The reality of what I just witnessed hits me all at once. I exit the bathroom, stumbling through the door and into the hallway with shaking knees. Everything is spinning – my thoughts, the room – because everything I'd feared has come true. Blake doesn't like me.

He used me.

The air feels thick with sweat and adrenaline. I hold my breath, thinking it will help to stop my lungs from caving, but it doesn't. This pressure builds and builds, rising through my stomach and filling my chest; I can't breathe.

How could I have been so stupid to think Blake would actually like me? Blake O'Hare, the weed-smoking conspiracist who goes to concerts and parties wanting boring old Rose – on what planet? And yet somehow, despite the impossibility, I'd let myself believe it could be true. Believe that maybe, just maybe, he liked me back.

Tears burn my eyes when the humiliation sinks in. I'd known he'd do anything fo money – I'd paid him too – but I'd convinced myself that after all this time together, maybe things had changed; maybe he cared. But I was stupid, I realize that now, because even after what happened with Chase, I went right back to blindly trusting. Blake, it seems, was right all along; my standards are on the floor. And romance? Love?

Capitalist bullshit.

I shove through bodies to get out of the hallway and back into the crowd. Life hums around me; people jump up and down to the music, chatting and singing and enjoying the song, not the slightest bit aware that my life is crumbling. Life goes on, my mother always says, even when you're standing still. As usual, she was right.

Determined to get out of here, I keep on pushing forward. As I stumble through bodies, the part crowds a little, just enough to offer a streamlined view of Blake. He's over by Freddie, phone in his hand as his eyes snap to mine, dark and frantic. My heart breaks and shatters into fragments on the floor. A moment ago, Blake was the person I thought I felt safest with; now, I can't even look at him.

He starts to push through the crowd toward me. Tears cloud my vision as I head for the door, desperate to get out of here. It's strange how quickly life can fall apart: what was supposed to be the night I confessed how I felt has devolved into crying at a concert.

I fight to get through bodies as every word Blake told me replays in my head. Was everything he said during the campaign a lie? Every piece of advice, every comforting word – was it all for the money? To ensure he got his paycheck at the end of it? I want to believe there had to have been more, but this is what happens when someone breaks your trust; doubt casts its shadow, stealing what's left of the light.

I almost reach the entrance when someone grabs my hand. I don't have to turn to know who it is – I'd recognize Blake's touch anywhere – but as the first tear slips down my cheek, I don't have it in me to face him.

"Rose, wait."

I barely hear his voice over the music. When I don't speak, he pulls me again and spins me around until I have no choice but to confront him. I force myself to look at him, eyes wet and frantically searching his. Part of me hopes that this is the moment he tells me I'm wrong, that the video is fake, that Chase is just lying, but he doesn't. His eyes cloud over, dark with guilt as they take in my tears; this is real.

In the second that follows, I feel the same way as when Chase betrayed me, only worse. My feelings for Blake were uncharted territory, scary and raw and completely absurd, but somehow, exactly what I wanted. And now here we stand, those feelings I'd felt now bursting with flames, and he's the one who held up the match.

"I trusted you." My voice breaks on trusted. I hadn't realized it until now, but I did. Despite the odds, the impossibility of us, I trusted Blake O'Hare – my biggest mistake to date.

"Let me explain," Blake says, and for once, his voice is not calm or collected. It's panicked. He runs a hand along his jaw as a sea of bodies pulls us. "Just – let's get out of here, all right?"

He reaches out, about to grab my hand and pull me, but in the seconds I look at him – really look at him – I realize I don't recognize the boy staring back. His fingers stretch further, a once comforting gesture that suddenly terrifies me. I step back, allowing the crowd to come between us, and turn.

When I make it outside, I get out my phone, barely able to see through the tears, and order an uber home. It starts to rain, gently at first, but from the dark group of clouds overhead, it won't be long before it pours. My only saving grace as I wait on the sidewalk is at least no one's around to see my cry.

I wrap my arms around myself, wishing I'd brought a coat, and try not to think about what happened. If I think, then I'll cry, and if I cry, I don't think I'll ever be able to stop, so I stare at the road, the cars passing by, and try to think of nothing.

As I'm standing on the side of the road, littered with raindrops, footsteps sound behind me. I turn around as Blake closes the last few steps between us. He stops in front of me, face littered with rain as those dark eyes meet mine, laced with unease. Now that it's quiet and there is plenty of time to speak, he is silent.

It's the first time I've seen him this uneasy. His hair is disheveled, and his eyes have this wild, frantic glint that unnerves me. I hold my breath, waiting for the moment he breaks this silence and what's left of my heart.

"I'm sorry," he says. His voice is low, unsteady. It's a word he doesn't say very often – a struggle for him to say even now, but he does.

Tears threaten my eyes as I fight to keep them back. In some ways, he's changed so much since that first day we spoke, and so have I; clearly, it was all for nothing.

"You're sorry?" I ask. "For what, Blake? For lying to me? For pretending to be on my side and then betraying me? Or maybe you're sorry for making me think for one second that this could actually be something. Is that what you're sorry for?" The words come out in a broken rush; I'm grieving for the loss of a future we never got to have.

He looks away before risking looking back. That's when I see it, a fear in his eyes that I've never seen before; the fear of losing me. "I wasn't pretending."

The urge to believe every word from his mouth is almost too strong, but I can't. I've learned from everything that happened with Chase that trusting ends with pain. "So what, then?"

He exhales slowly, conflicted about where to start. "It was after I already agreed to help you. Chase's friend cornered me and told me he'd pay me if I gave him information on your campaign."

"And of course, you jumped at the chance." I say it with venom – part of me hopes it will mask my voice shaking, but it doesn't. If anything, I sound pathetic.

"Yeah, I did." He steps closer and takes my arm, but instead of feeling comforting, his touch feels unfamiliar. "I needed the money, and I saw an easy deal, so I took it, but–" he stops for a moment, searching my eyes in a way that threatens to break me, "it was before I knew you, all right? Before I saw how much the campaign meant to you."

My throat tightens. I want to speak, but right now, the thought of doing so without breaking down seems impossible. Maybe what he says is true, maybe he did have a change of heart, but knowing that doesn't change the brokenness I feel, nor does it stop me from questioning every moment we ever spent together. It's funny how that can happen – how one single moment can undo the thousands it took to build trust.

"So it was you," I say, my stomach sinking. I'd tried so hard to convince myself I could trust Blake, only to be proven wrong. "You gave Chase the details from my campaign book. You're the reason he had my old campaign."

"No," he says with such conviction that I almost believe him. "I hardly gave him anything, and when he started acting like a dick to you, I told him I was out." He reaches out, taking my face in his warm, solid hands as a tear rolls down my cheek. "I made a mistake, I know that, but it was before I knew you. The real you."

For about a second, I want to crumble into his arms and tell him I forgive him. If I had a time machine, I'd rewind to the moments before I got that message, to when Blake held me tightly in his arms. But I don't have a time machine, and now that I know the truth about what happened, I can't just forget. Can't forgive.

I push his hands away and say, "So that makes it better? You were willing to screw me over, but it's okay because you didn't know me? Is that the type of person you are?"

There's a moment where he doesn't speak, but the darkness in his eyes says everything he can't. "I've never pretended to be anything else."

I stare at him in disbelief, taking in everything I thought I once knew: the strong line of his jaw, the roadmap of tattoos, his eyes, distrusting and often smoking like coal, familiar in their darkness. "You're right," I say, "I pretended. I convinced myself you could actually like me."

He grabs my waist before I can turn, his voice rough and uneven. "I do."

For a moment, I don't register exactly what it is he says, but when I do, my heart stops. "What?"

"I shouldn't," he says, almost in disbelief. "You're preppy and spoilt and you say things like We've got this unironically, and I should like you in spite of those things, but I don't–" he suddenly stops, dropping his voice to a low, rough whisper, "–I like you because of them."

The words cut through me like another twist of the knife. Maybe if he'd told me before I found out, I'd have forgiven him, but he didn't tell me. He let me find out through a video from Chase, put me in a position where I'm questioning his loyalty, and that alone makes me think I can't trust him – the same way I shouldn't have trusted Chase.

The Uber pulls up and stops right beside us. It's at this moment, looking back at Blake, that the loss truly hits me. There will be no more Blake and Rose at the bikeshed. No more safety in the shadows of his basement. No more Blake and Rose, period.

Broken, I walk to the car and open the door. Blake moves behind me, reaching beyond me to slam the door closed. "Don't," he says, turning me around. "Stay, Rose."

What's left of my heart seems to shatter. Half of me is ready to collapse in his arms, but the other half no longer trusts him, and that's the half I find myself listening to.

Without another word, I get in the car and close the door behind me. As the car pulls away, I take a deep breath, allowing myself a moment to look back at Blake. He stands on the sidewalk, hands in his pockets as the outline of his figure gets further away.

Then, just like that, he's gone.

❤️