Chapter 47. How So Needy and Pathetic

AXEL

I leaned against my car as I stepped out, pulling my hat down, my hands shoved into my pants pocket.

I wasn’t supposed to be here. I wanted to respect her reason for not wanting to see us, but by God, I felt like I was going crazy, like I was losing it.

I had pulled a little favor and asked for her school schedule, so now I was outside her campus, waiting.

And then I saw her.

My heart fucking shattered.

There she was, walking out like she hadn’t just shifted my world. Like she wasn’t the reason why the sun looked different for me. Like she wasn’t the reason I could breathe more easily. Her hair caught the light and held it, like it wanted to stay with her—I didn’t blame it.

Her skin had the kind of glow that made everything else look dull. She looked like the kind of dream I wasn’t meant to have.

I didn’t move. Couldn’t.

She smiled at someone beside me. Someone who wasn’t me, and I felt the breath knocked from my lungs.