He slapped my cheek, and my face throbbed as pain shot through my skull. I didn’t move; I just looked at my boyfriend as he walked away from me and out of the room.

I watched him exit and leave, my heart constricting at the thought of never seeing him again. He had left such an indescribable mark on my heart. I felt broken, unable to comprehend what had just happened.

It hurt so much. But this was all my fault. I shouldn’t have trusted him, knowing the kind of person he was. And yet, I had convinced myself that I was in love with him, and he reciprocated my feelings. I should have seen through his lies.

He was the last person who deserved to be called my boyfriend.

I couldn’t stop crying. Tears streamed down my face as I collapsed onto the cold tiles, my knees tucked to my chest. I tried to contain my sobbing, but it was useless. There was no one to hug me and make me feel better, and I hated it.

How could I be so stupid? Why did I ever allow myself to fall in love with a scumbag like Lucas?

It was my fault for letting things get worse. I was too naive to see the problems in our relationship. But that didn’t justify his actions. He was a selfish prick, and I shouldn’t have ever forgiven him for the things he did to me.

But I did. I allowed him back into my life, and I believed the things he told me. I was so stupid. So incredibly stupid.

I remained on the floor, silently sobbing, as I waited for my next period to start. No one entered, and I didn’t move. All I wanted was to crawl into bed and cry until there were no tears left in my system.

After what felt like forever, my next class started, but I didn’t care about missing it. I was more concerned about my appearance than anything else, so I spent the next fifteen minutes reapplying my makeup before making my way down the hallway to enter the class.

People noticed me the moment I walked into the room. Whispers filled the air as students gazed at me in shock and awe, and I didn’t care.

I was in a terrible state, just like my friend. Hers was far worse than mine, though. The only distinction between us lay in the fact that she could blame the guy of her dreams for her misfortune while I had been the victim. My emotions had been toyed with by an asshole who believed he had the right to do so.

That asshole was no longer a problem for me, but for my heart, it was an ongoing ordeal.

***

My heart pounded against my ribcage as I waited for Vince to show up at the library. He was supposed to meet me here in fifteen minutes, but I’d been sitting here for the past half hour.

I had thought about turning down his offer, but I couldn’t ignore it. I needed someone to talk to about this. My mom didn’t seem to care, but she never liked Lucas in the first place, so she wouldn’t say much about it.

And I wasn’t close with anyone else. Well, except for Vince. But he was the last person I’d like to share this with, given the situation we were in.

I wouldn’t say we were friends. We had never really had a conversation without some underlying tension. I guess that was because of what happened last year, but I felt like it was also because he never really opened up to me.

I felt like he was always holding himself back, and it never bothered me until I started getting closer to Lucas. The more time I spent with him, the more I realized how much he had changed. But I wasn’t able to see that when Vince was right in front of me.

He had been so nice back then. I thought we could be friends, but then he turned into this new person, and I didn’t understand why. I thought something terrible must’ve happened, and I should have realized it then.

But I couldn’t because I was too preoccupied with my issues to notice that Vince was going through something more. He had changed for the better. And yet, I never stopped to consider the possibility that he was acting the way he did because of what happened to him last year.

I had always seen Vince as an outsider, but it didn’t matter to me. I felt like we could be friends because we both shared an unspoken language. Our eyes spoke for us.

Now, I wasn’t so sure about that. He seemed like he wanted to change. He wanted to be better. I wanted that, too, and maybe it was time we became better people together.

I sighed and sat back in my seat, hoping that Vince would be in time so we could get this over with.

As I gazed around the library, I noticed a guy sitting near the windows. I recognized him instantly, and a shiver ran down my spine as he locked his gaze on mine.

I took a deep breath and turned my head away, trying not to attract his attention. He had been a student here last year, but he had also been a criminal, and everyone knew it. He had been on probation for several months and had to serve some time in juvenile detention.

He wasn’t the same guy anymore. He seemed calmer, and he wasn’t the guy who would attack a student at the first chance he got. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t do it again.

Vince might have been fine with taking on a criminal like him, but I wasn’t. He couldn’t protect me from everything.

I turned back at him and noticed that he was gone. I released a sigh of relief and gazed around, spotting him exiting the library, his gaze still on me.

What did he want? I was hoping we wouldn’t cross paths, but I guess that was too much to ask for.

As he exited the library, I grabbed my bag and headed to the door, but someone grabbed my wrist and stopped me from going any further.

I spun around and found Vince’s hands wrapped around my arm.

“Hey! What are you doing?” I whispered, my heart pounding against my ribcage.

“Come on, Laura. You wanted to talk to me, didn’t you?”

His grip loosened on my arm, and I felt the heat in my cheeks. “I don’t want to talk about it, Vince. I’m not ready.”

“You need to talk to someone, Laura. You can’t deal with this alone. Talk to me, please.”

He took a step closer, and I took a step back, trying to distance myself from him. I didn’t want him to get close to me. It was going to make me lose my cool.

“Laura, you have to tell me what happened. You cannot just call me here and run away. Is it about Lucas? What did he do?”

“How do you know it’s about Lucas?”

“Like it’s hard? Everyone knows Lucas is an asshole. What did he do? Did he cheat on you?”

“How do you know I was the one who got cheated on?”

He shrugged. “I know you well enough to know you wouldn’t cheat. So it had to be Lucas.”

“You don’t know anything about me.” I snatched my arm from his grip and took another step back, but he followed suit.