Page 69 of Waiting for Her

I resist the urge to drop his hands and turn away. Instead I take a deep breath and steel myself for what’s to come.

“That bad?”

See, this is the problem with talking with the person who still owns part of your soul. They see right through you.

Now I do drop his hands.

“I mentioned before I spiraled out of control. Well, that was nothing. As you know, I switched schools, moved to Peoria.”

“I can’t believe you left Southern Michigan. It was your dream school, Bri. What were you thinking?”

I know he was pissed when I officially transferred to a different college. From what my mom told me, he pounded on their door and demanded to know where I was. She held strong, even though it about killed her to do so. “I wasn’t. Not really. My past mistakes, decisions, I have to live with them for the rest of my life. Good and bad, they’re mine and I own them. Not many I’m proud of, but I can’t keep thinking in the past.”

“So tell me, then. I can’t keep thinking in the past, either. And quite honestly, you’re scaring me.”

I sit back down on the couch, this time closer to Rocky so I can pet him as I talk. “The first year was bad. I was depressed, deeply so. The only thing that kept me going was Hazel. My mom totally used her to her benefit, reminding me she would be looking up to me and I needed to keep it together. Academically, I was doing great. It was where I focused all my time. I didn’t go out with friends, didn’t even really make any to go out with. I studied, and that was it. Well, and keeping up with… well, let’s just say my love for SMS didn’t fade because I was living in Illinois.”

He takes a seat again, this time on the coffee table in front of me.

“I came home for the summer. I was offered an internship in Peoria and was going to accept it, but Andy and the boys came and visited me one weekend, and they weren’t pleased with what they saw. Mom had to stay home because Hazel was sick, so it was just me and them. Andy took one look at me, sent the boys to the hall and told me I had only one option, and that was to come home for the summer and let them help me get better. I spent the entire summer at the cabin.”

“So that’s why no one could go use the cabin that summer? How did I not know you were around?”

I twist the cap off my water, take a few drinks before recapping it and setting it on the couch beside me. “Probably because I only came home once. I was so ashamed and had become a shell of myself,” I tell him and shrug one shoulder. I don’t need to go into details of what I looked like, how much weight I’d lost.

“But you’re okay now, right?” he asks, his eyes running a trail over my body.

“I am. Now. But, it wasn’t an easy road. The summer helped, and my family was supportive. But something happened right before I left for school in the fall and, well, it messed with my head.”

“Which was?”

“I saw a picture. It was stupid, and I overreacted. But… well, Dawson,” I ignore the way his eyes widen but can’t escape the fact I see his fists clench at the name. “He was the one who showed me a picture of you with Kennedy. Theoneday I came to Liberty, I bumped into him on the sidewalk by Dreamin’ Beans. I don’t know exactly how Dawson knew Kennedy, but he must have followed her on Instagram somewhere along the way because she posted a picture of the two of you together… and was kind enough to show it to me.”

He scrunches his eyebrows. “We were never together. At least, not for long. We tried, but it was never right.”

“Well, the pictures he showed me were certainly… cozy. Either way, I had no right. I broke up with you and lost that. It wasn’t fair of me to be upset over you being with someone else. But it didn’t change the fact that it definitely drove me nuts. Dawson picked up on it. Pounced. Let me know you were moving on, you had been for a while. Fed me full of bullshit I was stupid enough to believe.”

“You let that fuckwit Dawson get into your head?”

“I did. I was in a low place. It’s not a good excuse, because we all know what a dillhole he is. He wouldn’t walk away or leave me alone no matter how much I fought with him about it. In the end, though, it’s on me. He may have been the one who showed me the picture, but I was the one who jumped to conclusions. I left for Illinois the next morning.”

He watches me closely, trying to figure out what it is that I’m not telling him. Rather than making him drag it out of me, I come out with it on my own.

“I relapsed. All the weight I’d gained back was just that much more I lost. It started with not having an appetite. Not eating enough calories. When the hunger pains weren’t enough to dull the ache, I started exercising more than before. I would go for runs at all hours of the day.”

“Night, too?” he asks, and I know he’s thinking how unsafe that was.

“Yeah. I didn’t care much about myself at the time. But soon it started to numb the pain of seeing you with another girl. A girl who was the opposite of me in every way. She was beautiful, tall, blonde, and here I was, this short, frumpy, dark-haired nobody who broke your heart because she was scared and an idiot. Every time I looked in the mirror, all I saw was everything I wasn’t, and everythingshewas.”

“She was never everything,” he murmurs.

I reach over and scratch Rocky’s ears again and he lifts his head, moving it so he’s laying nestled up against me. It’s like he knows I need his comfort right now. He’s the cuddliest big dog. I’m pretty sure he thinks of himself as a lap dog the way he’s acting.

“By the grace of God, I managed to still pass some of my classes. I’m not sure how, considering I couldn’t concentrate on anything the professor was saying when I did care enough to grace the classroom with my presence. I found a part time job working retail that would keep me in Peoria for the summer, so I didn’t have to go home. Mom and Andy knew something was up, but I think they were afraid if they continued to push too hard, I’d back away even more than I already was. This time it was Jack who saved me.”

“Jack? As in Uncle James’s son?”

I feel the sting of tears and itch my nose. My chin trembles and I bite my lip, desperately trying to keep from crying. It’s no use.

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