Find Her, Keep Her (CFTM Sequel)

Chapter 25 (Part 2)

*Note: Click the Youtube link above to listen to the Audiobook Version of this chapter voiced by kaelking12 (Kristen) featuring music by Paramore, Saint Raymond, Kygo (Ft. Kodaline), and Alex and Sierra.

Elias

Twenty minutes later, Tanner's gone and my room still looks like shit.

Aside from the half-ruined pile of t-shirts he tried to fix, everything's in chaos. But it's my chaos. Something I made with my own two hands, and it finally feels like home.

Not because it reminds me of what Dad used to do but because nobody can tell me what to do with it.

Every broken piece of wood, every scattered pair of pants, and every crumpled up sheet is mine to clean up, mine to fix, and mine to do whatever the fuck I want with.

Not Tanner's.

Not anymore.

He looked so shocked when I told him to leave like a single sentence stripped away twenty-two years of authority and left him with next to nothing. I thought he'd fight back or keep arguing with me until I broke down like I always do.

But as soon as those words left my mouth, he stared at me for a solid minute, stuck between trying to say something and trying not to cry, and then he left.

Just left.

The sound of him slamming the shit out of the door is still kicking around my ears, so I grab a pair of headphones out of my backpack and blast the to drown out the memory of him leaving.

I'm not gonna feel bad about this yet.

I'm gonna keep telling myself that the feeling eating away at my stomach isn't guilt but something else.

Maybe it's something like excitement over finally being able to stand on my own.

Or maybe it's something like freedom.

I open my texts, delete everything from Tanner, and draft up a new message to Jersey.

New Text Message to Jersey at 5:22 PM:

EK: You okay?

EK: Me and Tanner got into some shit, but he's gone now if you wanna come over and talk.

EK: Actually, scratch that, my room's fucked up right now. I'll meet you at your place in ten.

Three little bubbles appear on the bottom of the screen and then disappear about as quickly as they showed up.

I stare at my phone and wait for her to answer until my eyes sting. A new email notification from Professor Hayes pops up and steals my attention.

"Urgent: Please read immediately"

Shit.

She knows.

She probably saw my face plastered on the front of the Daily Bruin and is pissed about the fact that UCLA's prized writer in residence was seen with his tongue down a girl's throat. A girl who happens to be in her class.

Fuck.

Hayes can't figure this out.

She won't.

And, even if she does, I'll deny it.

I'll deny everything as long as it keeps Jersey out of the limelight.