the top drawer all the way out, dumping it on the floor.
“No.” She dropped to her knees, frantically sifting through the few things that remained.
No toothbrush. No razor. No aftershave that made him smell like a sex god. The only thing left was the Bubblicious-flavored toothpaste with laughing baby animals on the tube that she’d given him as a joke when he’d used hers without asking.
But no matter how long she looked, or how many times she told herself she was missing something, she couldn’t locate a single toiletry or item of clothing.
“Emmitt?” she cried out, not expecting an answer this time. He’d summed up everything she needed to know in a single sticky note.
Swallowing past the pain, she leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. The hurt cut so deep, it became impossible to think or breathe. Just when she thought she couldn’t bear another moment of it, she looked down and found the note still in her hand.
No quippy signature or comment about the future. She didn’t even warrant his name at the bottom of the note. Just a single letter that caused all the hope that had been growing inside her heart to well up and slowly slip down her cheeks to puddle on the cold tile floor.
They’d made no promises, there’d been no talk of what was to happen after her contract was up, but she’d let herself believe it would all work out. That was on her.
But to leave her with only a note, no explanation, nothing but a meme that was more suited for a high school yearbook than a goodbye after what they’d shared? After confiding in him about the ending of her last relationship? That was mean and spiteful.
Which was even more upsetting, because Emmitt was a lot of things, but she’d never imagined mean and spiteful were among them. So what did that say about her? Because her therapist was wrong; other people’s choices were most definitely a reflection on her.
The wording in this note, or the lack thereof, told Annie exactly how important she’d been in Emmitt’s life. The one person who, only moments ago, Annie couldn’t imagine her life without had walked away with only a sticky note.
Maybe he thought ending it the way they had begun was poetic. She thought it was bullshit.
“Bullshit!” she sobbed, her words echoing off the tile walls. “You hear me? I call bullshit, Emmitt! On you, on us, on your stupid smile. But mostly I call bullshit on this sticky note.”
She crumpled it up, then wadded it until it was nothing more than a glorified spitball. She threw it in the toilet and flushed. Then flushed again, making sure she never had to see it again.
Annie had experienced rejection. She’d lived through heartaches, big and small. She’d even managed to dust herself off after heartbreak. But Emmitt had accomplished in a single sticky note what no one else had ever come close to achieving.
He’d destroyed her desire to ever be loved.
Chapter 27
Annie needed to be more specific when it came to her wishes.
When she’d left Connecticut to go in search of a life-altering experience, she hadn’t expected to wake up in the fetal position on a strange couch with her eyes swollen shut from crying. Nor had she expected to suffer through the lowest moment of her life with an audience.
“Are you awake?” Beckett asked.
Unable to stay in the cabin for even a night, Annie had called Beckett around two in the morning. Her friend caught on quickly that she was an emotional disaster and a danger to drivers at large, so Beckett’s dad picked Annie up.
That had been two days ago.
“I’m awake,” Annie said, pressing her hand to her eyes. Her head throbbed, her face was puffy, and when she blinked it felt as if she’d exfoliated her eyes. Then there was the cold emptiness that had settled so deep inside, her bones ached.
“You said that ten minutes ago, then went back to sleep,” Beckett said. “I’m not falling for that trick twice.”
“Eleven minutes and twenty-one seconds ago,” put in a monotone voice that sounded a lot like Siri—had Siri been a pubescent boy.
Annie opened her eyes to see Thomas, Beckett’s brother, curled up at the foot of the couch. Dressed in navy blue sweatpants, a navy blue shirt, and navy blue socks with a blanket draped over his lap and a book in his hand, Thomas looked as if he’d been there awhile. “Morning, Thomas.”