Page 68 of Saving You Losing Me

Just saying his name out loud drags a smile to my bruised lips.

“He was so exciting. So rough, dangerous, and most of all forbidden. It was like candy to a baby and I wanted it all. Our worlds were very different,wewere very different, but he fascinated me. My friends, boyfriends, and perfect life were nothing compared to the excitement of his world. I startedhanging around where I knew he’d be. He used to hang around a bar called Easy Joe’s and I made sure I got a job waitressing there. My parents were livid and threatened to ground me, but I reassured them I needed to do this to go beyond my privileged life. I spun them a tale about it making me grow as an individual and they bought every last word. Then it happened. One day, he noticed me. Not just as a waitress or fellow student, but as a woman. I still remember that moment because it’s the best one of my life. He was interested and I played it to my advantage. I did what any self-respecting girl would do and played hard to get. I noted the way those other girls hung onto his every word. How they paraded in front of him and shoved their tits in his face. They walked around with an available sign surrounded by neon lights, and men like the chase. They like to hunt and conquer, so that’s where I triumphed, where the others failed.”

I laugh as the memories come flooding back. “I played my hand well, and only when I was sure I’d hooked him in did I give in. We were like dynamite together. Couldn’t get enough of one another and soon part of a very tight couple. Where I went, he followed, and it was the best time of my life. My parents were pissed but convinced it would all blow over when I took off to college. They put it down to a rebellious phase, but they couldn’t be more wrong.”

My happiness fades as I face the most devastating moment of my life. “Thenhecame to town.”

“Who, Michael?”

“Yes. Where Atom was wild and dangerous, Michael was everything my parents wanted me to have, hiding a steel heart. He talked the talk and appeared to be the man everyone thought would succeed. He was cool to the point of freezing, and it didn’t take long for him to be the man running things. Suddenly, he was everything.”

I stop because I’m not sure I want to reveal exactly what happened, so I fabricate the story a little to avoid her pity. Sugarcoat it even because the truth is unspeakable.

“He soon controlled things. Obviously, he never got on with Atom and I was caught in the middle because of where I came from. I was being pulled between two worlds. My family preferred Michael, and put me under a lot of pressure. It got to the point that I had to choose.”

The tears fall when I reach the part I have run over in my mind a million times ever since that fateful day.

“I’ll never forget the expression on his face when I walked away. I’d broken his heart, and I knew he would never forgive me. To this day, I have never spoken to him again. I followed his life from afar as mine unraveled around me. Michael was the loving husband at first until he became such a monster, he lost sight of any feelings he once had. As my life shattered around me, I thought about Atom a lot. I wondered how different my life would have been if I’d stayed with him. As it turned out, he was the love of my life I abandoned for the wrong man and I will spend the rest of my life paying for that one mistake.”

Lucy squeezes my hand. “You have two beautiful daughters and your freedom. You can do anything and start again somewhere else, if you prefer. You’re not governed by anyone and owe it to yourself to find the Clara you always were without hiding behind any man. You’ll get past this and move on. We all make mistakes and sometimes wish we had done things differently, but things happen for a reason and this is yours. You’re destined to discover your life, free of any chains of the past. It’s tempting to retreat into the familiar when the future looks scary and unknown. You’re a strong woman, Clara. The strongest I’ve ever met and now it’s your turn to shine.”

As we fall silent, it only gives us a brief second to contemplate things before the distinctive roar of motorbikes shatters the peace.

I gaze at Lucy with wide eyes and reach for her hand and she says softly, “Whatever happens, Clara, you’ll be just fine. You’re not on your own anymore.”

I’m not so sure and part of me hopes Jet returns alone and yet there’s an overwhelming desire to see Atom again. To stare into his eyes even as they pierce my heart with anger, because I deserve that. I need to drown in his anger because I’ll take any emotion I can get from him. I love him that much.

Then the door opens, and I hold my breath as Atom follows Jet into the room.

I jump to my feet and stare at the man I have ached for every single second of the past ten years and those years fall away as I am transported back to that two-minute conversation that destroyed my life. Destroyed us.

Atom stands much the same as our eyes meet across the room. It’s as if we are the only humans left in the world and no words are needed. Our eyes tell a million stories and express regret, love, and hatred combined. There is pain mirrored between us, silent tears and ghosts from our past shaking the chains that we wrapped around them. Two broken hearts savagely in no state of repair. Bruised memories to match the physical ones.

My eyes feast on him. I can’t get enough. He has aged, but for the better. He was always unbelievably stunning to look at, and he has become a man who could slay continents with one spark from his eyes.

I am breathless, intoxicated and taken back to a time when anything was possible. The biker and the princess. It shouldn’t work, but somehow it could have. If only we had been left to explore the possibility.

I am destroyed as I utter a thousand apologies without uttering a sound. Begging for forgiveness for a wasted past and yet resigned to the hatred he surely has toward me. I barely register that Jet and Lucy leave the apartment because right now, in this moment, there is only the two of us left in the world.

CHAPTER 36

ATOM

So many emotions hit me at once. Ten years have passed since I last stared into those eyes, and yet it’s as if it happened yesterday.

Time melts away and we are those kids again. Hopeful, foolish and so deeply in love, we believed we had an eternity.

My anger consumes me because of what that bastard did to her. What he molded her into. A killer.

The bruising on her gorgeous face can’t disguise her beauty. Her eyes sparkle with unshed tears and a thousand apologies mixed with regrets.

Somewhere deep inside me, my heart stirs slightly, reminding me it’s been sleeping and is waking from a deep dream.

I shut it down through self-preservation because there is only one reason I’m here now.

Because she needs me.

I won’t allow anything to wound me again. Not this woman. Once was enough and I’m still not over that and as she stands before me, her lip trembles as she whispers, “I don’t blame you for hating me.”

---