Still not into you - Charlotte Byrd Page 0,50

deep breath, trying to hold back tears.

“He got me a ring, but I’ve already given it back to him. We’re getting a divorce. This all has been a terrible mistake,” I say. I’m speaking fast, a little fast, but I want to be able to get everything out before the elevator comes.

“He got you a ring, Alice,” Hudson says with a shrug. As if that means something. As if it signifies something important. “And a really expensive ring,” he adds.

“So what? That’s Dylan. If he gets something, then he goes all out, but it doesn’t mean a thing. I don’t care about that ring.”

“It’s a two-carat ring, Alice. It cost almost fifty thousand dollars.”

“It was just a splurge. A mistake from a night full of mistakes,” I say. “Why does it matter what kind of ring it is?”

The elevator doors open.

“I don’t know,” Hudson says, stepping inside, “but it does.”

The elevator doors close and he disappears, leaving me alone. I’ve never felt so alone before. This is over. Really over. My legs crumple underneath me. I drop to the floor. Tears rush down my face. I can’t stop them even if I want to. I just let them wash over me. Maybe they can wash away my mistakes. Probably not.

28

Day turns into night and into day again. I lose track of time. I cry for so long that my eyes feel like someone’s slicing them with razor blades and my chest starts to physically hurt from the pain. Eventually, the tears dry up. There are no more. The pain remains, but it’s as if it’s happening to someone else. I’m detached from it. Separated, somehow. Now, there’s just a dark cloud that descends around me. One that I can’t shake no matter what I do.

The next two weeks are consumed by melancholy. Hours blend into days and days into nights. I become something of a zombie. I don’t cry much anymore; I just wander around lost. Detached from the world. Unreachable. I avoid everyone. I stay on campus for as long as I can, wandering the busy stacks of the library. When I do come home, I avoid everyone except Juliet, whom I can’t really avoid, even if I try. Luckily, she has the good sense to pretty much leave me to my own devices. She doesn’t pester me with questions and she doesn’t ask me how I’m feeling. Mainly, she just leaves me be, which is exactly what I want. As for Hudson and Dylan, I don’t see them at all. I can’t. I don’t think I’d have the strength to deal with my feelings if I were to see Hudson again and I’m too mad at Dylan. I can’t believe that he went out of his way to say those things to his father—those things that hurt me to the bottom of my core. He doesn’t want to be married to me. He doesn’t want to be engaged to me. I, of all people, know how much he has regretted marrying me instead of Peyton. At least with Peyton, there’s a history. They love each other and they have for a long time. Even if they were to marry by accident and then get divorced…well, that seems just like something out of their story.

So, if that’s true, why did he have to go and tell everyone that he wanted to marry me? Why did he have to get such a big ring? Why did he have to throw it in his father’s face? There are some things that I will probably never understand, but I will talk about it with him, one of these days. Just not now. Not yet.

Despite all of my melancholy and lonesomeness, I did manage to come to a decision. A pretty important one, too. I’m going to transfer to University of Southern California next year. It’s something that I had been thinking about ever since this whole mess with Hudson happened. Now I think that getting out of town and going to a completely different school will be the answer to my problems. I know it looks like I’m running away. It sort of feels like that, too, but I honestly don’t think I can solve my problems by staying here. They are too complicated and convoluted. No amount of talking will make Hudson understand what happened or forgive me for what I’ve done. No amount of talking will allow me to forgive him for sleeping with Kathryn or for starting this whole