Crushed by Amity Hope Read Free Book Online Page A

of break. She didn’t blame him . She also ha dn’t answer ed a single one of those calls. She would’ve done the same thing — called , that is . He wanted an explanation. A better one than she had given him. She didn ’t have a better one. Not that she could share, anyway.
    She couldn’t even remember what she had said to him that day. Word s just started falling out of her mouth and she ’d just gone with it. Trying to say what needed saying while her head and heart were rebelling.
    But now, Reece looked pretty happy with Mia . At least it looked that way to her when she’d had the misfortune of turning a corner just in time to see them locked up in a kiss before the bell rang . A s much as she hated it, it was for the best. It was safer that way; safer for her resolve if he was unavailable.
    “You make a really cute couple.” The lie tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop it. Reece looked at her like she had ju st thrown ice water in his face . Then his jaw clenched and his head swiveled to the front of the room.
     
    ***
     
    Was that supposed to be a compliment? Reece wondered. If it was? He thought i t felt kind of cruel.
    But then he glanced over . Cleo was looking down at her notebook. Biting her lip. And he thought maybe she was lying. Maybe.
    He hated the sight of her so uncomfortable next to him. He knew it shouldn’t be that way. He should be whispering things in her ear right now. Things that w o uld make her blush and smack him across the chest as she was biting back a smile . L ik e last year in Chemistry when they sat at a table, side by side, instead of desks. Or in Geometry when she would blow
     on his neck and then whisper in his ear . B e c ause she was directly behind him, there was nothing he could do to retaliate no matter how…intense things got. That’s how it should’ve been.
     Not this…tension.
    “I forgot the handouts in the teacher s ’ lounge,” Mr. Jessen announced as he slapped his thigh. “Fee l free to discuss what you’ re hoping to get out of this class. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
    He left and the classroom erupted in conversation. Reece took advantage of the background noise . A nd of being close to Cleo for the first ti me since she had walked away from him last spring. He did realize it probably wasn’t the ideal time or place . B ut it was the only chance he ’d had to make her talk. The only time in three months and he was done waiting.
    Memories of then and thoughts of how things should be now were colliding in his brain when she finally looked over at him and caught him staring.
    “Are you ever going to tell me why you really broke up with me?”
    “Reece,” she said his name quietly as her eyes darted over his face. “This really isn’t a good time.”
    “Really? Because it also wasn’t a good time when I wanted to talk right after the
     fact. Or the dozens of times I tried to call you. Or—”
    “I told you already,” she said as her face paled. “I thought we should see other
     people.”
    “There has to be more to it than that,” he insisted. “For it to be so out of the blue like it was.”
    She shook her head but she wasn’t really looking at him . H er gaze seemed to be far away. “Maybe it wasn’t out of the blue. Maybe I’d been thinking about it for a while . A nd just didn’t have the guts to do it until the day before summer vacation.”
    He was silent for a minute because that explanation really hadn’t occurred to him . That she’d been unhappy with him for a long time. But Cleo was an expert at hiding her feelings so maybe…yeah…maybe that made sense. It really sucked to realize that maybe he ha d been an idiot for…what? Weeks? Months ? But it made sense.
    “What else were you keeping from me? Were you already seeing Ethan?” His heart slammed around and his body zinged— maybe from fear of her answer ?—when he managed to force those words out. He ha d wondered because that, too, had come from nowhere.