Checkmate

35| Set it on fire

The reality of what I just witnessed hits me all at once. I exit the bathroom, stumbling through the door and into the hallway with shaking knees. Everything is spinning – my thoughts, the room – because everything I'd feared has come true. Blake doesn't like me.

He used me.

The air feels thick with sweat and adrenaline. I hold my breath, thinking it will help to stop my lungs from caving, but it doesn't. This pressure builds and builds, rising through my stomach and filling my chest; I can't breathe.

How could I have been so stupid to think Blake would actually like me? Blake O'Hare, the weed-smoking conspiracist who goes to concerts and parties wanting boring old Rose – on what planet? And yet somehow, despite the impossibility, I'd let myself believe it could be true. Believe that maybe, just maybe, he liked me back.

Tears burn my eyes when the humiliation sinks in. I'd known he'd do anything for money – I'd paid him too – but I'd convinced myself that after all this time together, maybe things had changed; maybe he cared. But I was stupid, I realize that now, because even after what happened with Chase, I went right back to blindly trusting. Blake, it seems, was right all along; my standards are on the floor. And romance? Love?

Capitalist bullshit.

I shove through bodies to get out of the hallway and back into the crowd. Life hums around me; people jump up and down to the music, chatting and singing and enjoying the song, not the slightest bit aware that my life is crumbling. Life goes on, my mother always says, even when you're standing still. As usual, she was right.

Determined to get out of here, I keep on pushing forward. As I stumble through bodies, the part crowds a little, just enough to offer a streamlined view of Blake. He's over by Freddie, phone in his hand as his eyes snap to mine, dark and frantic. My heart breaks and shatters into fragments on the floor. A moment ago, Blake was the person I thought I felt safest with; now, I can't even look at him.

He starts to push through the crowd toward me. Tears cloud my vision as I head for the door, desperate to get out of here. It's strange how quickly life can fall apart: what was supposed to be the night I confessed how I felt has devolved into crying at a concert.

I fight to get through bodies as every word Blake told me replays in my head. Was everything he said during the campaign a lie? Every piece of advice, every comforting word – was it all for the money? To ensure he got his paycheck at the end of it? I want to believe there had to have been more, but this is what happens when someone breaks your trust; doubt casts its shadow, stealing what's left of the light.

I almost reach the entrance when someone grabs my hand. I don't have to turn to know who it is – I'd recognize Blake's touch anywhere – but as the first tear slips down my cheek, I don't have it in me to face him.

"Rose, wait."

I barely hear his voice over the music. When I don't speak, he pulls me again and spins me around until I have no choice but to confront him. I force myself to look at him, eyes wet and frantically searching his. Part of me hopes that this is the moment he tells me I'm wrong, that the video is fake, that Chase is just lying, but he doesn't. His eyes cloud over, dark with guilt as they take in my tears; this is real.

In the second that follows, I feel the same way as when Chase betrayed me, only worse. My feelings for Blake were uncharted territory, scary and raw and completely absurd, but somehow, exactly what I wanted. And now here we stand, those feelings I'd felt now bursting with flames, and he's the one who held up the match.

"I trusted you." My voice breaks on trusted. I hadn't realized it until now, but I did. Despite the odds, the impossibility of us, I trusted Blake O'Hare – my biggest mistake to date.