The Second Worst Love Story Ever (+18)

26. Unscrewed And Not Working

I paced around the living room until Noah and Carla got tired of watching me and made me sit on the couch.

"She told you, huh." Carla quietly said, more a statement than a question.

"Just breathe, man." Noah rubbed my shoulders.

"I still don't know how to react," I said, feeling queasy. "But this doesn't change anything, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"Even if I hadn't broken things off with her, it wouldn't have changed anything. She'd still have her issues, and we'd be fighting all the time. She doesn't want a relationship..." I shook Carla's leg impatiently. "Right?"

My friends just looked at each other instead of answering, and I felt a tiny hole opening up in my chest, getting larger and larger, sucking everything like a black hole.

"You know what? Don't tell me." I got up, waving my hands. "I rather not know. Out of sight, out of mind!"

"Where are you going?" Carla asked.

I bit my thumbnail, looking down, while the gears in my brain got unscrewed and everything stopped working. "I don't know, jump off a bridge or something."

I stormed out of their house, thinking of ways to keep my mind busy, so I wouldn't lose it over what if's.

Bree was back home, waiting to hear about how it had gone with Val. I couldn't face my girlfriend like that! I had to stall and find something to do before I lost my mind, so I adjusted my course to the bar and settled for the old sorrow-drowning game. That's how desperate I was to forget what I had just learned. When I got there, I found Ethan already engaged in that task, very ahead of me, may I add.

"What are you doing here so early?" I perched myself on a stool by his side.

"What are you doing here so early?" he replied with my own question. His voice was already dragging. He looked as miserable as Valentina and as anguished as me.

What a great day for everyone.

"Okay, let's start over," I said before ordering the same whiskey he was having. "How's the wedding preparations going?"

He just groaned bitterly and asked the barkeep to leave the bottle.

"Dude, what's going on?" I said. "Even for a guy, you don't seem the least excited about this wedding."

"That's 'cause am not."

My eyes widened. "I thought you were just upset about the thing with your father.''

"I was, but now that we're good, I see it's not just that. It's also about Zoey." He sighed heavily. "She's turned into a psycho ever since I proposed. If I knew it would be this bad, I'd never have done it."

"I told you, man, these things are normal. Ada was a freak until the moment she said 'I do'. But then she came back to normal like this." I snapped my fingers. "Don't worry, weddings are stressful for everybody involved. Everything will be fine."

''To be honest, am not so sure. Think I rushed into this because I missed her an' I wasn't in a mental state to make such a decision..."

"You know, I get it. It's normal to second guess a step as big as this."

"I wouldn't call it second-guessing. I mean, I don't wanna go back an' cancel the whole thing, but this part of me is just..."

"What?"

"Wishing I hadn'y done it," he said, and I rubbed his shoulder. He seemed trapped. "I want things with Zoey to go back to what they were, but if I back away, she'll be crushed."