How He Broke My Heart

Chapter 3

Hunter apologized for what he said the next day. I told him it was okay because I was feeling lonely and wanted to be loved. He bought me an ice cream and we walked along the beach and talked about useless things. He would lick my ice cream and I would blush while pretending I was mad. He would laugh.

Hunter invited me over to his house and told me I was the only person who understood him. I went along with it, but thought he was crazy because we only spoke of school, interests, and his friends, beside our conversation the night before. Hunter made himself very vulnerable to me very quickly. He got emotional as he told me about his father's death. I was young, I didn't know what to say, I sat beside him on his bed and tried to soothe him. We ended up kissing some more and he asked me if I even liked him. We bonded over that. I told him that sometimes I wondered if people even wanted to be around me as well. He told me that he wanted to be around me, and I liked that.

I have work again today, and I am getting bored of it very quickly. Brandon keeps trying to be nice to me, and I keep hitting him down like the summer-time grinch I am. He must feel bad for me, that I have no friends and that I'm a horrible person.

Sometime during the work day, a girl comes in to talk to him. She flirts with him as he sits on the counter. She will place her hand on his thigh and play with her hair at the same time. They speak in hushed tones so I can't really hear what they're saying from my post, but I don't really want to. I've been curled up on my chair for twenty minutes now. Today may be the slowest day ever. Sally did say that business is calmer on the weekdays and crazy on the weekends, and I believe her.

Brandon walks the girl out when they're done, and I eye him as they part ways. She was pretty. Tall, thin, redhead, tan, freckled and flirty. Brandon seems to enjoy her. He glances at me and I look away as usual, but this time he makes his way over. "Do you have a boyfriend, Emma?" He asks, and I feel my chest cave in.

"Why?"

He shrugs. "I was just wondering."

"Well, I do," I lie.

"What's his name?"

Which one should I pick? Obviously then one who dented me the most. "Kaden. I don't think you'd know him though."

Brandon leans against the chair, his forearm against the arm of the chair. I look down at it. "Is it Kaden Lane?"

My entire body comes to a halt, nothing moving, not even inside of me. "No," I mutter, "it's a different Kaden. He doesn't spend much time down here at the beach."

"What does he do?"

Why are you so interested? I ask internally. "He's a... He works for the military. He's gone a lot."

"Is he in the Army?"

"Air Force," I fire back. "Why are you asking so many questions? Don't you have shirts to press?"

Brandon smiles, and I hate myself for letting the color show on my cheeks. "Why are you always so defensive?"

"Why are you trying so hard to be nice to me? It's not part of your job. You don't have to."

He nods and walks away, and I squeeze my hand into a fist, my nails digging into my palms. Why are you such a bitch, Emma? How about that. My mind wanders while I stay in my seat, wandering to all the reasons why I'm like this.

I think back to the first hit.

Hunter and I were together for an entire month before things started to go south again. It was a solid month full of laughing and kissing and going to the beach. He would buy me bracelets and necklaces with little shells on them because he knew how much I liked them. We dreaded the end of the summer together, but I didn't talk about it much because he would get upset. He would get upset at many things.