My Rebound (On My Own #2) - Carrie Ann Ryan Page 0,29

promised me that internship and the advisor position. And then he had taken it away—to give to Hunter.

My apparent archnemesis. I wasn’t supposed to have a fucking archnemesis. Those kinds of things weren’t supposed to exist in the real world.

Bile filled my throat, and I swallowed hard and tried to go about my routine. My day-to-day would save me. It was the only thing that I had left. And what a sorry state that was.

I went to the coffee shop, the one with the three stories that all of my friends loved, and ordered a chai latte, figuring maybe it would settle my stomach. Something had to.

They called my name, and I smiled at the barista, wondering if the tears were actually falling from my eyes or if I just feared they were. She gave me a sad look, and I figured that yes, I probably looked as if I were losing my mind.

Maybe because I was.

I turned around and nearly tripped over my feet. Sanders sat on the corner couch, coffee in hand, his arm wrapped around a girl. Not the one who had been on her knees with her mouth wrapped around his cock that night. This girl had blue, blond, and black hair. She was gorgeous. And she seemed happy.

And so did Sanders. He looked carefree. Like he was comfortable.

And I wanted to cry harder. I wanted to scream. I wanted to do something. Anything.

But he looked happy.

He hadn’t looked happy in our last months together. He’d looked stressed. I’d thought maybe it was school, but perhaps it’d been me. He had cheated on me, after all. Maybe it was all my fault. Perhaps I had been the one to do all of this. Had pushed him to his decisions.

Maybe he hadn’t wanted this path, and that was my fault, too.

He didn’t see me, and I didn’t want him to. I turned and walked out of the building, knowing that I needed to change something about my present situation. But everything had fallen from me, and I didn’t know where to go.

Everything crashing around me wasn’t the track I had set myself on, and it wasn’t what I thought my future would be.

I sipped my latte and burned my tongue, letting out a hollow laugh.

Nothing was working.

Lost didn’t even begin to cover how I felt.

And yet, what was I supposed to do now?

“Mackenzie?” I looked over at the sound of Pacey’s voice and quickly wiped the tears from my face.

“Oh, hi,” I said. “Hi, Nessa. Pacey.” The two came over, and I smiled up at them both. “It’s good to see you.”

“Why are you crying?” Pacey asked as he wiped some tears from my face.

I looked down at the wetness on this thumb and shook my head. “Long day. I don’t want to make a scene.”

“Mackenzie, what’s wrong?” Nessa came up and squeezed my hand. I looked at them both, swallowed hard, and rolled my shoulders back. I was not going to cry in front of them. Not more than I already had. I wasn’t going to cry in front of anyone. I would be fine.

“A shitty day. Guess I need to go do my homework or something. I need to focus.”

Pacey tilted his head, studying my face. “Nessa and I were headed back to my place to study. Do you want to join us?”

I looked between them, saw Nessa’s smile and Pacey’s, and shrugged. “I have class, but maybe after?”

“Of course,” Pacey said. “Join us. We can talk. Okay?” He cupped my face again, wiped my tears once more, and I nearly leaned in to him. But I shouldn’t because he wasn’t mine. We might joke that we were rebounds, but that wasn’t our plan. I didn’t have one. And that was the problem.

I nodded, and they walked away. Once I lost sight of them, I wondered what I was supposed to do.

Maybe not having a plan would be my new plan. I could fall into existentialism and wonder what I was supposed to be.

Who I was supposed to be.

Or maybe I could just pretend.

I had gotten good at pretending, after all. Now, I would excel at it.

Chapter 8

Mackenzie

I pushed my hair from my face and knocked on the door to the boys’ home. I had been here once since breaking up with Sanders, but it hadn’t occurred to me that when I agreed to come over and study with Pacey and Nessa, that I would be coming back to this place. For some reason, it