Forever Could Be Ours

Chapter 30. | Redemption Matters

HAYLEIGH

I thought I was familiar with the feeling of getting my heart broken into a million pieces.

Turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong.

Tossing whatever's left of my to-go coffee cup into the nearest trash can, I fight back a sleepy yawn by rubbing my sleep-deprived eyes. I haven't been this early for a morning class since freshman orientation.

I haven't spoken to Alexander for a week. Seven languid days of suffocating silence, intense gut-wrenching stomach knots, and pestering myself with self-destructive questions about why I'm never good enough.

Not a great aim for my mental health, but I can't help myself. What makes the situation worse is, that I understand Alexander's decision to end things. Every bit of it.

But there's something brutally painful about being forced to attend his classes, seeing his stone-cold features, and realizing he's already ten steps ahead of me in the breakup, effortlessly ignoring my presence.

Am I even entitled to call this a breakup? Where stands the line between a forbidden romance and a relationship that never officially existed?

I guess the outcome is the same, regardless of the prestigious titles.

I've lost count of how many times I've checked our old chat messages. The last one he sent is still left as read, working like a constant reminder of why things had to end. When my mind had memorized the five latest conversations between us, I knew I had to electrocute my phone in a glass of acidic fluid.

My mental health is already tipping off the edge and I'm not ready to fall completely into the darkness.

Typing in the digits of my locker code, I shrug off my jacket and hang it on the top hook, exchanging it for a fresh notebook and a sharpened pencil. Usually, I write notes on my MacBook, but today I'm taking the advice from the said person I shouldn't be thinking of.

I can't get Alexander out of my head, no matter how much I try to distract myself. He's resting at every corner of my subconsciousness, constantly reminding me that forever wasn't part of our deal.

If I'm being truly honest, I've never fully grasped the idea of forever. You never know what will happen tomorrow, and I've been braced since childhood that nothing lasts forever and nothing stays the same.

But with Alexander, things were different.

I was with Will for two years, but the emotions between us were as dull as a floor mop compared to the intensity between Alexander and me—so powerful that it couldn't be hindered by any obstacle, like two halves of the same soul burning brightly together.

Hearing him shatter that tiny piece of hope... broke me. In ways I never thought was possible. He made it seem so easy and left me alone to pick up the pieces of a dream that was never meant to be.

I guess forever was never ours in the first place–and it hurts, to admit it out loud.

When Matty showed up for brunch Saturday morning unannounced, I felt the slight kick of being pushed into the next phase of my grief. Or shove, to be more exact, since he jumped into my bed and demanded that I start acting like a decent human being.

When a man hurts your feelings, you don't give up on your life. You take the opportunities the horrible situation hands you.

That's when it hit me.

If I want to excel and ace the upcoming exams after the winter break, I can't lose valuable minutes because my heart is cracked and my mind too distracted to concentrate.