COLEEN

I told myself I wouldn’t cry.

I’d repeated that line like a mantra since I left the music room.

Not in public, not in front of Mark, not when Alicia made that offhand joke about my resting bitch face, and especially not when Hayden looked at me like he was trying to solve a puzzle he didn’t have all the pieces to.

But the thing about bottling things up is that eventually, the pressure makes you shake like you were about to explode.

And I was shaking.

I didn’t want him ...