“I’m confused, Ellie. I’m so confused. I don’t know what to tell you. I wish I had all the answers, but I don’t. I just know that it’s not working. You and me. We’re not working. Something is broken and I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know if it can be fixed.”
I open my mouth to speak, to say all the things my heart wants to say.
What’s broken?
We can fix it. I know we can.
I love you.
But my tongue is useless. Only air escapes.
And then tears.
Tears I try to hold back. Tears I don’t want this entire carnival to see.
Tears that fall anyway.
“Oh, Ellie,” Tristan says. His voice is so soft. So full of compassion. It makes me cry harder.
I can feel his hand encircle mine. I can see the scenery around us changing as he leads me to a nearby bench and makes me sit. I can’t seem to feel the ground beneath my feet. I can’t seem to feel my feet period. Are they still attached to my ankles?
Tristan plops down next to me, keeping my hand tightly clasped in his. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It breaks my heart to do this, because I really did care for you. I still do. I mean, I always will. We had something good. Really good. Something I’ve never had before. It just … I don’t know … fell apart somehow. I wish it could have been different. I wish I didn’t feel this way, but I do. And I have to stay true to how I feel.”
“B-b-but,” I stutter between quiet sobs. That’s all I manage to get out, though. The rest of the words—whatever they are—remain trapped inside me.
Tristan lets go of my hand and it feels so final. Like I’ll never touch him again. Like I’ll never feel his warmth. Shiver at his touch. Fall powerless to his gaze. “It’ll be okay,” he says to me. “You’ll be okay.”
I want to scream at him that I won’t. That I’ll never be okay. That I’ll never stop loving him. But the only thing that comes out is another sob.
And now people are taking notice. Passersby are stopping. Nosy eavesdroppers are whispering.
I can’t be here. I can’t have this breakdown here. In front of everyone.
I leap to my feet and take off into the crowd. I swear I hear Tristan’s voice calling after me but I don’t turn around. Why would I? What could he possibly want to tell me? How sorry he is again? How certain he is that I’ll be fine? How broken up he is about this?
What good will any of that do?
There’s a crowd of people gathered around the ring toss game, watching someone toss rings at glass bottles like it’s a freaking spectator sport. Normally I would politely excuse myself, tap shoulders, and give gentle nudges. But not today. I shove people aside with my shoulders, swatting at my tears with the back of my hand.
I manage to muscle through the throng of onlookers when someone catches me by the arm. I turn around to see Owen, his eyebrows knit together as he takes in my disheveled state.
“Ells?” he asks, his face a giant question mark.
But I can’t talk to him either. I shake him loose and continue into the sea of people.
I half expect Tristan to catch up to me, having suddenly changed his mind and wanting to take back everything he said. But he doesn’t.
I push through the crowd alone.
I run for the parking lot alone.
I collapse into my car, press my cheek against the steering wheel, and cry alone.
I Say a Little Prayer
8:22 p.m.
Have you ever noticed how many worlds there are out there? Infinite. An infinite number of worlds. And they all function separately from each other. Like unrelated specks of dirt floating in the air. Sometimes two specks will collide, momentarily affecting each other, but most of the time they just keep on floating, completely unaware that any other specks exist.
You don’t really stop to think about this phenomenon until your world—your tiny speck of dust that feels more like a planet than a particle—completely falls apart and no one else seems to notice. No one else seems to care. Because their worlds just keep on turning. Keep on zooming obliviously through space, while you’re being sucked into a black hole.
That’s exactly what’s happening to me right now.
My world has disintegrated. My life is over. And yet the cars on the road don’t swerve out of