“Rowan,” she whispers my name, breathless.
It gives me fuel. I speed up, hitting the deepest, most untouched parts of her.
“Rowan!” she cries, scrapping her nails down my back.
I look up in time to see her worrying her lip, before her eyes roll to the back of her head, and her pussy clenches around my cock. A gush of hot liquid drips down my sack, and it makes me fall over the edge. I thrust once, twice, three times, until I’m filling the condom with my come.
I roll to the side and take her with me, manoeuvring our bodies, so my cock doesn’t slip out. I’m not ready to leave her yet. I kiss her shoulder, up her neck, until she turns her head to meet my lips.
This is it. This is all that matters. Tomorrow, when we wake up, I’m going to tell her I’m going to follow her to NYU, so we can be together.
We settle in the seat, and she rests her head against my shoulders, filling my lungs with the pear scent that I love so much.
“I love you, Everly,” I say, but the silence in return and steady breaths lets me know she has already fallen asleep. I wrap my arms around her and hold her close, feeling complete.
Until I wake up the next morning, sun shining through my windows. A cold spot where she is supposed to be. No note. No text. No nothing. She left me, and my worst fear has come to life.
And I don’t think I can ever forgive her for leaving me like this.
Chapter 1 Rowan
Two years later…
Everything is almost packed.
Almost everything. I sigh and open the drawer I haven’t opened since coming to Berkeley two years ago. My heart clenches as I see the picture of Everly and I. It’s framed in silver, simple, nothing too fancy, but looking at it now…
We were in love, and we had no idea. I swipe my thumb over her face, getting rid of the built-up dust that has collected over the years.
Her long brown hair is blowing in the wind, and she has a huge smile on her face. I’m leaning against my truck, smiling along with her. It was a perfectly timed photo. A butterfly had just landed on her nose, and Blaire tried to capture the moment, but the butterfly flew away, and apparently it tickled Everly’s nose. It’s why she was laughing.
Me? I’m smiling because she’s so damn happy. It’s my favorite photo in the entire world. I might not have seen it in two years because I tossed it in the drawer to be out of sight and out of mind, but I’ve memorized every inch of that picture. I know it by heart. I don’t need to look at it to know the feeling it gives me.
It guts me to this day with how she left things. I’m still angry. I still hold resentment. I’ve never experienced a night like what she and I shared at eighteen. Sure, I’ve been with other women since then, but none of them hold a candle to Everly.
I hate that I miss her, but what I miss more is our friendship. I miss climbing into her bedroom window and watching Grey’s Anatomy. I never told her, but even though I gave her so much shit for liking it, I ended up loving it and still watch it. I’m hooked. But I refuse to tell anyone. That would be a lifetime of jokes if my guy friends ever found out.
“Hey man, you almost ready?” my roommate Gray asks as he leans against the doorframe.
“Yeah, just give me a minute.”
He nods, walking back out to the common area where all the TVs and stuff are. Gray was done packing this morning, but I’ve been putting it off every second I could, just so I wouldn’t find this photo. I guess I could have left it and not opened the drawer, but I’d hate it if I left it behind, even though I’m angry at her.
The only person I can talk to these days is Gray Jones, my best friend for the last two years. Gray is also dropping out of college with me to help run the accounting app he and I created together. It has already made over a million dollars. For a couple of kids who don’t know much about anything, we considered that a win and decided to open a headquarters to have a home base.
But in order to do that, we have to leave college, so we are. And if I ever need to go back to school, I will. And I plan on it one day. Our app is similar to PayPal or Venmo, except when you log in, you pay a base fee, and get all the tax advice, financial services, and accountants you can think of right then and there. It’s personalized, and we have already helped so many people that the app exploded overnight, and now we have five dozen employees to help with the influx of customers, and it’s still growing every day. We just got a massive round of venture funding, allowing us to truly take that next step. To become not just a start-up, but a major financial firm in our own right. All our hard work is finally paying off.
The one person who I wish I could tell, I can’t. I’d love to tell Everly my plan, but she has never once messaged me back. I tried every day for six months after the night we had sex. That includes phone calls, voicemails, emails, and texts. Maybe I went overboard, but I missed my best friend, and I wanted answers.
I never got
