The Broken One ✔

Chapter 25

I walked through the crowd slowly. I found my fellow graduates and their families sitting on their fold-up chairs. There was one thing separating me from everybody else, I had no one.

I remember spotting Sarah in the distance, to which I decided to follow her. I'm not sure what I was trying to achieve, I guess that I just wanted to say that I appreciated her efforts but ultimately couldn't do it.

After a few minutes, I found her in the hallway, outside one of the change rooms. I stood behind one of the walls for a moment - completely out of her sight.

"The reception is so bad here, can you hear me now?" Sarah explained with her cell pressed against her ear. She rolled her eye frustrated by before holding her phone a few inches from her mouth "Okay I have you on the loudspeaker, can you hear me?"

"Yeah it's fine now," the other woman said from Sarah's cell phone.

The woman spoke quickly and loudly, as well as in a high tone. I knew that voice well, it belonged to Jenny.

"Sorry, something's wrong with my phone" Sarah rolled her eyes "So what's this about?"

"Blake called" Jenny announced "apparently Ned's back to sleeping around"

I froze at the moment. If I was a different kind of person, I would have walked away or made my presence known. Instead, I hid behind the wall, eavesdropping on Sam's sister and Jenny.

"So?" Sarah asked.

"So, you have to find him and apologize-" she cried.

"Jenny no-" Sarah shook her head.

"We need to help him Sarah please" Jenny begged.

"Jenny wake up!" Sarah cried "It's time to give up on him...god knows everybody else has"

Sarah's words hit home for me. My whole life people gave up on me. The only ones that didn't were Elise and Gina. Hell, even my own parents gave up on me.

I didn't know why Jenny was so fixed on changing me until later, but I'll get to that.

I nodded to myself before walking away. I returned to the crowd where I slowly took a seat in my designated spot.

"Everybody take your seats" the male announcer begged "the ceremony is about to begin"

I watched as everybody found their name on their designated chair - the seating plan was organized in alphabetical order.

I listened carefully to the valedictorian's speech as she spoke about entering the real world or whatever. I watched as one by one my fellow graduates stood up and received their college diploma. I was one of the first ones up there.

When the announcer called Blake's name, they wait for a moment. A man then shook his head, which allowed the announcer to continue.

He should have been there.

"Please put your hands together for the class of 2021," the announcer said into the mic as we all threw our caps in the air.

And instead of smiling along with my fellow graduates, I took out my cell phone and booty called Andi.

***

"So same time next week?" I grinned.

"Dude I told you" Andi sighed as getting dressed "I don't do the same guy more than once"

"Well, you did me twice" I reminded her as slipping on my sneakers.

"And it won't happen again," she said flatly as standing up.

"You can't just cut me off like that," I told Andi as walking towards her "...Please, Andi, you're the only thing in my life that I'm sure about"

It was so much more than physical attraction. She told me on numerous occasions that she couldn't give me any form of emotional connection and I didn't care. As long as I spent some time with her, I didn't care.

I don't know what it was about Andi that had me hooked. I don't even know how to describe her or our bond. It felt magnetic, no matter how hard I tried, I just kept going straight back to her.

"Ned, I don't do serious relationships" she glared at me as we now stood with only a foot between us.

"And I only do casual" I retorted. "Please" I kissed her hand.

She half smiled before reluctantly nodding her head. At that moment I kissed her lips.

"Hold on, we need to set some ground rules" she pressed her hand against my chest.

"Okay" I nodded as she removed her hand.

"No cuddling or kissing afterwards," Andi told me.

"Okay" I nodded as giving her a quick kiss.

To be honest, I wasn't really listening, I was just happy that she agreed.

She smirked "no jealousy from either party if one of us choose to hook up with other people"

I liked that rule, but I didn't know then how hard it would be to follow.

"Of course" I kissed her again.

"And absolutely no feelings get involved" she firmed her gaze.

That was the hardest one to follow but more on that later.

"Got it" I kissed her once again as wrapping my arms around her.

And that's when we became friends with benefits but more on that later.

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Hi all,

So this update and the next update will be pathing the way for the final big plot/ storyline for the book. It's a extremely significant part of the story. Get hyped!

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Happy reading!