Parachute [Book 4]

Chapter 37 - Poor Angie McGraw

Marley Lynn

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A night I had promised Angie would be amazing had so quickly turned into a pure nightmare.

I had told her that tonight would be great, even if she didn’t have Jake, and I told her she would have a ball… but instead, it ended in complete heartbreak. And it was completely heartbreaking for me, too, since it broke my heart into a billion pieces to see her crying that hard.

Angie was asleep now, thankfully, and she had finally stopped bawling her eyes out. Her crying had frightened me – it was loud and like nothing I had ever seen from her. Not even when she told me about her job all of those years ago had I seen her cry that hard.

Honestly, I couldn’t believe that Jake had broken up with her.

I remembered when I first heard the news that Jake had insisted on Angie the idea of them breaking up. I was sitting with Melissa and Riley on the bleachers during Jake’s song. All three of us were watching him singing to Angie, tears in his eyes throughout the entire song. He looked like he was pouring his entire heart out through the words he was singing, and it made me suspicious.

It didn’t make seem to make Melissa suspicious, though – because she knew what was going on. Riley and I, however, didn’t; we were both completely clueless.

When the final chorus of Jake’s song rocked around, I remember turning my head away from him and looking to where he had dragged Angie. She was still in the same spot, her legs shaking as she tried to hold herself up. There was a thin but dark mascara track down her face from a tear that had fallen. Her bottom lip was trembling, too, and it looked like she was going to break down into a mess of tears any second.

I had proposed the idea of going over to her to see if she was okay, but Riley had wrapped his hand around my arm. “Don’t,” he had told me in a whisper, exchanging a quick glance with Melissa. He was looking to her for guidance. “Just… just wait.”

So I waited. I watched Jake finish his song. I watched him cry as he ran across the room to Angie. I watched him grip her arm and pull her out of the room.

That was the last I saw of them together that night.

And I sat there for several minutes on end with Melissa and Riley on either side of me. We were all waiting; we were waiting for the two of them to come back into the room hand-in-hand, both giggling over some stupid joke the two of them had.

None of us would admit it, but we all knew that was not going to happen.

The three of us had been waiting for them to come in for a good twenty-five minutes before I decided that some action would need to be taken. Melissa was too miserable to do anything – she was sitting with her head in her hands and a giant frown across her face – and Riley was too chicken to go out into the hallway with me to see whether they were there or not (and to be honest, I didn’t want to go out there alone).

I ended up pulling my phone out and sending Angie a quick text, asking if she was okay.

Me: Ange, where are you? You nor Jake have come back in and I’m worried. Please respond.

Riley was watching me type the message over my shoulder. “Is this okay to send this to her, Ri?”

He had nodded at me only slightly, biting his lip. “Yeah, that’ll be good… hopefully she replies. Do you want me to text Jake, too, and ask him where he is? Just in case Angie doesn’t reply?” Riley asked, beginning to pull his phone out of his own pocket.

I remember catching movement by the gym doors in the corner of my eye. I ignored Riley’s question as I glanced over and looked through the moving people only to see Angie, her knees still trembling. From that far away, I hadn’t noticed how bad she looked. “I don’t think you have to, Angie’s here.” I got to my feet and pulled on Riley’s jacket. “Come with me, Ri.”