Page 66 of Zero Confusion

M,

Sorry for leaving like this, but I have to. I’m done with secrets, and I can’t let you wreck your life for me. Because I know you would. You’re too fucking perfect.

I wish

I hope one day we can be friends again. Please don’t hate me.

I love you.

Z

Miles gingerly picked up the horseshoe, rubbing his thumb across the familiar texture of worn metal. It wasn’t soothing. Not anymore.

It was a final goodbye.

Chapter 24

MILES

With every unanswered text and call that went directly to voicemail, Miles’s despair deepened. He kept the note folded in his pocket the next day, pulling it out at random intervals to check if there had been some secret meaning he’d missed the first few times.

There wasn’t.

It didn’t matter how often he ran his eyes over Zach’s slanted, uneven letters that showed he’d scribbled the message in a hurry, how carefully he brushed his thumbs over the depressions in the paper or analyzed the curves of the capital M. The end result was the same. Painful, crushing disappointment that made it impossible to exhale without breaking into a sob.

What the hell had happened at the party? With no one to explain, all he could do was guess that something had spurred Zach to tell his mom the truth, and her reaction had been bad enough to force Zach to flee.

That part made sense. Both of them knew better than to expect anything different.

What didn’t make sense was Zach cutting him off. Zach had written that he didn’t want Miles to wreck his life, and he could see why Zach wanted to spare him the same pain that drove him away. But in trying to protect him, Zach had only caused more damage. Didn’t he realize that losing him would break Miles long before anything else ever could?

Miles tried to pretend nothing was wrong, going through the motions for the next few days, burying himself in the harvest, and collapsing into bed each night.

“You’ve been quiet, hon,” his mom said to him one evening, coming into his room with a mug of tea as he was getting ready for bed. She felt his forehead and frowned. “You’re a little warm, and you haven’t been eating much. Hope you didn’t catch something off one of the neighbors. Here, I made you some ginger tea.”

Miles shrugged and accepted the cup, dutifully taking a sip. He knew better, though he wouldn’t say it. It wasn’t a cold or the flu, and it wasn’t anything a hot drink could fix.

He’d lost Zach, and his body couldn’t handle it.

“Maybe you should sleep in tomorrow,” she added. “Your dad will understand if you’re not feeling well.”

Miles resisted the urge to laugh out loud. His father would sooner buy an alpaca than accept that Miles wasn’t willing to put in a day’s work because he wasn’t feeling well. That man was back to manual labor forty-eight hours after his appendectomy. Which he probably wouldn’t have even gotten if Miles’s mom hadn’t insisted on driving him to the nearest urgent care after realizing that his occasional grunts meant he’d been in a ridiculous amount of pain.

“I’m fine,” he reassured his mom, giving her a kiss goodnight. Moments after she left the room, Max limped in, knocking over Miles’s suitcase with his crutch.

“Still haven’t unpacked?” he joked, plopping down on the bed. “You college kids are so lazy.”

“Shut up,” Miles grumbled. No, he hadn’t unpacked. The few shirts at the bottom of the suitcase were a reminder of Zach, of the brief time they’d had together in Portland, away from the rest of the world. Not that he needed the reminder.

Everything made him think of Zach.

And so far, he’d carried it alone. Max had tried to catch him after dinner a few times, but Miles made excuses and slipped away. He wasn’t ready to talk about it.

He didn’t know what to say.

But Max wasn’t giving him a choice this time.

“What’s going on?” he asked, eyeing Miles with a mixture of sympathy and pity. “What happened with Zach? Did y’all have a fight?”