Where the Night Ends Page 19

  “You can’t be serious!” I scream, feeling like I’m coming apart at the seams.

  “Oh, I’m very serious.” She turns back toward Sebastian who chooses this moment to look up.

  One glimpse of his red swollen eyes and sullen expression, and I nearly hit the floor. I can feel my heart splintering off into a thousand pieces, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

  “We’re done here,” Jonathan says firmly, pushing the door open, and swiftly exiting the police station. Sebastian hesitates just long enough that my mother has time to say one last thing.

  “You stay away from my daughter.”

  He nods only once and without saying a word, quickly turns and follows his father outside.

  “Mom.” I’m at my breaking point, the emotion so thick in my throat I can barely manage to get the word out.

  “My decision is final,” she says matter of fact. “Now, let’s go.”

  ***

  “It’s for the best, Tess,” my mom says, shoving the car into park and shifting in her seat to face me. “I know it may not feel like it right now but it is.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I refuse to look at her, keeping my gaze locked out the passenger side window.

  “Yes, I do, honey. You think I don’t know what young love feels like?” She softens her approach. “I know how much you care for that boy, Tess, but after what happened tonight, there’s no way I can continue to allow you to see him. He put your life in danger. Does that not say anything to you?”

  “You don’t know the situation, and you don’t know Sebastian.” I refuse to look at her.

  “You’re right, maybe I don’t, but you are my daughter, Tess.” She grabs my hand, but I quickly pull it away. “You can hate me all you want, but one day you’ll see that I’m doing this to protect you. You are my world. You are all I have left of your father.” The emotion that takes over her voice has my gaze finally drifting to hers. She swipes at a stray tear before continuing, “If something happened to you…” She trails off.

  “Nothing happened to me, Mom. I’m right here,” I reassure her.

  “But something could’ve happened. Things could’ve ended much differently tonight than they did.”

  “But they didn’t,” I continue to argue.

  “Tess, I love you. It’s my job to protect you. Whether intentionally or not, that boy put you in horrible danger tonight, and I simply can’t take the risk that he’ll do it again.”

  “Mom, please.” My tears resurface in an instant. “I love him.”

  “I know you do. But, sweetie, he’s leaving in a few weeks anyway. I think this is best all around.”

  “Best for you maybe. You’re determining my entire life based on one bad choice. Sebastian is everything to me, Mom.” My voice gets a little carried away as I struggle to reel in my emotion.

  “Your entire life? I think that’s a bit dramatic. You’re only seventeen. Your life hasn’t even really started yet. Trust me, one day this will all just be a distant memory. You don’t see it now, but you will. One day when you have children of your own, you’ll know I did this out of love.”

  “You can’t keep me from him.” The words seep out before I can stop them.

  “I can. And I will. Even if that means I have to monitor you every waking minute,” she warns.

  “Good luck with that,” I bite, directing all my anger at her.

  “Phone.” She holds out her hand. “Give me your phone, Tess,” she continues when I just stare at her upturned palm.

  “What?” I look at her like she has five heads. “I’m not giving you my phone.”

  “Yes, you are. Because I pay for that phone. So either you give it to me or I’ll call and cancel your line. The choice is yours.”

  “Mom, please don’t do this. Please,” I sob, my hands shaking and my stomach so knotted I feel like I might vomit at any moment.

  “You wanna threaten me, Tess, I will hand it right back to you. Now give me your phone.”

  I sit there for several seconds before finally digging my phone out of my back pocket, but instead of putting it in her outreached hand I throw it into her lap.

  “Congratulations. I officially hate you,” I spit, throwing open the car door and stomping toward the house.

  I spend the rest of the night locked in my room pacing. My mom doesn’t bother me. I think she knows right now is not the time. I still can’t wrap my head around how quickly everything fell apart tonight.

  Sebastian.

  God, just the thought of how broken he looked at the police station makes my knees tremble beneath my weight. My strong, confident, carefree Sebastian was gone, replaced by a hollow shell that couldn’t even look at me.

  I know it only takes one night—one moment, one choice—to change the entire direction of your life. To take everything you thought you wanted or knew and jumble it into something almost unrecognizable. I experienced this first-hand the night I met Sebastian.

  And now I’m terrified that this night—this moment, this choice—will change everything all over again. And not in a way that either of us ever saw coming.

  ***

  I attempted to call Sebastian from the house phone the next afternoon while my mom was in the shower, but it kept going straight to voicemail. All I wanted was to hear his voice, to reassure him that no matter what my mom said nothing was going to rip us apart.

  By Monday morning the knot in my stomach had grown substantially in size. I hadn’t slept in nearly two days and couldn’t stomach the thought of eating. I felt like my world was crumbling around me and had no idea how to fix any of it.

  Sebastian never showed up for school, and his cell continued to go to voicemail. It was the same story on Tuesday. Again, a no-show. By Wednesday I’m running on fumes and just getting dressed for school feels nearly impossible.

  When I walk into the building just after seven fifteen, I’ve all but given up hope of seeing Sebastian. So when I catch sight of him making his way down the hall, a rush of adrenaline runs through me and my body reacts as if on autopilot. I run to catch up to him, reaching him just as he stops in front of his locker.

  “Sebastian.” My voice is winded, my chest rising and falling at a rapid pace as I work to steady my raging heart.

  I was prepared for a lot of things but when he turns to face me, I realize I couldn’t have been less prepared for what I’m now looking at.

  He looks like he’s aged ten years in the past three days. His hazel eyes are dark and there are deep circles underneath. He looks as bad as I feel. Oddly, that makes me feel a little better. It means he’s been just as miserable without me as I’ve been without him. For the first time since Saturday night, I feel a renewed sense of hope.

  But that hope quickly comes crashing down around me.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Tess.” There’s an edge to his voice I didn’t expect, and instantly my heart rate picks up speed kicking against my ribs like I’m in the middle of a marathon.

  “What do you mean?” I blurt, hoping maybe I’m misreading the situation.

  “I mean, you’re not supposed to be here—as in with me,” he says, turning his back to me as he fishes some books out of his locker. “Your mom was pretty clear.”

  “I don’t give a shit what my mom says.” I grab his arm, trying to force him back around. “Sebastian. Look at me.”

  “I’m sorry, Tess. I can’t do this,” he says, his back still to me.

  “What?” I swear my heart stops beating altogether, a tingling sensation spreading down my face as everything starts to go numb.

  “Your mom was right. I put you in danger. I could’ve killed you.” He finally looks at me, and the distance I see in his eyes tells me he’s already made up his mind. “This was good while it lasted, but I think it’s time we face the reality here. This was never going to work out long term. I think it’s easier all around if we just cut ties now and move on.”

  “But you promised me.” I f
eel like the ground is going to open up and swallow me whole at any moment. “You promised we’d make it work. You promised.”

  “I shouldn’t have promised something I knew I couldn’t keep.”

  “You liar.” My voice echoes down the hallway drawing the attention of several classmates as they pass by. Normally I hate causing a scene, but right now I really couldn’t care less. “You’re pushing me away because of what happened Saturday, but you don’t have to. I love you, Sebastian. I know you would never intentionally put me in harm’s way. Things just got out of hand, okay?” The desperation in my voice only portrays a small fraction of the panic I feel creeping into every pore.

  “I’m sorry, Tess.” He refuses to meet my gaze as he turns.

  “Sebastian, please don’t do this. Please.” Tears pour from my eyes as I reach for him ,but he only shakes me off.

  “I’m so sorry.” His voice is so low I almost don’t catch it and by the time I do, he’s already walking away.

  I’m not sure how long I stand there, my mind in disbelief, my body trembling in shock. This can’t be happening, it’s all I can think. I close my eyes willing myself to wake up.

  Just wake up!

  When I open my eyes and find myself staring down the same hallway which is now void of students, everything seems to hit me at once. Without thought, I turn and take off full speed through the hallway.

  When I reach the exit, I don’t stop. I push on, my feet pounding the pavement as I just run faster and harder than I’ve ever run before.

  I don’t know at what point my legs finally give out. All I know is one minute I’m moving and the next I’m lying flat on my back in my front yard, looking up into the bright cloudless sky.

  My chest heaves up and down as I try to catch my breath. I feel like I’m suffocating. No matter how much air I pull in it never feels like enough.

  It’s not lost on me that this is a feeling I’m likely going to have to get used to.

  Sebastian is my world, my air. I can’t breathe without him. I can’t survive without him. I can’t imagine a world without his smile, his touch, the way he sounds when he tells me he loves me.

  The thought of never hearing that again has me rolling to the side, letting go of the small amount of juice I managed to keep down this morning. I choke and gag, feeling like I might die at any moment.

  Collapsing back onto my back, I feel like the sky closing down around me, trapping me in a world I no longer want to be a part of.

  I close my eyes—seeing his face, his eyes, his smile. But even those are quickly replaced by what I saw today. The sadness, the pain, the wall that was so clearly placed between us when nothing used to exist in that space.

  Every painful moment of the last five days seems to leak over into all the happy ones—tainting them, changing them, ripping my happiness away piece by piece until all that remains is a hollow feeling in my chest and an aching loss in the pit of my stomach.

  It’s funny how quickly your life can change. One minute I’m dress shopping with my best friends in preparation of my first prom, the next I’m sitting on my bedroom floor looking at my beautiful dress hanging on the back of my closet door knowing that I’ll probably never get to wear it.

  I have no intention of going to prom tonight, without Sebastian there’s really no point. And considering he’s done everything in his power to avoid me since our “break up” last Wednesday, I’m not really sure I want to see him anyway.

  Okay, that’s a lie. A big, fat, stupid lie that I’ve tried to convince myself of all day. Truth is, I’m terrified that if I go he won’t be there or worse, he’ll be there with another girl. Just the thought makes me want to throw up.

  I shake it off, knowing there’s no way he would do that to me. But then again, do I really know what he’s capable of after this past week? For all I know he would flaunt some girl in front of me just to drive home the point that we’re over.

  I swipe at a tear that manages to escape my eye, angry with myself for not being able to just move on the way he seems to have.

  It’s like he just snapped his fingers and his world reset back to before we were together. I pass him in the hallway, and he doesn’t even look up at me. It’s like I never existed.

  He rejoined his old lunch table, which has proven to be the hardest part of my day to get through. Watching him across the room laugh and cut up with his football buddies and various girls like he doesn’t have a care in the world is some sick and cruel torture I shouldn’t be forced to endure. After all, I didn’t do anything to deserve any of this, and yet he has this way of making me feel like I brought it all on myself.

  Hell, maybe I did.

  I should’ve followed my gut a long time ago. The one that told me to steer clear. But even knowing what I know now and hurting the way I am, I can’t bring myself to regret my time with Sebastian.

  He may be putting on a good act, convincing everyone that he’s happy and free once again, but I see through it. Because deep down I know Sebastian at his core, and I know this is his sorry attempt to make me hate him, to push me away. I wish it wasn’t working… Or maybe I wish it was working better…

  God, my emotions are so all over the place I can’t even get a real grasp on how I feel anymore. But the one thing I can grasp, the one feeling that is the most prominent is sadness. I try to refocus it, hone in on the anger I know is building there behind the pain, but at the end of the day, it always comes back to the gaping wound in my chest where my heart used to be. The splintering pain that only seems to increase with each day that passes.

  I wish I could turn it off. I wish I could find some sense of the person I was before Sebastian, but I’m not even sure that girl exists anymore.

  I jump when I hear the doorbell ring, not expecting company. Slowly rising to my feet, I let out an annoyed groan when whoever is at the door rings it several more times in concession.

  “Tess.” I hear my mom call down the hall from the bathroom.

  “I’m getting it,” I grumble, emotion overwhelming me when I pull open the door to find my two best friends standing on my porch both dressed in pajamas.

  Bree smiles and holds up the pizza box in her right hand, her belly so large she could probably balance the box on it instead. My gaze flips from her to Courtney, who gives me a wicked grin and pulls a bottle of vodka from her bag just long enough for me to see what it is before she shoves it back down.

  “What—what are two doing here?” I question in disbelief, certain they would be getting ready for prom right now.

  “Like we’d go to prom without you,” Courtney retorts, pushing past me into the house, Bree fast on her heels.

  “You guys,” I start to object, closing the door behind them.

  “Before you say anything,” Bree turns toward me. “Just know that the last thing I want to do is go to prom looking like this.” She gestures down to her belly.

  “And the last thing I want to do is go to prom with Anthony. Jackass is lucky I haven’t dumped him already.” Courtney’s statement surprises me, but I don’t have time to comment before Bree cuts back in.

  “So you see, you’d actually be doing us a huge favor by letting us just crash here tonight. Besides, this might very well be the last girl’s night we have like this,” she adds, an air of sadness to her voice.

  I still can’t believe that in just a few weeks Bree is going to be moving all the way to the other side of the country. It seems even more surreal that she’s also about to become a mom. Things are changing so fast, and it’s terrifying that I have no control over any of it.

  “Hi, girls.” My mom chooses this moment to come around the corner, her wet hair twisted up in a fluffy white towel.

  “Hey, Mrs. W.” Court smiles. “Hope you don’t mind if we keep Tess company tonight,” she adds quickly.

  “Not at all.” My mom smiles. “I think it’s great,” she says, turning her attention back to me. “Tess, baby, I’m running a little late. Would you mind throwi
ng me a sandwich and some veggies in my lunch box.”

  “Sure, Mom.” I nod, making my way into the kitchen with Bree and Court while my mom heads back to her bedroom to finish getting ready.

  “So…” Courtney drags out, hoisting herself up onto the kitchen counter while Bree sets the pizza and snacks on the table. “How’s everything with…” She points toward the back of the house where my mom is.

  “Different,” I admit, pulling open the fridge. I grab the chicken salad and the veggie tray, turning to set them on the island before continuing, “We haven’t really talked about things since last Saturday. I think, like Sebastian, she just wants to pretend it never happened.”

  “I think you’re lucky to have someone who cares so much.” Bree steps up next to me, dropping the loaf of bread she got out of the pantry onto the island.

  “I know.” I let out an audible sigh. “It’s just hard right now.”

  “And Sebastian? Any word?”

  “Nothing.” The tears form without warning, and once again I’m left trying to blink them down without allowing them to spill over.

  Sensing my shift, Courtney is off the counter and on the other side of me in five seconds flat.

  “Hey.” She drops her arm over my shoulder while Bree wraps hers around my waist, both squeezing me. “At least you still have us,” she offers, bumping her hip against mine. “And tonight, we’re going to forget all about prom and boys. We’re gonna catch a little buzz.” Bree clears her throat at Courtney’s words. “Okay, you and I are.” Court grins, taking a small step backward. “Preggers over here is just going to have to observe and be jealous.”

  “I don’t know if drinking is a good idea right now. You’re likely to have a sobbing mess on your hands if you pump me full of vodka,” I object.

  “I think we’re going to have a sobbing mess on our hands regardless. Better to have you a little inebriated.” She winks. “And we didn’t just bring your favorite pizza either.” She stalks over to the table and dumps out the bag Bree set there moments earlier littering the table with chips, candy, and my absolute favorite—