Next Man Up (Making the Score #2) - Tawdra Kandle Page 0,113

place, not understanding why she hated me.

“I don’t have anything to say.” She clenched her hands. “I need to go. Quinn and Gia are waiting for me.”

“Quinn’s standing in the front hall right now, hugging Leo. I think they need a moment. Gia’s talking to Quinn’s mother. You’re not holding up anyone.” I loosened my grip on her wrist and slid my hand down to lace my fingers with hers. “Zelda . . . I miss you. I don’t know what happened that night, or what happened in the weeks before that night, but I know I did something wrong. I just wish you’d tell me what it was, so we could work it out. I hate being without you, baby. Please. Just talk to me.”

For a moment, I thought she might. I thought she might give in and sit down next to me. But she didn’t.

“Not now, Eli. I’m not ready. I can’t tell you what you want to hear, and I can’t—” She sighed, a long shuddering breath escaping her lips. “Eli, I tried to be who you wanted. Who you needed. But I can’t be that person. I’m not capable of it.”

I wanted to pour out denials on the flames of her words. I wanted to make her see how wrong she was, how many lies she was believing about herself—and about me. But she was right about one thing—this wasn’t the time or the place to launch the kind of talk we needed to have.

So instead, I only said, “I don’t agree with you. But I won’t argue. Not here. Not now. Just remember that I’m not going anywhere. All the things I ever said to you are still true.” I squeezed her hand, and then I did the hardest thing in the world.

I let her go.

Chapter Seventeen

Zelda

“This is the lamest movie in the world.” Quinn’s mom Carrie scooped up a handful of popcorn and stuffed it into her mouth, munching as she complained. “This is not an accurate depiction of what it’s like to get your heart broken. This chick is way too neat and clean about it. Look at her. She’s crying, but her mascara isn’t running. She’s just phoning in the hurt.”

Next to me, Gia sighed and poured herself another glass of wine. “You’re not wrong. My grief doesn’t look all shiny and pretty like this. My grief is—it’s ugly. It’s heaving sobs and screams and puffy eyes that never seem to really stop leaking.”

I slid my arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick hug. “Your grief is real, G. That’s the difference.”

“Did you ever have your heart broken, Mom?” Quinn finished her wine and set down the glass. “I mean, aside from losing Dad.”

Carrie rolled her eyes. “Of course, I have. I’m a woman, aren’t I? Your father wasn’t the first man I dated, Quinn. But he was the guy who hurt me the most. He broke my heart a long time before he died, back when we were first dating.”

Quinn’s eyebrows rose. “I never heard that story.”

“It wasn’t one either of us liked remembering, so we didn’t talk about it. We’d been together about six months—this was when we were in college, right after we first met—when Bill stopped calling me. He just kind of vanished from my life. At first, I figured it was that we were both busy, and we kept missing each other, but it wasn’t. A week passed, and he never came by my dorm or called me on the phone . . . no text or email in those days. I had too much pride to call him and ask what the fuck was going on—”

“Mom!” Quinn sounded mildly shocked. “Language.”

Carrie laughed. “Get over it, sweetie. Mom cusses sometimes. Where do you think you get it?”

Quinn shook her head. “I don’t want to think about that. So what happened? Clearly Dad came back to you eventually, since you ended up married.”

“He did, but not right away. I’d see him on campus, but he always avoided me, and after a while, I started avoiding him, too. It was humiliating and hurtful—and the hardest part was that I had no clue what I’d done to make him change his mind about how he felt.”

In Carrie’s words I heard an echo of what Eli had said to me earlier today. I don’t know what happened, but I know I did something wrong. He had no idea how deep that struck in me—because I knew it was true.