Rule No 1: No Strings Attached

er's

felt when I woke u

ull, physical weight sitting square in the middle of my chest before I'd even opened my

all at once, like a w

anding at the edge of it all with a folded letter in my hand and nowhere to put it. My whole body ached in a w

t my phone. There were four missed

eyes, wishing, uselessly, that I could

ld go back to sle

just held on, and I stood there with my chin on her shoulder and my eyes pressed shut, and for a moment the tightness i

oved over my face, checking for damage. "I kept calling and you weren't picking up and

was call

e bed and sat beside me. "He's worried, Sum

rsion of the truth I could hand her without it c

ace with my hands, my shoulders shaking, three years of holding it together finally

"He's an idiot. A blind, oblivious, total hockey-brained idiot," she

"The point is, I lost before I even had a chance to fight. I've spent three years waiting for the perfect moment, and last night,

illiant. If Brooks is too stupid to see what's right in front of him, then he doesn't deserve yo

n't. Outside, I could already hear the campus starting up - footsteps in the corridor, voices, som

t to go in t

ooked

ready making my stomach curl in on itself. "Everyone's going to be talking about it. The proposal, the engagement -

u stay here, you're just going to lie in this bed and replay eve

and I hated that

how up. That's it. Show up, get through your classes, come home." She

t me out of the apartment, but she got me there, my eyes still

y as bad as I'd k

trance I heard whispers talking about the diner, the flower

the seconds between one breath and the

she squeezed my hand before she left and said she'd find m

They're engaged. It was so beau

The same words turning over and over, each one

, the sooner I could stop feeling like this. It wasn't even grief - you couldn't grieve something you never had. It was the quiet death of a

ust accept i

the main courtyard and

diately to the one that used to make my he

oward me. "Where did you go last ni

into something steady even as everything in me wanted to fold. "I wasn't

." He searched my face. "You

it only cost me everything. "Congratulation

nd ruffled my hair, his hand messing up everything Ali had done that morning wi

e sister's voice. The s

u to be fu

rl he chose. The functional one. The one who kept the pieces together for ev

d. She lifted her left hand, and turned it so the ring caught the morning sun. The diamond threw

r than me. "The way it catches the light. I keep ge

I said, because wh

tisfied, and slipped h

anything else, before my face could do

om and stopped to breathe, back against the wall, my whole body

slightly out of breath.

ng. Co

Harrison's project partner list took up

as we approached and nearly walked i

ers look

in his pockets, but he slowed for just a second when his

, simply. "This

ared after him for a secon

- Project Partn

y name ha

mmer - H

something between dread and dis

ng in her voice before she spoke. "Summer. Every girl on this campus would actually combust to

ed him,"

turned to look at h

u w

name sitting next to his. "He read my letter without asking, and he

tared

ul one she used when something was genuinely

es

at me. She pressed her lips together

probably