Through to You - Brossura

Lauren Barnholdt is the author of the teen novels The Thing About the Truth, Sometimes It Happens, One Night That Changes Everything, Two-way Street, Right of Way, and Watch Me. She is also the author of the middle grade novels The Secret Identity of Devon Delaney, Devon Delaney Should Totally Know Better, Four Truths and a Lie, Rules for Secret-Keeping, Fake Me a Match, and the Girl Meets Ghost series. She lives in Waltham, Massachusetts. Visit her at LaurenBarnholdt.com.

Through to You Harper

This is how it ends:

With me crying in a bathroom at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, cursing myself for being so stupid. I knew it was wrong, I knew it wasn’t going to end well, I knew I was putting myself in a situation where I was going to end up brokenhearted.

I reach over and pull some toilet paper out of the dispenser and use it to blow my nose. My feet are killing me because of the stupid high heels I’m wearing. I want to sit down, but there’s nowhere to sit. I’m in a bathroom stall, for God’s sake. The only place to sit down is on the actual toilet, and it doesn’t have a cover. Why don’t the toilets in hotel bathrooms have covers? I’m sure I’m not the first person to end up in here crying her eyes out and looking for some privacy. Aren’t there always scandalous things happening in hotels, things that would cause one to end up crying in the bathroom?

Okay, I tell myself, just calm down. It’s not as bad as you think.

The problem, of course, is that it really is as bad as I think. I’ve never had my heart broken before, and I wasn’t expecting it to feel like this. I wasn’t expecting to feel like I want to die. I wasn’t expecting to be crying so hard my shoulders shake and I can’t breathe.

The door to the bathroom opens, and I hear footsteps crossing the floor. A group of girls laughing as they reapply their lipstick. They’re happy and excited.

Like I should be.

But I’m not.

Instead, here I am.

Crying in a bathroom stall.

This is how it ends.

And I have no one to blame but myself.

I saw it coming.

I just couldn’t stop it.