Time fell away in the small hours of the night.

I returned to Roosevelt Hall intending not to tell Macallan and Kelsey about what had just happened. I didn't want to usurp Macallan's celebration with the news that Trip and I had broken up. It seem selfish of me to do that, and selfish was the very last emotion I wanted weighing me down. 

But when I opened my dorm room to find them awake in their beds, every last one of my best intentions crumbled beneath the weight of my heartache, and so did I.

Words ran away from me like a river, emotions rushing out and wracking my body from head to toe. I made no effort to keep my tears at bay. They leaked from my eyes, and the sobs were thunderous crashes that brought me to my knees before I could reach my bed, my hand sliding down the wooden bedpost.

Macallan and Kelsey joined me on the floor and held me until my tears ran their course. Until all that remained was a shallow grave for what I thought was my forever, where I could bury everything I thought I wanted.

"It's over," I said, breathless and soaked to the bone. "Me and Trip. We're over."

✘ ✘ ✘

No amount of emotional fortification could've prepared me for my AP Government class on Tuesday. I considered it a small miracle that the rotating schedule had dropped the time block in which I had that class on Monday, allowing me to go a full day without seeing Trip McKenna, but I was still far from ready to sit across the room from him today.

I didn't think there was anything in the world that would make me ready, but I knew I had to face Trip. His presence wouldn't deter me from attending class, and that had to count for something.

But still, it took everything in me to walk into class with my head held high, and I met Trip's gaze with magnetic-like precision. He had his notebook open on the desk in front of him, but he seemed to have had his attention fixed on the door as if to ensure he'd witness my entrance. Like I was a disaster only he could recognize with the red-rimmed eyes he'd shielded behind the lenses of his glasses.

I wouldn't pretend that looking at Trip didn't hurt or make me wish his gaze was a lifeline capable of pulling me out of this heartbroken hellscape. But no amount of wishful thinking would alter our circumstances.

It wasn't until someone touched my upper arm as they moved past me that I looked away from Trip. I jolted as I registered who it was.

"Sorry about your knee, England," Grayson said, sounding genuinely sympathetic. "And that the timing is crap."

"Thanks, and I'm aware," I replied and willed myself to my seat.

I could've been snippy and told Grayson there was never a good time to tear your ACL, but I knew what he was getting at.

I'd torn my ACL with just one game remaining in the season, and it was the championship game against Silvermine. Our team had spent the entire season working towards this game, and instead of starting on the draw circle, I would be on the bench.

As I retrieved my notebook from my backpack, I caught myself wondering if Trip had told Grayson about our breakup. I figured he'd told Jameson as he was his roommate, but Grayson was different.

He was the one who talked behind Trip's back to me at Winter Formal.

He was the one who provoked Macallan.

He was the one who told me that I was just the girl.

And while those things had stuck with me, the conversation Grayson had with Trip in the locker room was what haunted me. That was the moment when everything I thought I knew about Trip and I turned on its head.

In many ways, Grayson felt like the hatchet man in our story, but making him the villain wouldn't rewrite the ending. It wouldn't give me closure.

✘ ✘ ✘

I resented the following 50 minutes of my life.

Having completed AP testing, Mrs. Aspen had our class working on our end-of-year political issues project. Next week, I would lead my fellow students in a discussion on oil drilling in Alaska. I'd completed the background research and finalized my argument, but I still needed to draft my discussion questions.

Unfortunately, brainstorming said questions proved exceptionally difficult when I kept catching Trip's gaze every other minute.

I wanted to shout across the room, telling him to stop looking at me. He had no business looking at me. My eyes weren't his to catch. Not anymore.

During the final minutes of class, I slowly and methodically started to pack my backpack. I couldn't look like I was in a rush as Mrs. Aspen would call me out. But once the bell rang, I moved as quickly as my knee would allow me and succeeded in being one of the first students out the door.

Just before I reached the elevator, I heard his voice.

"Chan," Trip called out after me, his footsteps quickening behind me. "Chandler, wait!"

I rounded on him, my face like marble. "For what?" I searched his eyes for answers that I knew he didn't have. "What am I waiting for, Trip?"

Trip adjusted the strap of his backpack as he glanced over his shoulder, seemingly wanting to ensure we weren't drawing attention before saying, "I...I wanted to know if you're okay."

His words didn't move me. If anything, I could see through him and his intrinsic need to manage the aftermath of our relationship.

Trip was, at his core, a mitigator. He liked to mitigate things — debates, drama, relationships. But it was difficult for me not to take it personally when our relationship was what he wanted to mitigate.

"I'm not," I stated, sharp apathy punctuating each syllable, and hit the call button beside the elevator. "I'm not okay, and you know why."

"Chan, please," Trip's even voice was skating on thin ice, and he slipped a knuckle beneath his glasses to wipe his eye. "What I said last night wasn't–"

I held up a hand just as the elevator pinged, the doors sliding open. "Don't. What you said is what you've been wanting to say for what I imagine is a while now. The only thing left to do is to let me walk away."

"I don't understand," Trip said, slowly and deliberately. "Is that what you want? You want to walk away?"

"You don't need to understand for me to know that this is what's best for both of us."

As Trip looked at me, he almost seemed to be holding his breath. Like he was expecting me to deliver a coup de grâce, but one that would fit the mold that Grayson had set out for me: a bully who picks fights and drags people down.

So instead of living up to his worst expectations, I stepped onto the elevator with my head held high, and hit the down button. Every minute from this minute now, I'd keep my head held high.

The last thing I saw before the doors slid shut was Trip walking away. We'd finally run out of things to say.

✘ ✘ ✘

News of my break up debuted on the message board on Thursday evening.

Kelsey notified me as we were getting ready for the penultimate Formal Thursday dinner of the year. I'd figured that it was only a matter of time before it did, but that didn't make reading the post easier.

I excused myself to go to the bathroom, and brought my phone with me. Once I reassured my reflection that I wasn't going to let whatever I read get under my skin, I pulled up the message board.

bostonspilledtea.com/cannondale/mb

THE CANNONDALE SCHOOL - MESSAGE BOARD

NEW THREAD, 5:24 PM: does anyone know who broke up with who?

[comments]

or when it happened???

probably before the proms, CE skipped both

that's because CE tore her ACL!!!

if TM broke up with CE after that...then he's not who i thought he was

the princeton-bound lacrosse captain has been telling pretty much everyone that it was TM who called it quits first

regardless, seniors breaking up with juniors before they graduate is my favorite time of the year

[end of thread]

I deleted the tab and turned off my phone. While I was far from happy about what I'd read, I wouldn't tear myself apart over what anonymous gossip-mongers said about me on the message board.

I wouldn't do that to myself anymore.

I'd learned to rise above it and see it for what it was: inconsequential and meaningless. And while this mindset wouldn't completely safeguard my feelings from injury, I could choose what I let matter to me.

As if the universe wanted to hold me accountable, Gianna Lash walked into the bathroom. She wore a cream colored bathrobe and held her shower caddy in one hand.

She stopped short when she saw me, her flip-flops squeaking on the tiled floor. Then her eyes darted over to the nearest empty shower stall as though she was considering the optics of throwing herself into it without saying a single word to the girl who, in many people's eyes, orchestrated her social demise.

"All of the showers on my floor are in use," she said, her voice echoing softly in the otherwise empty space.

"Got it," I replied, measured in my response.

It was rare for just two girls to be in the bathroom during the lead-up to dinner, and the silence between us made the dripping from one of the sinks sound more like a downpour.

Sighing, Gianna turned toward the stall. Her plush bathrobe only accentuated her sharp and angular profile.

As she reached for the door handle, words tumbled out of me. "Gianna, I'm sorry."

Gianna turned her head to look at me with one dark eyebrow arched. "What?" The slow and deliberate way her mouth curved around the word underscored her skepticism.

I leaned back against the bathroom vanity, bracing my hands on the edge. The coolness of the surface seeped into my palms.

There were things in my life that no longer seemed consequential, like what Gianna had said on the message board when she barely knew us. When she'd just left her life in New York behind.

"I'm sorry," I repeated. "Maybe that sounds pretty shocking coming from me, but it's true. I regret how I handled what you told me on the day of the debate." I paused, my gaze momentarily dropping to the tiled floor. After taking a measured breath, I looked up to meet her gaze and willed myself to continue. "I felt betrayed, and a part of me still does, but I shouldn't have–"

"Chandler–"

I clasped my hands in front of me. "Please let me say this, Gianna. If you don't want to hear it, then fine. I'd understand that. But if by some chance you're willing to hear me out, then please let me finish."

There was a brief silence in which the slow dripping from one of the facets sounded like a waterfall. But then Gianna nodded and tucked an ashy blond lock of hair behind her ear as she turned to face me directly.

All of the sharp edges of her features seemed softer in the bathroom light, but she was still a 16-year-old girl who'd seen and endured too much.

"I shouldn't have shut you out," I said. "That was wrong, and I'm sorry. I really am."

A thin, weary smile touched Gianna's lips. "I'm sorry too."

She didn't need to specify what she was sorry for—sometimes the most important aspects of an apology went unspoken. So I knew I could've left our conversation at that, but I didn't want to hold onto my anger anymore. I shed it like a skin I'd outgrown.

"You remember where we sit at breakfast, right?"

Gianna's lips parted a few times, like she wasn't sure if she understood what I was getting at. "I...of course."

"I hope to see you there tomorrow."

"You mean that?"

I thought back to what Mom had told me about guilt. I had some control over which ghosts haunted me.

"I mean that."

✘ ✘ ✘

☆ hey friends et al. ☆

two years ago on my 22nd birthday I posted chapter 11 of this book. now I'm 24 and am posting the penultimate chapter. so that's cute and equally alarming!!!

also I'm aware that I've abandoned my tidy updating schedule but posting literally feels like a breakup (which makes sense but also UGH)!!!

as always, comments on the chapter are very much appreciated (in words or emojis) (I'll treat them birthday gifts) 🤍