I Haunted His Dreams After He Dumped Me For My Roommate Chapter 08

I Haunted His Dreams After He Dumped Me For My Roommate Chapter 08

After hearing my story, Derek said he’d take me somewhere good for dinner tonight.

I tried to say “okay.”

Derek slammed the brakes and the car fishtailed. I gagged.

“Seriously? I didn’t even get to the restaurant yet and you’re already throwing up?” He grinned.

We drove into town and grabbed everything on the hurricane checklist.

Derek took me to a cozy little family diner.

While we waited for our food, I checked the club group chat. No one was talking about the

confession. Dead silence.

Someone sat down to my left.

I looked up, and my eyes lit. “Evan!”

It was Evan Parker, the senior from my department. Last year he’d graduated from our no-name state school with a full-ride master’s to a prestigious public university in France.

When he came back to give a talk, I’d asked him about studying abroad. He went out of his way to connect me with advisors and helped me land a summer research internship.

He said, “Seriously, have a little faith in yourself. You’re incredible.”

I beamed, thanking him over and over, half-ready to get on my knees. Evan laughed and patted my shoulder.

To my right, someone pulled out a chair and sat down.

Evan’s conversation got cut off by an intense stare. He raised an eyebrow and glanced at the guy.

I turned and met Ethan’s cold, strikingly pretty eyes.

His gaze swept over Evan, then locked onto his hand still resting on my shoulder

Evan chatted a little more, then got pulled away by friends.

Ethan suddenly reached out and brushed the exact spot Evan had touched.

I flinched away, dodging.

“You had dust,” he said, lowering his eyes, sounding completely innocent. “I wiped it off for you

I tried to stand. He pressed a hand against the back of my chair, trapping me.

“Running away?” His laugh was low, like he’d finally solved some puzzle and his mood had completely lifted. “Can’t we even eat together after breaking up?”

I didn’t want to sit with him. “Derek, let’s switch seats.”

Ethan’s hand was still resting lightly on the back of my chair.

But when Derek sat down, Ethan’s long fingers curled back subtly and pulled away.

I had no idea why Ethan showed up here or whether he’d gotten together with Vera. He didn’t explain a thing. He just shamelessly ordered food and quietly paid the bill.

After the meal, I refused to ride with Ethan.

I walked straight ahead without looking back, sticking close to Derek.

When Derek stopped abruptly, I nearly slammed into him, but Ethan gave a light tug and pulled me

aside.

His eyes met mine-some dark, unreadable emotion flickered there. Then it vanished. He smiled

and let go.

Derek told me his car was too packed with supplies. “Yvie, ride with Ethan.”

He leaned in and whispered, “Right when you started getting carsick, Ethan called me and asked where you were. I asked why he didn’t just call you himself-he said you blocked him.”

“I asked why he hasn’t deleted you if that’s normal after a breakup-he went dead silent. Then the second I said you get carsick with me, he came to pick you up.”

Derek glanced at Ethan casually twirling his sports car key in the distance and finally asked, “Do you owe him money or something?”

I got into Ethan’s car. He reached into the center console one handed and handed me motion sickness pills.

He said, “I keep them on hand. Habit.”

When we were together, he drove smoothly. His car was the only one that didn’t make me too

nauseous.

But I’d still feel like throwing up.

Back then, he never cared, never bothered to keep meds for me. He’d just laugh and say, “Guess I’ll have to find a girlfriend who doesn’t get carsick next time.”

That one sentence stuck with me way too long.

Now, staring at the pills in his hand, all I felt was how ridiculous this was.

I called him out. “What habit?”

“Fine, I just bought them.” He said it with this unbearably smug tone. “Developed the habit after

we broke up. I know I messed up.”

I didn’t take them. “I bought my own.

His hand hung in midair a long moment before he slowly pulled it back.

On the bridge, traffic was bumper-to-bumper, a solid river of red.

He propped his arm against the window, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. His face was cool, detached, a little rebellious. Slow post-rock played inside the car.

Just when I thought he wouldn’t say anything, he asked, completely offhand, “Who gave you that hickey?”

I said, “Whoever did, it’s none of your business.”

Half his face was buried in sunset shadows, impossible to read.

“Oh. None of my business.” His voice was feather-light.

Then he asked, “Can we be friends?”

“No.”

He laughed softly. “Then how about we skip the friend thing?” He paused, letting it hang there. “The kind where you swear you’re obsessed with me in the dark, then pretend I don’t exist the next day.”

My pulse spiked. I kept my face blank and didn’t bite.

“Don’t like that topic?” He arched a brow. “Then I’ll ask something else.”

He started asking, with excruciating boredom, what flavor anniversary cake I liked.

“Strawberry?”

“Don’t like it.”

“Blueberry?”

“Don’t like it.”

I couldn’t figure out why he suddenly cared. I kept denying flavor after flavor.

“Why do you even care what cake I like? It’s not your anniversary anymore. Eat whatever you want with your next girlfriend. I’ll do the same with my next boyfriend.”

But he kept pushing. When he asked about mango cake, the song in the car auto-skipped.

The intro played a few seconds.

My subconscious recognized it before I did this was the song that looped in the dream while he

kissed me.

“…Don’t like it.”

“Oh.”

He caught that split-second pause and stopped asking. He just stated his conclusion.

“You don’t like mango cake, but you love this song. Yvonne Shaw, was messing with me fun?”