Free How To Get Your Heart Broken by Rose Fall

all
traces of remorse were gone. I rolled my eyes as I turned away.
    “Wait, Eli,” he said.
He put his good hand over the one I had on the counter.
    Something about my
expression must have discouraged him.
    “Sorry,” he mumbled,
pulling his hand away. “Look… about the other day.
    “It’s cool,” I said
quickly.
      “No, wait‒”
    “Can we just pretend
the whole thing never happened?” I sighed. I’d gotten tired of talking about
this.   
    He stayed silent for a
long time, staring at me as if he were trying to read my mind. I didn’t look
away.
    “Okay,” he finally
sighed, “If that’s what you want.”
    I gave him a small
smile before looking down again, lifting the ice to check his hand.
    “Just admit you did it
on purpose,” he whispered.
    “I did not!” I
couldn’t help laughing. “You honestly think so little of me.”
    “No,” he said, “I just
think you’ve got a temper.”
    I looked up, raising
an eyebrow at him.
    “I like it,” he
grinned.
    “Could you blame me if
I had?”
    I laughed at his
insulted expression.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
    Plot Twist Ahead

 
 
 
    I fumbled through the
pages of Ashton’s diary, trying to see if she had updated it. Her burgeoning
relationship was making me very curious, and honestly, the slightest bit
anxious. As cynical as it sounded, I had a bad feeling about this Julian
character, and I could think of no other way to monitor the situation. So I was
simultaneously relieved to find that she’d written a couple entries in the past
few days and concerned about the fact
that they all seemed to be about him. I flipped to the first new entry. It was
different from the previous ones; for one, there was no tittle or date.
     
      “Let me be
honest with you,” he said as he turned towards the beach. “I’m not looking for
anything serious, but I like you. I think you’re pretty…” He turned back
towards me, assessing, “Beautiful actually. And I think you belong with someone
much nicer and more…ethereal than me. But some strange twist of fate has kept
that from happening. Their loss is my gain.”
    He turned towards me and smiled, “What do you think of my
proposition?”
    I froze. He didn’t seem to notice. Casually, he asked
“What’s your name by the way?” As if that was the logical follow up to
everything he had just said.
    I stared at my lap. I wished I were confident, I wished I
were brave. I wished he didn’t scare me. But the more he spoke the less I
wanted to look away, and the more I did.    
    “Well, I’m Julian,” he smiled brightly. It was the most
extraordinary smile I had ever seen.   
    I took a breath, tried not to get lost in the ocean in
his eyes and whispered, “Ash.”
    “Is that a
nickname?”
      I nodded.
    He nodded too, “Well, my stepsisters call me Jules, when
they’re trying to annoy me, that is.”
    He looked at the notebook in my hand and then pulled it
out of my grasp, carefully sliding his thumb where I’d placed mine as a
bookmark.

 
    Skin
inside out
    Flightless,
flailing
    Danger is
nearing
    A kiss, a
breath
    A new
start, a sudden death

 
      “So you’re a
poet?”
      I managed a shrug.
He nodded before placing my notebook back in my limp hands. Then he took the
pen from my other hand. He started scratching on the space between us on the
bench. I watched as he ruined my beautiful and very expensive pen. My favorite
pen, the one dad had engraved for me a few Christmases ago, and I didn’t
mind...  
      
    I didn’t mind that he’d ruined my pen. I didn’t mind that
the heart looked like it was drawn by a third grader with a broken wrist. I
didn’t mind anything.

 
    I flipped the page to
find a more traditional entry, titled with the question I’d been pondering
since I’d first discovered her journal.

 
    June 21 rd , 2015                Who Is Julian???
    I saw him