Page 95 of Gone for You

I stare at the wall. She’s everywhere. It doesn’t matter if I’m in the office or stock room. Behind the bar or driving in my pickup. My house? I can barely stand to be in it. No area is safe from the memories that assault me every time I close my eyes, or even breathe. For two months, I’ve thought of nothing more than why I did what I did. Why I did the exact thing I’d been fearing she was going to do the entire time.

It’s been the worst two months of my life and everyone around me knows it. Unfortunately, I am not great at hiding my emotions. The entire staff has been giving me a wide berth when they realized my bad mood wasn’t going away anytime soon.

After about a month, I finally got the nerve to text Owen, see if he’d heard from her. It was awkward, for sure. I didn’t want to tell him too much but at the same time, I needed to know. He simply said she needed time and I could tell he wasn’t going to give me any more information than that. I was going out of my mind. Lily stopped in The Goat but wasn’t much better. If I thought it was awkward to ask Owen, it was nothing compared to when I approached Lily.

“Hey, Lily. Drew.”

“Hi Ethan,” Drew says, nudging his wife.

“Okay, I’m just going to come out and ask. How is she?”

“Who?” Lily sasses. “My best friend whose heart you broke?”

“I deserved that.”

“And?”

“I just want to make sure she’s okay. I know I fucked up and didn’t handle my shit right but that doesn’t mean I don’t care for her.”

“I’m not the one you need to be telling that to,” she replies. I plop into a seat at their table, rest my elbows on my knees and drop my head. She’s right. I’ve known it from the beginning. But I did the exact thing she was afraid of. I didn’t choose her.

I can’t even be mad about no one being on my side, so to speak. I was the one who acted like a complete fucking asshole.

Which is the bitch of it all. I’m the worst cliché there is – I just want her happy and if that means not being with me will make her happy, I’ll gladly suffer for it. Because this is what I deserve. Complete misery.

Obviously no one else at The Flying Goat is in agreement, though. And I can’t really say as I blame them.

“She hasn’t called?”

“Nope.”

“Texted? Messaged? Nothing?”

“Do you understand what the word nope means?”

“Listen, I know you’re pissed and I get it. I really do. But this bullshit of bringing it here has to stop. I wasn’t joking earlier when I said people will quit. It’s not fair to them to have this kind of work environment.”

“Work environment? What are you, the HR department now?”

He ignores me. “I’m sorry Liv is gone.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Obviously. Because then I’d have to admit that I’m the reason she’s not here. Not her and her insecurities or fears. Me. I’m the one who’s to blame in this fucked up mess. How we got here is beyond me.

“Of course you don’t. You’d rather just slam around here and act like an ass. Get outta here for a while. Go see Owen.”

I bark out a laugh. “Owen. Right. The brother of the girl whose heart I broke and told to get the fuck out?”

“You did what, now?”

“Yup.”

“What happened?”

“Shit.” I scrub a hand over my face and prepare to explain. “Did I ever tell you why I was raised by a single dad?”

“No, I don’t think you did.”

“When my dad was in Mexico on spring break, he had a little fling that turned into a lifelong souvenir.”

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