The Solution to Unrequited

  The Solution to Unrequited

  Copyright © 2018 Len Webster

  Published by Len Webster

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Published: Len Webster 2018

  Editing: Jenny Sims

  Cover & Interior Design: Najla Qamber Designs

  BOOKS BY LEN WEBSTER

  The First Touch of Sunlight

  The Wait For You

  The Sometimes Moments Collection

  Sometimes Moments (Sometimes Moments #1)

  Sometimes, Forever (Sometimes Moments #2)

  Sometimes. Honestly? Always. (Sometimes Moments #3)

  Coming Soon

  Thirty-Eight Series

  Thirty-Eight Days (Thirty-Eight #1)

  Thirty-Eight Reasons (Thirty-Eight #2)

  What We’ll Leave Behind (Thirty-Eight #2.5)

  What You Left Behind (Thirty-Eight #3)

  All We Have (Thirty-Eight #4)

  With The First Goodbye (Thirty-Eight #5)

  With The Last Goodbye (Thirty-Eight #6)

  The Science of Unrequited: The Story of AJ & Evan

  The Theory of Unrequited (The Science of Unrequited #1)

  The Solution to Unrequited (The Science of Unrequited #2)

  THE SOLUTION TO UNREQUITED

  Book two in the Science of Unrequited series.

  Atomic number: 33

  Name of chemical element: Arsenic

  Symbol: As

  Every solution has a poisonous flaw … even between best friends.

  The agreement: Fall break together.

  The struggle: A road trip from North Carolina to Massachusetts.

  The reason: To find a way back into each other’s lives.

  The issue: AJ’s not ready to let Evan reclaim the parts of her he made his.

  The hindrance: Connecticut.

  Hearts (3.33)

  -Jessie Ware

  For Najla and Nada.

  Because you both made this book and every book beautiful.

  I would be lost without you both.

  Thank you for absolutely everything.

  PROLOGUE I

  AJ

  When I was nine, I cried when my parents told me I couldn’t bring my best friend back to Australia for the entire summer break.

  I thought it was unfair and that I had the worst parents in the world.

  Evan had to stay in Brookline, and I had to visit my family in Melbourne.

  His father had been kind enough to drive him and Kyle to the airport to see us off. I remember seeing the sad smile on his face as we walked through security, the desperation for the last weeks of summer to hurry so we could be reunited clear on his face.

  For us to go swimming at the beach.

  For us to ride our bikes up and down the sidewalk as my father watched by the driveway.

  For us to talk about all the things we would do when we grew up.

  Every summer, Evan saw us off at the airport.

  When I was old enough to travel alone, he’d hug me a little longer, a little tighter, a little more desperately than when I was traveling with my parents. When Evan let me go, he’d ask me if I had my boarding pass and passport, and he’d remind me that my grandparents were on the other side, and he’d be here waiting for me to come home.

  No matter where I went, I always knew that when I returned, Evan Gilmore would be there to welcome me back with open arms and a kind heart.

  I knew that would change when I left for North Carolina instead of California.

  I knew I would lose my best friend when I turned my back on him.

  I was finally free from my broken heart’s punisher.

  I was free to be Alexandra Parker.

  But I wasn’t free.

  Not in the slightest.

  I was in pain.

  Pain I tried to hide by losing half of me.

  Pain I felt because I was stupid enough to let Evan go.

  Pain I couldn’t turn off because I loved him in a way I shouldn’t.

  Evan owed me nothing, yet I kept holding everything against him.

  I ruined everything because I wasn’t a stronger person.

  I was selfish.

  I’m still selfish.

  Because here he is, outside my dorm room, and I want nothing more than to push him away and run.

  Farther this time.

  I want to run away and not have him know that he is my heart’s poison.

  My heart’s one true weakness.

  Evan Gilmore is arsenic to my soul.

  PROLOGUE II

  EVAN

  I spent the first month of college looking for my best friend.

  I spent the first month of college going through my memories and trying to find the moment that changed everything between us.

  It couldn’t have just been prom.

  It seemed as if it was everything.

  A series of actions.

  A series of decisions.

  A series of mistakes.

  My mistakes that cost me AJ.

  The one person I loved and treasured the most.

  I hurt her so much she no longer trusted me.

  I knew I screwed her over.

  I knew I continued to hurt her.

  I knew too late that Stanford wasn’t her dream school.

  It was mine.

  Deep down, I always knew that MIT was her heart’s choice.

  I just didn’t want to believe it.

  Instead, I believed the lies AJ told me.

  Lies I made her tell me because she valued my happiness over hers.

  But Alexandra broke my heart when she didn’t meet me in Los Angeles.

  Caused the shards to slice my chest beyond repair.

  I became aware of a pain I had never felt before.

  My fear of losing her became my sick reality.

  My own hell.

  Tortured because I never saw the signs quick enough.

  Never realized in time.

  If only she had known.

  If only I had known.

  That after all this time, the years between us, and all the memories we’ve shared, she’s my entire world, and I hid that.

  Because my fear of losing her made me an idiot.

  The fear of losing her made me do horrible, unspeakable things that I can never take back or erase from her memory.

  I disrespected her in ways that will never stop hurting me.

  I made her cry.

  I made my best friend cry.

  I made her feel pain when all I ever wanted to do was protect her.

  I w
as selfish.

  I am selfish.

  For the rest of my life, I will always be selfish when it comes to Alexandra.

  Because when I was eighteen, I hid behind an atomic number.

  I hid the meaning of us behind four words.

  Not anymore.

  I lived weeks without my best friend.

  I endured a summer of her sad eyes and practiced smiles.

  I mindlessly went to Stanford, never appreciating the fact that my best friend was the reason I got into the school of my choice while she missed her dream of MIT.

  I put myself first without a second thought.

  I won’t do that again.

  I won’t make the same mistakes.

  Because it’s time for Alexandra to know what those four words mean to me.

  To her.

  And to us.

  Eight protons.

  Eight neutrons.

  26 Fe

  iron

  EVAN

  Now

  “Evan?” she whispered in disbelief.

  In fear.

  In a voice filled with guilt and hurt.

  It shone in her eyes.

  Her eyes.

  Her beautiful emerald green eyes were always so telling of the truth.

  He was the last person she expected to see outside her dorm room. His desperate plan to find out if she was at Duke worked, and Evan Gilmore’s brother hadn’t told her. For the very first time, his brother hadn’t let him down. Kyle proved he was serious about them being brothers again. Even though it would take time for them to build a relationship, he had hope.

  When Evan arrived at Duke, he had asked a few students where the Wilson dorms were. His brother had told him which dormitory and room number but not where on campus it would be. Once he found Wilson, he sweet-talked one of the freshman girls entering the dormitory to let him in—claiming he was surprising his long-distance girlfriend and couldn’t wait to see her.

  It wasn’t a total lie.

  He missed her.

  She had tortured him with her silence and her need for a life without him while he was in California.

  But not anymore.

  Alexandra Louise Parker would not get away.

  She would give him answers.

  And he would tell her the truth.

  The knowledge of his pain.

  Enlighten her on the fact that she had, indeed, broken his heart with her betrayal.

  She blinked several times as if it could make him vanish.

  As if he wasn’t standing in front of her.

  I’m here, AJ.

  “What …?” she breathed as if she couldn’t come up with words to greet him.

  Evan couldn’t either.

  He should have thought through what he’d say when he saw her.

  But he didn’t.

  Through his entire flight from California to North Carolina, all he did was swipe through the pictures of them together on his phone.

  She might have broken his heart, trust, and belief in her, but AJ was still the most important person in his life.

  Somewhere along the line, they had lost their way, and Evan was determined to bring her back.

  Determined for her to know the truth.

  The atomic number he hid behind.

  The four words he let act as a distraction.

  That she had been, and would always be, his oxygen.

  But for now, he needed to establish where he stood with her.

  Where he remained in her life since she had pushed him out of hers.

  Because Alexandra Parker would forever have the most vital part of him.

  His heart.

  She had all of it.

  And Evan had realized too late.

  He knew AJ was never great at confrontation.

  Since he had blindsided her, Evan had to be the one to make the move.

  To initiate the first act.

  “I’ve flown for almost six hours to see you,” he revealed.

  AJ turned away and clenched her eyes shut. “I know,” she finally said after a few moments of silence. Then she looked up at him. “I didn’t want to hurt you.” Her eyes shone with tears, but she quickly blinked them away.

  Evan dropped his gym bag, and it fell to the ground with a thump. “But you did.”

  “I—”

  “Alex?”

  He froze as the sound of footsteps reached them. He watched as panic flashed in AJ’s eyes, but there was a plea in them he didn’t understand. So out of respect for her and the new life she created in North Carolina, Evan stepped aside and let her greet the guy who interrupted them.

  “Hey,” she said in a nervous voice that was unlike AJ.

  The guy, dressed in a red flannel shirt, dark blue jeans, and boots, tilted his head at Evan in acknowledgment and grinned at AJ. “You seen Sav around?”

  She nodded her head. “She’s at Chino’s.”

  “She working?”

  “Yeah, she is.”

  “Well, do you want me to walk with you to class? You have class soon, right?”

  AJ smiled and then nodded. “Yeah. I have classical physics and relativity in about a half an hour.”

  “Meet you in the common room in about fifteen? I have my stats class on the same floor,” the random guy said, ignoring the fact that Evan was standing in the middle of them.

  “Sure. I’ll meet you down there soon, Connor,” she said as he walked away.

  It was awkward.

  Evan could feel the tension the second they were alone.

  “You have class,” he stated, knowing he had shown up at an inconvenient time for her.

  He had no right to, but he had to.

  To save their friendship.

  To save them.

  “I do.” AJ stepped away from the door and held it open. “Please come inside, Evan.”

  Bending his knees, he picked up the gym bag he had used as his carry-on and entered AJ’s dorm room. After weeks of trying to find her, he wasn’t going to let her turn him away. He wasn’t proud of the things he had written to her. That one awful email that said all those vile, hateful words she had read. Evan was sure she hadn’t read all the other ones begging for her forgiveness.

  Her dorm room was a lot larger than the one he shared with his roommate, Milos, at Stanford. And he knew which side belonged to AJ when he saw all the corkboards full of equations and the Red Sox flag on the desk. Her side of the room was clean and simple because she didn’t like bright colors or clutter. Her roommate’s side of the room was a little messier. The bed hadn’t been made, and there were shades of gray and purple in the form of pillows and sheets.

  AJ closed the door as her phone rang. He looked over to see her frown. She declined the call and let out a sigh. AJ lifted her chin and smiled tightly at him. “You don’t mind waiting here until I get back?”

  Evan shook his head. “No. Not at all.”

  AJ nodded as she slipped her phone into her back pocket and stepped toward him, reaching out to take his bag from him. Making her way to her bed, she set it down and stared at the Stanford logo on the gym bag before she said, “I know you’re mad at me, and you have every right to be.” She turned and faced him. “But you shouldn’t have just shown up here, Evan. That’s not fair.”

  He flinched.

  “Fair?” Her pleading green eyes wounded him. “AJ, you left me in Los Angeles. That wasn’t fair. You kept Duke a secret from me. That wasn’t fair. You let me believe I was going to spend the next four years of college and my life with you, and that wasn’t fair. You let my brother keep this from me, and that wasn’t fair. Your parents, who I love as my own, wouldn’t talk to me, and that wasn’t fair. If anyone hasn’t been fair here, it’s you. You haven’t been fair to me in m
onths!”

  “I know,” she said, her voice cracked.

  But I wasn’t fair to you either, AJ.

  He was waiting for her to say it. To use prom and MIT against him. To use that kiss on the rooftop of her father’s work building at New Year’s against him. But she didn’t. She just walked over to her desk, grabbed a textbook, and picked up her bag from her bed. “It’s a two-hour class. Drinks are in the fridge, and there is food in the container under my bed. When I get back from class, we’ll talk.”

  He nodded. “We’ll talk.”

  AJ hoisted the strap onto her shoulder, picked up her coat from her bed, and pressed her lips in a tight line. She made her way to the door, and when she reached it, he turned and said, “I would have understood,” causing her to freeze.

  After a long moment, she took a deep breath and then spun around. Her tears shone bright, causing pain to course through him. “No, you wouldn’t have.”

  “Why here?” he asked, mystified that she didn’t go to an Ivy League school. “Why Duke? Why not MIT?”

  AJ blinked, her tears slowly slid down her face. “Because I was too busy helping you get into Stanford.”

  She sacrificed her dreams for mine.

  “Why?” His voice was full of disbelief.

  She sniffled, wearing a proud smile he didn’t understand. “Because I was your best friend, and you needed me. I was always going to put you first like I promised … Because you wanted Stanford more than you wanted me.”

  No.

  How could I want anything … anyone more than you?

  But before he could tell her how ridiculous her statement was, AJ opened her door and walked out, closing it behind her. Evan stared at the wooden door, hoping she’d change her mind and decide class wasn’t important.

  But as the minutes passed, he realized she wasn’t coming back. Going to class was her way to get away from him and his surprise appearance.

  For Evan, it was his chance to regroup and figure out how he could make AJ see that he needed her in his life. That Stanford meant nothing to him without her. And if she demanded he drop out and enroll in a school closer to Duke next semester, he’d do it in a heartbeat.