened to be in front of us. "Guys, I found her," he said.

Sophia didn't turn around or even flinch. She just kept sitting there, staring out into the water like it was the most fascinating thing she'd ever seen. Anything to avoid me. Because if Blake was there, it was safe to guess I was, too.

"Sophia!" Tori called out. Instead of approaching me, she looked at me to see if I was going to try to talk to her.

Part of me didn't want to. Part of me couldn't even look at her after what had happened yesterday, now that I knew that I'd been the asshole all along, and she'd actually been fairly composed and civil all things considering. But the other part of me was desperate to make amends, to somehow earn her forgiveness. Suddenly, there was nothing I wanted more than to make things right with her.

Finally, I gathered up the courage to approach her. "Sophia," I said.

She didn't say anything. Instead, she messed with a loose string on her shirt, pulling it and pulling it until it snapped right off. I was close enough to see the string fly through the air, to see a few strands of hair that looked almost blond in the sun, to see the goosebumps forming on her arms – whether that was from nerves or the cooling temperature now that the sun was starting to set, I didn't know.

"Sophia, I'm so sorry. I didn't – I didn't mean to hurt you –"

I didn't know how true that last part was. Present me didn't mean to hurt her. But past me was an even bigger dick than present me and didn't give a shit who he hurt if it meant getting laid.

"Stop." She shook her head. "You don't get to say that."

"But I mean it," I said, carefully sitting down next to her on the rock. I half-expected – okay, 75% expected – her to shove me off. But she didn't. She didn't even look at me.

"No, you don't, but I don't care," she said. "Just leave, Christian. Stop acting like you're not the kind of guy who leaves. Because that's exactly who you are. You haven't changed a bit."

I couldn't say I didn't deserve that. I'd done exactly that to her years ago. I'd left her without any explanation, with nothing more than a shitty text. But that was the past, and I was determined to get her to live in the present.

"I used to be that kind of guy. I used to leave. But not right now. Not with you. Not anymore. Right now, you need me."

That made her laugh, at least, but it was a sarcastic one, not a genuine one. "Need you? I don't need you."

I ignored her and continued. "I'm the one who hurt you, and I'm the only one who can make it up to you. I did this to you. I have to fix things."

"What are you now, a psychologist?"

I didn't know how legitimate this was, honestly. I actually had seen it on Dr. Phil once and it seemed legit at the time. If Dr. Phil said it was true, then it had to at least bear enough resemblance to the truth to pass off as true. That was how that worked, right?

"You need a rock to lean on, so even if you go back to hating me after this, or even if you hate me throughout the whole thing, just let me be here for you," I said. "I know I should've been there for you a long time ago. I know this isn't enough. But let me at least try to make up for everything I've done. And after this, we'll go right back to normal. You can go back to hating me and I can go back to my plans to grovel for the rest of my life."

"I don't need a damn rock," she snapped. I didn't say anything, but I guess my expression must have told her I wasn't convinced because she went on. "You can make yourself feel better by telling yourself I need you all you want. That doesn't make it any less of a lie."

I didn't really know what to say to that. I didn't know what to say to her at all, to be honest. Why hadn't she told me the truth about us earlier? Maybe it would have changed things between us if she had. But maybe her words wouldn't have changed me as much as they had yesterday if she'd told me from the start.

Finally, my dumbass settled on saying, "You alright?" when I saw her silently fuming.

Wow. Smooth, Christian. Smooth. You alright? That was something you asked your bro after he'd smashed too many drinks, not something you asked the girl whose life you'd messed with throughout middle school and high school and who you desperately wanted to make amends with. What the fuck was wrong with me?

"I'm fine," she said. She turned away from me and stood up, walking away from me. All I could do was stand there and watch her retreating figure as she approached Tori and Blake.

"Hi," she said, presumably to Tori. She probably wasn't too happy with Blake, either. I wasn't too happy with Blake, to be honest, but I at least understood that he'd just been trying to help, albeit not in the best manner. 

"I'm sorry, but you look awful," Tori said. Wow, way to kick her when she's down, Tori. "Let's get you home."

Five seconds later, she started wailing and cried, "Oh, screw it, come here!" She then proceeded to cry harder and louder than I'd expected her to, in a very Tori-esque manner. I can't say any of us were truly surprised, though.

Blake just shot Sophia a half-smile, probably because it hurt to move his face too much. I had actually broken his nose which I felt pretty bad about now that I knew he'd kissed her in his quest to get us together.

Once Tori was done crying, she broke the news to Sophia that she'd ridden here with me and we were all subjected to the most awkward car ride in the history of awkward car rides. None of us felt like speaking, much less breaking the awkward tension.

When I stopped at Sophia's apartment complex, she got out of the car without a word and without looking back at me.

Tori looked at me and shrugged. "Normally, I'd at least try to take your side and play devil's advocate, but now that we've found Sophia, I just wanna say that you're a dick and I'm burning my poster of you. And I'm changing my profile picture to the one with just me and Blake. Bye, Felicia."

With that, she exited the car in the same fashion as Sophia and didn't look back once.

Blake raised an eyebrow. "Damn. Even Tori's got it out for you now. That's how you know you fucked up."

"Don't you think I know that?"

He raised his hands defensively. "I'm just saying. By the way, you get to cover the 20% of fixing my nose my insurance doesn't cover. I'll send you the bill tomorrow. You also owe me dinner and dibs on all of the food in your house because you broke my fucking nose."

I rolled my eyes. "I'm sure you can afford whatever your insurance doesn't cover."

"I charge interest too," he went on, completely ignoring my refusal. "And my rates just went up for your smartassery."