The Perfect Storm 2

Chapter 131

As I sit in the front seat, listening to Stephanie explain just how much of an idiot Jacob is, I can't help but notice the message on my phone. 

Jace's name is waiting to be pressed on and yet I somehow can't bring myself to talk to him. It's been a little over a week and I'm still hurt at how he treated Miles—I'm hurt at how everyone treats Miles.

"Don't you agree?" Stephanie turns to look at me for a quick second. I look at the windshield, trying to remember what she was saying all this time, but nothing seems to have gone in through my ears and stayed in my brain. 

I offer her a mall smile and a slow nod before she smiles and continues to rant about Jacob. My fingers hove above the button that will let me know what Jace could possibly say to me and before I can think clearly, I press the button opening up his message and reading it at least ten times,

Jace: "I didn't want you to expect me to show up to WSU, so I thought I'd let you know that I'm not going. I'm going to start fresh in Texas in TXSU."

The one thing that I was so looking forward to, I forgot about. 

I forgot that Jace even had plans to come even though the memories of us walking the halls and helping him get familiar with the WSU environment are so deeply etched in my brain, I somehow managed to forget. 

My mind takes me back to my first semester, I had no clue about the things that were waiting for me. I thought I'd drift through the years with a notebook and class schedule in hand but instead, I met Miles who changed everything, and now, I can't imagine my life without him. 

No matter how much darkness he has chasted on me, I can't leave him. I can't be without him.

Madison: "Good luck, whether I'll see you again or not."

My fingers quickly type up the message and after sending it, I add a small smiley face. I don't know how to react and I don't want to react. 

Jace is on his own path and so am I. My plans have changed and so have his. The hardest thing isn't change, it's believing you can avoid change and I see that now. 

Jace and I dreamed of a life together, telling each other there was nothing that could separate us. We knew that our classmates would eventually go into different paths and they would be strangers we'd never see again, more strangers than they already were. 

But Jace and I knew that we wouldn't change and yet, here we are, going in a completely opposite direction, with nothing that connects us. We're barely friends anymore with the intention that id Miles and now that he's going to TXSU we'll probably never see each other again, and if we will, there's nothing that can ever get us back to how we were.

"Are you okay?" Stephanie asks and I nod even though I'm unsure whether or not I'm lying.

"I heard that Miles got into NYU." Stephanie smiles.

"What?" My eyes go completely wide and I shake my head.

"Wait what?" I ask again, this time even more confused.

"Yeah, he's been wanting to go ever since high school, from what I've heard at college, he got accepted for next year."

"Oh." I breathe and Stephanie bites her lip.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't realize you didn't know—I thought he would have already told you, but you two have a lot on your plates so of course, this wouldn't be on his priority list. I'm sorry, Madison." Stephanie sweetly apologizes and I give her a small smile, telling her I'm okay.

"It's okay, I'm sure he'll tell me," I say even though I doubt that Miles will ever bring NYU up.

"How's Elijah?" I ask, trying to distract myself from the mystery that is Miles.

"Oh my god, he's so cute, after last night new year's party he . . ." She explains but her words slowly fade away the more I think about Miles. The thought of Miles going to NYU next year feels worse than getting pierced right in the heart, but what hurts the most is that I can't stop him, and I don't want to stop him. 

I love Miles the way he is, I love his flaws, I love his darkness, I love his pain, I love everything about him, and NYU is another part—a part I have to learn to love as much as I love everything else about him no matter how hard it'll be, I have to try. 

I have to try as hard as I can because I know that Miles is the only one worth trying for, he's the only person I can be with, if it's not him, It's nothing. And no matter how many times I try to escape his darkness, I can't I'm drawn to the horror in him as much as he's drawn to the light in me. 

There's something in me that's been missing him, a part of me has needed him, has needed his darkness to blend with the light in me. 

No matter how much I told myself that it was Jace after I met Miles, the thought of being with Jace started to sound like a lie—a lie that I desperately tried to believe. 

In a perfect world, my light would blend perfectly with Jace's light, that's what makes sense, but in the real world, nothing makes sense. I'm drawn to the opposite—to the darkness—the darkness that I crave more than I've ever craved anything—the darkness that both haunts me and loves me.