She fell back on the bed, her eyes shut by the time her body hit and bounced on the mattress. Sleep lingered seconds away, so close she could touch it, but her phone, still tucked in her pocket, dinged with a text.
Don’t look at it, a voice whispered inside her head. She moaned, then, unable to stop herself, she yanked her cell from her pocket and rolled over onto her stomach. She had to concentrate to get her eyes open.
The second she saw the number, she dropped her head, facedown, on the pillow. And the pain she’d been pushing back rose up in her chest.
Lifting up again, she read the message.
Hey … I think it would be easier to just say good-bye this way. I’ll miss you. Bye, Steve.
He’d inserted an unhappy face. As if the unhappy face would make her feel better. She dropped her face back into the pillow and cried herself to sleep.
* * *
Two hours later, Della awakened to someone walking up the cabin steps. She lifted her heavy lids and took in a noseful of air to see if she could identify the visitor. The door to the cabin opened and Della recognized the fresh, herby smell that belonged to a certain witch. Remembering her brief encounter with Perry, Della’s heart instantly went to aching for the girl.
Miranda inched open her door and stuck her head in. “You awake?”
Della sat up. “Yeah. But no hugs, okay?” The words were out of her mouth before she saw the look in the girl’s puffy eyes.
Della hadn’t been the only one crying tonight. Right then, she wished she’d kicked Perry’s ass.
Miranda didn’t deserve this.
And Miranda deserved better than Della. The witch deserved Kylie. Kylie knew how to deal with heartbreaks. Della always said the wrong thing. Even when she tried really hard.
“Are you okay?” Miranda asked her.
The witch was hurting, breaking inside, Della could almost hear it, and yet the sincerity in Miranda’s voice said the girl was worried about her.
“You know me, nothing fazes me.” Her heart did tumbles at that huge lie.
“What did Steve want?” Miranda asked.
“To end it,” Della said, biting back any sound of weakness.
“I wish I was more like you,” Miranda said.
No you don’t. “How are you?” Della asked, because it seemed the right thing to say, but she really didn’t have to ask. Miranda’s pain hung in the air like a cloud.
“Hur … ting.” Miranda’s breath shook as she drew in air.
Damn it, Miranda was her friend. “Okay, one hug,” Della conceded. She could suffer through one, then hopefully Miranda would go to bed.
The witch barreled into the room, dropped down on the bed, and wrapped her arms around Della. And it wasn’t the just-one-and-go-to-bed kind of hug. It was the kind that said she didn’t want to let go.
And as crazy as it felt, neither did Della. She wanted to hang on to the way things had been. It’s going to be okay. She heard Chase’s words, but Della knew “okay” meant Steve wouldn’t be around. And neither would Perry.
Chapter Nineteen
“I just … don’t get this whole … take time off crap,” Miranda cried into Della’s shoulder. “People don’t do that.”
Yeah, they do. The witch’s hot tears seeped into Della’s shirt and she thought of all the people lately who’d walked out of her life. Then, finally uncomfortable with the clinging, she managed to pull out of Miranda’s arms. Hugs should never last more than fifteen seconds.
“It’s going to be okay.” Della repeated Chase’s words, but without the same conviction as when he’d said it. What she wanted to say was all this sucked. And at the top of the sucky list was the fact that Della sucked at consoling people.
“No, it won’t!” Miranda snapped. “I told him I would wait on him. Three weeks, months, years. I don’t care. But he said no, that it wasn’t fair to ask me to wait. Then he said that if I still loved him when he came back, that we’d walk off into the sunset and be happy.”
“The sunset? Who even says shit like that?” Della bellowed, saying the first thing that came to her mind, and from the expression in Miranda’s eyes, perhaps it was the wrong thing.
Miranda took some hiccupy breaths, sobbed into her hands for a good minute, then looked up with mascara-induced raccoon eyes.
“Do you want me to walk you to bed?” Della asked, hoping the witch would say yes before Della said something that made it worse.
Miranda either didn’t hear her, or couldn’t in her mental state. “I asked him about him still loving me. Do you know what he said?”
“Something terrible, I’m sure,” Della answered.
“He said that he couldn’t imagine not loving me.”
“Bastard,” Della said, still giving it her best shot, but cringing at her lack of consoling ability.
“Then he said we needed to look at this rationally.” Miranda let out a high-pitched moan. “He’s acting like such a … an adult!” She spit the last word out like it tasted bad on her tongue.
“Yeah, who wants that?” Della said.
“I know. I don’t want to be adult about this,” Miranda continued. “I know a long-distance relationship would be hard, but does he care so little about me that he doesn’t want to try? He’s just going to give up. I guess I’m not worth at least trying to make us work.”
A lump formed in Della’s chest. Wasn’t that exactly how she felt about Steve? He was giving up on her, on them, and even with her confused feelings for Chase, she hadn’t been ready to give up on Steve.