“He’s not meant for someone like you.”

I jumped at my mother’s voice. Slowly, I turned to find her standing behind me and looking out at Jesse as he chatted with the rest of the group. I frowned at her. “What the fuck do you mean?”

She knew I was cursing to annoy her so she left that untouched. “Don’t you see? He’s with his people now.” She nodded at him. “You must be able to see that. Do you really think he wants to be around people like us? He’ll always feel small and inadequate. Is that what you want for him?”

“I thought he wanted to be around me,” I admitted, but as I watched him there, I couldn’t help but wonder if she was actually right. I mean, it made sense. He’d just been getting that notch on his bedpost with me. Getting the girl who had turned him down in high school.

Maybe he had let himself believe that there was something there between us, enough that he came out to this party tonight, but then he’d seen the way everybody treated him and it reminded him of the gap between us.

There had been a reason he hadn’t pursued me aggressively when the two of us were back in high school. One rejection was all it took and he never even looked in my direction after that. Maybe, on some level, he’d known this was how it would end, with the people I thought had my best interests at heart driving him away from me. It wasn’t fair—none of it was fair. Maybe it was all for the best, but it sure didn’t feel like it. My chest felt tight with sorrow.

Strange—I didn’t feel like this even when I found Mark inside another woman.

“Leave me alone,” I told my mother. I was already exhausted at the thought of spending the rest of the evening with the people back in that room. They were so fake, so phony, so cheap. I felt nothing but disgust for them now. So mean. All this time, I had been so sure the people around me might have been a little idiosyncratic, but they were decent at heart. However, this night had proved once and for all that I was wrong.

Most of them were fucking assholes.

Not to mention the fact that if I tried to bring in anyone who wasn’t a complete stuffed shirt with a big, fat bank account, they were going to treat him like crap until he couldn’t stand to be around me any longer.

For one depressing moment, I thought back to walking out of that apartment, after seeing Mark balls-deep in another woman, and I wondered if it would have been easier if I’d just pretended it had never happened and gone on as normal, the attentive girlfriend. But no. I would have hated my life then. Maybe I couldn’t have Jesse, but I wouldn’t have to pretend to be Mark’s loving wife.

“Come back inside,” Mom urged. She tried to take me by the arm. “Come on. Spend the evening with us, you’ll enjoy it. All your friends will be here soon.”

I looked over at Jesse one more time, and felt a sudden swell of resolve. Okay, so I couldn’t find a way to make him fit into my world, but the simple truth was—I didn’t want to fit into my world anymore either. So maybe I should just jump ship and join him outside.

The soles of my feet prickled, my body silently urging me on.

How easy it would be to walk over there and be with him. Tell him that all those fuckers who had treated him like shit were behind me. I heard a flurry of laughter from the group. Then he stubbed out his cigarette, and I knew it wasn’t going to be long before he tried to come back in and find me. I had to let him know that things had changed, that I was here for him now.

But as my body prepared to go to him, I heard my name called.

For a second, I thought it was just my father, somehow reading my mind and trying to intervene in what I was about to do, but then I realized that I recognized the voice.

“Mia,” he called again.

My stomach dropped, as both my mother and I turned at the same moment to see where it was coming from. The door opened and I laid my horrified eyes on my ex- fiancé. “What the hell?” I muttered, shooting a longing look at Jesse, before stepping back inside the room.

“Mia,” Mark hurried over to me.

The entire room had turned to watch us.