Page 129 of Between Now & Heartbreak

I don’t feel an ounce of sympathy.

He wants to keep it real.

So, I’m keeping it real. And it feels good - like stretching my legs after sitting on them for too long.

“Her parents are fucked up. She’s going to need someone normal in her life. I’m not going to turn my back on my sister so I can live out some weird fantasy that’s probably not even as great as I’ve imagined. And I’m not mad that you left. I’m mad that you came back. Because you ruined everything the minute you walked through that door. I wish you’d leave.

Then, maybe I could just fuckingbreathe,” I sob, as I let go of the words that I’ve been biting back since he got here.

His expression is bleak. I can see that I’ve wounded him. But it’s the truth.

“Don’t try to interfere in my personal life again. I hope we can get to know each other again. But I am not the little girl I was when you left. I do not need you.” I say each word with deliberate emphasis.

The sound of footsteps halts our conversation and he glowers at me as one of my father’s bodyguards walks in and saves me from this conversation.

He looks between us and stops mid-stride.

“Uh— is this a bad time?”

“No. He’s leaving. And you’re late,” I snap irritably before I turn and march back into my bathroom.

I close the door and try to catch my breath. That whole conversation felt eerily reminiscent of my fight with James the night I went out with Duke.

Except Phil has no credibility with me. So, why is my heart pounding like this? I clutch my chest and slump down in front of the toilet seat.

I start repeating the mantra I wrote for myself the night Carter left. The one I made myself memorize and say every morning, every afternoon, every evening, like a fucking Hail Mary. I made myself say it until I believed it. Until I breathed it and dreamed it.

This moment is my final destination. Carter and the two summers that brought him into my life were like a traffic jam that made me miss my flight.

But just like in those movies where people have a narrow escape from death, what felt like a reprieve from my fate, turned out to be nothing more than a detour.

Fate always takes her due.

The end of us was inevitable. I meant it when I called him my apocalypse. But, not the kind in movies where everything is destroyed. The biblical kind - where the destruction is really just a clearing away. I’m free from all of the things I used to want. And I’m now focused on the things Ihave.I’ve stopped looking the gift horse in the mouth and expecting to see gold.

This life, the one I’m starting with Duke, is where I belong.

My stomach heaves and I turn around just in time to empty the contents of it into the toilet.

I lay on the floor, a sad, sweaty shell and fight back the panic that threatens to overwhelm me.

I don’t know what is wrong with me… I thought I was over this.

I don’t let myself think about Carter anymore. But right now, he is all I want.

It’s so wrong. The way I feel. I will never act on it. It would ruin us both and I have responsibilities beyond him.

But God, how I wish I could tell them all to go to hell so I could run off and find the only person who has ever soothed my restless, wicked, raging soul.

It takes me five minutes of meditation and deep breathing to calm down.

But, I do. Because that little girl out there needs me.

I splash water on my face, go back out and get ready to be married.

THE END…FORNOW.

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