I felt better on Tuesday.

     Not good. Not exactly okay, either. But better.

     I didn't bother looking in the mirror as I got ready for school. I knew I would look exactly how I felt — seeing it wouldn't do me any good.

    I trudged out of the house on heavy feet without eating breakfast or greeting my parents. I knew it was unfair, but right now -- for the first time in years -- I resented them for mistakes they couldn't go back and fix.

     I didn't think about the day ahead. I didn't try to plan what I would say to Jamie, or imagine what he would say to me -- I didn't let myself. For all I knew, thinking about it would result in me panicking on the way to school and crashing my car. It was a startling thing, being wary of my own mind.

     When I got to school, I saw Bryan in the morning. He asked me if I was okay. I said no. He asked why. I told him I didn't want to talk about it. He didn't push it.

     I looked for Jamie all day, knowing I was nowhere near ready to see him but desperate for a glimpse of his face. With every ring of the bell, my stomach tied in knots, and soon, it was impossible to think about anything but what would happen when my time ran out and he was right in front of me. I groaned under my breath when fifth period ended and it was time for lunch -- once I walked out to our spot and saw him, everything would be up in the air and I would have nowhere to go but to him. The thought of being with him, after everything that had crossed my mind, was enough to make the world spin dizzyingly around me. But the thought of being without him after everything that had crossed my mind made my world come to a sudden halt, and somehow, that was monuments worse. I wasn't sure any part of me was ready to accept everything that came with him, but I was sure I couldn't bear the nothing I felt without him.

     I could run. Of course I could run, I was dying to run. But if I ran, I knew without a doubt that he would be gone when I looked back. This was my chase, and if I wanted to make things right, I'd have to somehow swallow my nerves and face him. 

     There was no if, really. I had to make things right. He might not let me, but I'd be damned if I didn't try.

    When I got to lunch, however — to the usual spot with Jamie and Bryan and Vanessa — the person I needed to see the most wasn't there. Vanessa must have noticed my expression, because she shrugged and said, "He wasn't here yesterday, either. I'm not sure where he's sitting."

     "Did you guys fall out?" Bryan asked quietly, careful not to pry too deep. I didn't answer, which was answer enough on its own. I wordlessly sat down next to them, pulled out my headphones, shut my eyes, and tuned out the conversation. It was rude, but compared to what I'd done a few days ago, it was nothing, and I didn't have a speck of space in my mind to feel bad for it. Bryan knew me well enough — he knew I would tell him when I wanted to.

    When the bell for sixth period rang, my time to prepare myself came to a winding halt. Unless Jamie skipped the class to avoid me, or had skipped school altogether, he was about to see me. And I was about to see him. I wasn't sure which was worse, but I was about to find out. 

     He was there. When I walked in, the first thing I saw -- the only thing I saw -- was him, sat in his usual seat, with his eyes trained on his desk and his hands clasped too-tightly in his lap. I paused in the doorway, pushing my hands into my pockets. 

     I was supposed to sit next to him. I was supposed to take the desk in front of his, turn around in my seat, and help him through the lesson. I was supposed to flirt with him under my breath and reach for his pencil right when he did so our hands would touch. I was supposed to feel all flustered and giddy when he winked at me in return.

     Jamie looked up at me from his seat, as if he'd felt it when I walked into the room. He looked as awful as I felt, but that wasn't the part that had me snapping my gaze away from his after hardly a second of contact.

      Without another glance at my usual seat in front of his, I made my way to the desk at which I had sat at the beginning of the school year. Before Vagabonds, before the football field, before Jamie. Far from his corner. 

     He hated me.

      Mr. Peters walked in and started his lesson. Knowing I stood no chance of listening, I put my head in my hands and shut my eyes tight and tried no to cry or freak out or both. Jamie had never looked at me like that, not even before we got along. Not when I'd accused him of stealing my wallet. Not when I'd asked him too many personal questions. Back then, he'd kept me at arms' length with a wall. Now, the wall was a fortress, and marching from it was a vicious army, with guns and grenades all pointed at me. A couple of weeks ago, he'd told me he loved me. All of that was gone now.

     As the clock ticked above and the period approached its end, I gave up on planning what I would say to him. Every time I tried, I lost my breath, and my mind went nowhere helpful. Mr. Peters didn't say anything to me today, maybe because he remembered what had happened the last time he'd pushed me when I was in a bad mood. That was probably for the best; I was pretty sure I would react the same way this time.

     After fifty excruciating minutes, the bell rang, and class was over. I looked up from my hands to see Jamie already halfway across the room, headed for the door, and I made the split-second decision to jump to my feet and grab my bag (I hadn't even opened it, so there was no packing up to do) and pursue him. He couldn't just leave. I wouldn't let him avoid me. This was too big to leave unspoken -- if he didn't want anything to do with me, he would have to tell me that, because we were at least going to talk about it.

     I hoped to God that he wouldn't tell me that. Or at least that I could change his mind if he did.

    When I followed him out into the hall, however, he wasn't rushing to the doors to disappear into the crowd. He was hurrying instead to the back exit of the hallway, the one that students weren't really supposed to use. The one I'd taken when I had that first panic attack — except back then, I'd been the one running, and he'd been the one following.

     It struck me that he wanted me to follow him. He was walking fast, but not fast enough to lose me. And he was going somewhere private. I didn't feel relieved, as I maybe should have.

     "Jamie," I sighed when we were alone in the grass outside, face to face but feet apart. Already, my voice caught on his name, and I didn't know what to say.

     He shook his head with a slow, bothered breath, staring down at his feet for a moment before looking up at me. I flinched at what I saw in his eyes. It was muted anger, rage like I hadn't seen on him before, as loud as it was quiet. A silent scream that was just as deafening in blue as it was in hazel. And behind all of that, it held a monument to grief -- misery written in two tones -- but Jamie was hard at work drowning that pillar deep in a lake, where it wouldn't be discovered for centuries.

     I  did that. I made him look like that.

     "I'm sorry," I started, but he held up his hand to silence me, and my mouth fell shut.

     "I don't want you to apologize," he said. Every part of him was closed off to me, from the way he stood with his arms crossed over his chest, to the strain in his voice, to the turn of his gaze back to the floor. "I don't — I don't care about 'I'm sorry' right now. I just want an explanation."

      I don't care about I'm sorry. His way of telling me that forgiveness wasn't on the table. 

     "I —I . . ." Words evaded me. It seemed impossible to string two thoughts together, like words were objects, and I was trying to attach them using water for glue. "Jamie, listen . . ."

     Listen to what, though? What did I have to say without apologizing?

    "I fucked up, okay?" It was cheap, and I knew it was, but I was at a loss for words, pissed at myself, and hopelessly unprepared for any of this. "I didn't want to do that to you . . . it wasn't me, it was . . . "

    "Who, Liam?" Jamie laughed bitterly, raising his arms incredulously. "Who are you going to blame it on? It was your voice I heard dumping me, refusing to say why, telling me to just accept it."

    His voice was venom. The poison was paralyzing.

     I tried pitifully for something to say, some magic remedy for this, but the wound I'd left was too deep for healing. I couldn't get a good word out because there were no good words.

    Jamie scoffed and moved to walk past me. I was about to let him, too, but I snapped out of it in time to grab onto his wrist and whirl him around to face me.

     "There's . . . there's a lot that goes on in my mind," I told him, my words rushing out in one desperate breath. "It's like there's this clock in my head . . . sometimes I think I imagine it . . . and it'll tick really loud, like a countdown.

     "I have these . . . I freak out, okay? Sometimes I just have to sit down for a few minutes, sometimes I literally can't fucking breathe, and I think of the worst possible situations, and — god, I don't know, Jamie, sometimes I do stupid shit. But I always regret it, and words can't describe how much I regret what I did to you."

     "You think I don't know that?" He snapped, yanking his hand out of my grip. "Do you really think I couldn't put two and two together and figure out that you have panic attacks sometimes? But what the hell does that have to do with me?"

     "I was having one when I broke up with you," I tried to explain, pleading with my voice that he would understand. "I promise you Jamie, it was the worst one I've ever had, it felt like — I don't know what it felt like, but . . . you want to know why. That's why. I was having a really bad panic attack, and I couldn't fucking think, and I made a huge mistake!"

     Jamie hesitated. His gaze seemed to soften, and for the first time today, I recognized him.

      "So you had a panic attack," he said. "You weren't you, and you lost control, and you broke up with me."

      "Yes," I said, pouring relief. "Yes, and I'm so sorry, Jamie, just let me make it up to you."

     I took a step toward him. But he patched the gap in his army almost immediately, sending reinforcements to replace fallen soldiers, and every inch of fury was re-erected in an instant. So fast, I almost missed the change.

     He stepped back, away from me, his expression hard. The bell rang, signaling the start of seventh period, but neither of us acknowledged it.

     "Three days, Liam," he said. "I haven't heard from you in three fucking days! So you had a bad panic attack! That doesn't take away from the fact that you left me hanging, feeling worse about myself than I have for a really long time, for three whole fucking days!"

     "I wanted to talk to you!" I said desperately. "I did! But — but I couldn't!"

     "Why?" Jamie demanded. "Why? Why couldn't you, knowing exactly how I must've been feeling? Why couldn't you have even sent a fucking text saying I'm sorry, I didn't mean it, I'll talk to you soon or something? Do you know how different that would've made these past few days for me? Would that have been so fucking hard? Instead, I was depressed and heartbroken and hating myself! The sick part is, despite how awful you made me feel, I was still wasting my time being really fucking worried about you because you never just disappear, and . . . And while I was feeling all of that, you were doing whatever the hell it took you three goddamn days to do, probably not even thinking of me —"

     "I was thinking of you!" I argued, stepping toward him again. He didn't move back this time, but the warning in his eyes told me to stop there. "Every second, Jamie! I felt awful — I wanted to fix things —"

     "Then why didn't you?"

      "I couldn't!" I said, knowing how pathetic that sounded. "I can't explain it, Jamie — I don't know how — I just couldn't. But I wanted to, I swear on my life I wanted to."

     I could see it in his eyes that he didn't believe me. And I couldn't blame him. But my mind had run away from me. I wasn't helping myself. I didn't know how to.

     Jamie just shook his head. "I don't know a lot about relationships," he said. He had lowered his voice now, but his eyes still raged with guns and grenades, and I remembered for the first time in a long time how unnerving they could be. "But I'm pretty sure that if you lo—if you cared about me, you would have done something."

    "Jamie, I—"

    "You wouldn't have let me sit there for three days," he cut me off, which was just as well, because I didn't have anything to say, "knowing how my mind works, and how I think. You know better than anyone that up here," he pointed to his temple, glaring viciously, "it's hard for me to trust, and to open up. But it's so fucking easy for me to tear myself down. You know that. And yet you still let me —"

    He broke off when his voice gave in. His eyes were watering. I just wanted to hug him. But he would never allow it.

     "Jamie, I'm sorry," I said meekly, because it was all I had left to say. Feeling drained, as if the conversation had stolen the strength from my legs as well as my mind, I leaned against the wall beside me.

     "Yeah," Jamie scoffed. "Me too. I'm sorry that I ever let myself believe this could be anything."

     There it was. The frost in his tone that went straight to my heart, freezing it over until it cracked. And there was the feeling — the gaping hole, the emptiness, the illusion of love and heartbreak. Except it didn't feel like an illusion. It felt pretty fucking real.

     Jamie began to turn around. But then he stopped and faced me again, and it was like every bit of anger had been sapped from his gaze, leaving exposed everything he'd tried to hide. The army in his eyes broke ranks and the fortress fell, revealing vaults and vaults of heartache.

     "I spent a lot of time feeling worthless, Liam," he said, the cold gone from his words. "My parents, people at school . . . they all made sure of that. And then I met you, and it was like. . ." he sighed, "You built me up. As much as you could. And for a while, I felt maybe just a little better about myself.

     "And then you broke up with me without giving me any reason. Like I meant nothing to you. And when I called just to talk about it, you didn't answer once, like you couldn't be bothered. The one person who'd made me feel important treated me like I was . . ."

      Worthless.

     "I never meant any of that," I said weakly. I stepped closer, and he let me. I took his hands. He let me. "I did something really, really awful. I can't even begin to tell you how much I regret it . . . I know I screwed up, but that doesn't change how I feel about you."

     Jamie smiled dejectedly. He pulled one of his hand from mine to wipe at his cheeks. "You're right," he said.

     Hope had a cruel way of building itself up only to come crashing down, leaving a crater behind to scar each collapse. No civilization, no monument, no life could rise and fall as quickly as hope could.

     "I know that you'll never let yourself love me. And that I was fooling myself thinking I could maybe change that. But people don't change, and I need to stop forgetting that. You're still you, and I'm still a rude and coldhearted and unambitious and self-important piece of work, right? You can't love me, and I can't have you, and I need to just stop trying to make it work, because everything was easier when I wasn't trying.

    "I mean, we were never going to go anywhere, were we?" he said, shrugging one shoulder sullenly. "We jumped into this thing without ever once talking about the future. Which sounds so dumb now that I think about it, but it really wasn't, was it? Not for us. For us, there was nothing to talk about -- there never was a future. You knew my plan from the start. It never included a happy, picture-perfect life. The plan was always to hold on until I don't have to anymore and then just wait until there's nothing left. You weren't and aren't a part of that storyline. We never would have made it far.

     "And even if we did -- even if you managed to change my mind -- how long would it last? Did you think I would just live my life with someone who won't even believe that he loves me?" He was still smiling, but nothing reached his eyes. "You always got on my case for being self-destructive, but you would expect that from me? Don't you see, Liam? There's no point. There never was a point. We were just too excited to see that.

     "I said it at the beginning, didn't I? You're just another hope that'll never amount to anything but pain for me."

    He pulled his other hand gently from mine and took a few steps back. The sad smile was gone from his lips. "I don't trust people easily. You got me to forget that. But I learned my lesson. Fuck you, Liam Bane."

     Then he turned and left. I didn't follow him.

    That was it. 

     We were done. I hadn't been able to make any sense . . . and even if I had, Jamie wouldn't have heard it. He had come into this knowing it was the end. I hadn't.

    I'd heard Jamie talk about hating himself before. I'd pitied him for it. Now, as I stood by myself against the wall, knowing I'd just ruined what might've been the best thing to ever happen to me, I was finally starting to understand how it felt.

     I sat down with my back against the wall, too tired to even think about going to class.

      It's not that you don't believe in love. You're scared of it.

     Jamie had said those words to me months ago. He'd been right. Of course he'd been right — he was the smartest person I knew. Too smart to date anybody who would choose to live their life wearing a blindfold.

     Love was real. If it wasn't, then it was the lie to end all lies, because nothing had ever felt more real.

      But I had been right, too. Love wasn't a friend. Aphrodite wasn't some benevolent goddess. I hadn't taken her seriously, and so she'd unleashed her wrath, ruthlessly taking her vengeance. She'd made me into a believer, but only after it was too late.

       Alone out there at the back of the school, the world felt too big, and I felt too small and helpless. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand being by myself. I had been forcing myself to deal with everything on my own, and all that had done was lead me to push away one of the few people that might've actually been there for me.

     But this, I couldn't handle on my own.

     "What's up, bub?"

     Maybe I shouldn't have called. I didn't know what to say. 

     So I said everything.

     By the time I was done, my cheeks were wet with tears. Saying it all out loud, I realized how stupid it was. Everything — keeping my issues a secret, being so afraid of love that I ruined my own, being utterly unable to explain myself — had been so stupid.

     "God, I'm an idiot," I finished despondently. Jamie used to call me that, but it had always been endearing, always with that hidden smile in his eyes.

     "You're not an idiot," Stevie said. Her words were thick with worry. "You're human. You make mistakes."

     "This isn't just some mistake," I said. "What if Jamie . . . what if he was my future? What if that's the guy I was meant to marry? He fucking hates me now, and I-- I don't blame him! I worked so hard to get him to trust me -- for months, Stevie -- and in a few days, I ruined it!"

     "Liam, you don't know that," Stevie said. "He might come around. Maybe he just needs time."

    I sniffed, wiping my cheeks with the sleeve of my blazer. "Or maybe he just needs someone better than me," I grumbled sadly. "But then, I've kind of ruined that too, haven't I? He told me he learned his lesson. He's not going to get his hopes up anymore. I couldn't just mess my own life up -- I had to screw over whatever progress he might've made, too." 

     Stevie must have heard how miserable I was, because she sounded even more determined when she said, " Liam, don't think like that. I know you fucked up, and it's really bad now, but remember how good you are for Jamie. Remember how happy you make him."

     "How good I was for him," I muttered. "How happy I made him."

      Stevie sighed. "I know it's hard, bub. I won't pretend it isn't. I really hope you two can work everything out, but . . . I also think I get how Jamie thinks, and I know this will be really hard for him to move past. There's no fast solution. He can't turn his trust for you back on like a switch. But he can't just turn off everything he feels for you, either. If he loved you a week ago, he still loves you today. There's just a lot of anger in the way. When that fades -- and it will -- the love might still be there, and you can start building up the trust again. If you're supposed to be together, things will work themselves out. And if you're not, and they don't, it won't be the end of the world. It'll hurt, but it won't hurt forever. There will be other boys."

      "I don't want other boys," I said pathetically, leaning my head back. "Just the one."

     "It'll pass," Stevie said gently. "But a word of advice, bub . . . you won't get anywhere until you can create a world where the two of you can be together. Right now, he doesn't see it. He's remembering all the reasons why he fought it in the first place. Even if he forgives you, he won't jump in again. I've heard some of the things he's said, Liam. You need to convince him that there's a life beyond eighteen."

     I shook my head, even though she couldn't see me. She might as well have told me to lift an elephant or build a time machine.

     "And, Liam?"

     "Hm?"

      "I think you should tell mom and dad. About the panic attacks, I mean. They're getting too serious."

      "Yeah," I said, knowing that I wouldn't.

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song on the side is jamie's mood this chapter