Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
I took a sip of wine and tried to find the words. The anger no longer burned as bright as it once had, but I can’t honestly say that it was gone completely.
He didn’t push, for which I was grateful. There was more than thirteen years of issues on the table, and I was certain one night wasn’t going to erase it all.
“I can understand that.”
“I tried so very hard to hate you. There were days when I thought the memories would drive me insane. So I tried my best to erase them and you. You asked if there had been anyone else.”
I saw his body tense and for one spiteful moment wished I could throw a whole stable of lovers in his face; but maybe we were past that now. That’s what this was all about after all, starting over.
“I wanted to, I had plenty offers before I even left town.”
I watched him clench his fist, and saw that look enter his eyes; that look he gets when he’s about to blow. I admit to feeling just a little satisfaction, though it was short lived.
Even now after all that was between us, all the years that had passed, I couldn’t bear to cause him hurt. “But I couldn’t do it. In the beginning when I felt so betrayed, my anger would’ve caused me to do any number of things, but even when I was trying to hate you, I loved myself too much to become something I wasn’t.”
“Then, when I could finally see light again, I just wasn’t interested. I wanted nothing to do with men. So I threw myself into my studies and shut out the rest of the world. I forbid my parents to even mention you or what you were doing. I stopped talking to the few friends I had left here, because it was just too hard.”
The memories still had the power to make me feel like that lost little girl I’d become in those first few months after my heart had been ripped from my chest.
“What do you mean, ‘few friends’? You had lots of friends baby, everyone loved you.” I guess he didn’t know.
“Nick, most of those ‘friends’ dropped me when we broke up. You were the golden boy remember? It was you they wanted to be around, the hotshot jock. Didn’t you notice that most of them suddenly became Dee’s friends when you two became a couple?”
He looked as if he were giving it some thought as he sat forward in his seat and clasped his hands.
“No, I never, I guess I wasn’t paying attention. I’m so sorry, if I’d known I would’ve said something back then. I’m so sorry baby.”
His eyes had gone from killer lights to orbs of pain. I just simply shrugged and drained my glass. This trip down memory lane was turning out to be just as painful as I thought it would be.
“You want to know what the worse of it was? Thinking about the two of you together. Wondering if your mistake had turned into real love. Wondering if all those things you’d promised me were now hers. I mean she was your wife, the mother of your child. I was no longer a part of your life. Everything we’d shared was gone.” Now it was my turn to fume with remembered pain.
“You didn’t only end us, you took your family away from me as well. I hated the fact that your mom was no longer my second mom, that all those great talks we used to have, she was now having with someone else because you were stupid enough to fuck someone else and get her pregnant. How could you Nick? How could you have even got into the backseat of that car?”
I didn’t realize I had flown at him until his hands clasped my wrists and he was pulling me into his chest. The harsh sobs made my throat feel raw and it was as if I was back there again, facing the worse experience of my life. I never want to go through that hell again.
“Why should I trust you now hmm? Why should I believe that you’re not going to run off in a huff the first time we have an argument? What awful thing are you going to put me through then?”
I knew I was being unfair. I also knew that I was the one who’d told him we were done the last time before leaving town without a word. But did he have to fuck the first thing that threw herself at him?
I guess that was a big part of my problem. That he hadn’t even waited. I know he’d said he was drinking, and that things had gotten out of hand. But I could never have done that to him.