Free Found (Lost and Found #2, New Adult Romance) (Lost & Found) by Nadia Simonenko Page B

crying over with— but what I’m feeling instead is even worse. There’s a hollow, dead spot in my chest and I can’t decide if it’s freezing cold or burning me. It feels like someone reached into my chest and ripped my heart out.
    I stop on the bridge over the West Campus gorge and stare down into its depths, clutching at the wrought iron railing. The raging stream surges through the gorge, swollen from the melted snow and spring rain. If I fell in right now, there’s no way I’d ever get out again. Even if I were a strong enough swimmer to battle the current, the frigid water would send me into shock almost instantly.
    Only a few weeks ago, I’d consider jumping. I still don’t know what had come over me, but I’d felt a brief feeling of hope , almost—a promise of freedom from my fears if I climbed the railing. All I had to do was let go and everything would be okay again.
    I shake my head and continue toward my apartment. It wouldn’t have been okay; it would only have been over. Like so many of my fears, the whispered promise of freedom on the other side of the railing is just an illusion. Death isn’t a real escape; all it does is leave the pain behind for others. Owen and Tina would be alone if I’d jumped. I can’t imagine how they would feel if I did that to them.
    “ I lost Owen anyway, ” I think, my heart aching painfully, “ but at least I had him for a little. ”
    The thought of him isn’t helping much right now. I want to curl up in a corner and die.
    I silently unlock the front door of my apartment, take my coat and shoes off, and head straight upstairs. Tina is studying on the couch with her legs propped up comfortably on a pile of pillows, and I can feel her eyes burrowing into me as I head up to my room.
    “I made sandwiches for dinner if you want one,” she calls up to me, but I don’t answer her. I don’t have much of an appetite right now.
    Instead, I close my door, climb into bed and curl up beneath the blanket. I feel horribly tired, but at the same time, I’m not sleepy at all. I just lie beneath my comforter and stare at its blue and white pattern as I try to sort out my thoughts. Why did Owen throw me away? Why did he want to get rid of me? I just don’t understand.
    Maybe Tina’s right... maybe I’m just being obsessive and need to give him more room. I have no idea. I barely know how relationships work in the first place, let alone how to fix one when it breaks. All I know is that I want make Owen feel better and he doesn’t want me anywhere near him.
    I don’t know what else to do now but stay under my blanket, press my face into my pillow and feel miserable. Just as I decide to spend the evening focusing on the great big hole in my chest where my heart ought to be, a sharp knock on the door interrupts my pity party.
    “Maria?” calls Tina from the hallway, and she opens the door when I don’t answer. I know her well enough that I don’t even bother coming out from under the blanket. I can see exactly what she’s doing in my mind. She’s peeping around the corner, looking nervously into the room, trying to work out what horrible Maria-bomb she has to defuse this time. If she ever decides to cash in on the sleazy daytime talk show business, all she’d have to do is air few episodes about my messed-up life on Maury and she’d be set for life.
    Tina doesn’t say anything else, but the floorboards creak as she sneaks toward me. If I know her as well as I think I do, I’m probably about to get swept up into a tiny, pink tornado.
    Suddenly she’s on top of me, landing so hard that she nearly knocks the wind out of me.
    “Om nom nom!” she babbles, pulling back the blanket and pretending to eat my hair as she tickles me.
    I squirm and wriggle as I laugh uncontrollably, trying to get her off of me. I’m laughing so hard that I can’t breathe. She yanks the blanket off the bed and goes for my feet, and I squeal and yank my legs away from her. She launches