Havoc

They talk about the band some more before the doors open and the video ends, but all I can think about is Mike on his phone. I know he was looking to see if I texted or called him—I know it in my bones—but he should have been enjoying the sight of all his fans. He shouldn’t have been oblivious to the girls swooning over him. He should have been there, instead of a million miles away.

I’m letting him waste his days in hotel rooms and his nights on the phone, but for what? When he comes home, I won’t be able to give him the relationship he wants. He won’t be able to pick me up for dates, or kiss me on my porch, or even sit at the same table with me in restaurants—because Danica will always be watching. I know Mike wants to find “the one,” and maybe he will—maybe she’ll have blonde hair, maybe she’ll have an accent. But she won’t be me, because I’m his ex-girlfriend’s cousin. I can’t give him what he deserves, and I never should have pretended I could.

When I summon the strength to call Mike at eight o’clock (morning for me, night for him), the aching in my heart has grown sharp, like the tip of a blade that’s slowly plunging deeper. I listen to his phone ring once, twice, three times, four times—

“This is Mike. Leave a message.”

“Hey, Mike,” I say, my voice cracking with emotion. There are ten days left before he comes home, but that’s ten days too many. I’ve already wasted enough of his time, and the longer I pretend that things could ever work between us, the harder it’s going to be to accept that they never, ever could. “It’s Hailey . . . Listen, I—”

Another call interrupts my voice mail, and I answer Mike on the other line.

“Hey,” he says. “Sorry, it’s loud as hell in here.”

“Where are you?” I ask, because I’m weak and I need to hear his voice.

“Some record store party in London. The place is called, uh—”

As Mike tries to remember the name, someone starts talking to him. A few someones, if the multiple female voices are anything to go off of. I hear laughing.

“Sorry about that,” Mike says. “No one seems to know where the hell we are.”

“You should go,” I say, nearly choking on the words.

“Huh?”

“You shouldn’t call me anymore,” I say with tears streaming down my cheeks.

“Hailey?”

“Go have fun, Mike. Be a rock star. Be happy.”

“Baby, what the hell are you talking about?” I hold in a sob, and Mike says, “Hailey, you’re scaring the shit out of me. What’s going on?”

“This just isn’t working,” I say with my whole heart shattering into pieces. I think of Danica’s ultimatum, the dreams I had before I moved here, the dreams Mike has had since Adam and Shawn approached him in a middle school cafeteria. I think of the faces of dozens of girls on the Internet. I think of Danica and how pretty she looked in that wildflower dress. I think of my brother back home and the way the words messed up sounded in his voice. I think of my mom’s hatbox and the thirteen first-day-of-school photos inside it. I think of my broken desk and my broken computer, and Danica’s soup cans rolling across Mike’s hardwood floor. I think of him staring at his phone in front of a long line of people, and me holding mine to my ear as someone honked at me to leave my parking spot. “You deserve to be happy,” I manage through the emotion clouding my eyes. “I just want you to be happy.”

“I am happy,” Mike argues. “You make me happy.”

I shake my head against the tears burning lines down my face. I should have done this before he left. I shouldn’t have hung out with him on his bus. I shouldn’t have played Deadzone with him late at night. I shouldn’t have stayed with him when he was sick. I shouldn’t have let him kiss me in the woods.

I never should have fallen in love with him at all.

He’s been waiting for the girl he’ll spend the rest of his life with, and now it’s time for me to let him find her.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, and I hang up the phone.

Chapter 47

I thought I’d fallen apart when Danica trashed my room and I believed my time in this town was up, but nothing—nothing—compares to the way I fall apart when I hang up on Mike. Phoenix whimpers at my feet as I cry into my arms, my entire body racking with sobs that have been piling inside of me for weeks.

Rowan was right when she said the last love is the one that counts. But I was never meant to be Mike’s last. Someday, he’ll be married to a beautiful wife, and she won’t have the entire world standing between her and loving him. She won’t have vindictive cousins or ultimatums, and she’ll be able to give him the life he’s always dreamt of. They’ll have beautiful kids and a beautiful house and a beautiful life—but I won’t be her. He’ll barely remember me, even though I will never, ever forget him.

There weren’t sparks before Mike, and there won’t be sparks after Mike—because I carved my heart out of my chest the day I fell in love with him, and now it’s walking outside of my body, thousands of miles away.

I have no heart left to give.

Instead, I have a gaping hole, and that emptiness inside me makes me cry until my head is throbbing and my eyes are swollen. And through it all, my phone rings and rings and rings. Within fifteen minutes, I have twenty missed calls from Mike, nine missed calls from Rowan, twelve missed calls from Dee, six from Kit. When Shawn starts calling me too, I finally pull myself together enough to answer the phone.