Page 102 of The Truth About Love

I don’t know who came up with the phrase “misery loves company”, but they obviously never knew the pain of heartbreak. The way the shattered fragments of your heart seem to float around inside of you, puncturing your organs and lodging in your veins. It kills you slowly. Like arsenic poisoning or a severed artery that’s left to bleed out.

There’s nothing worse than company when you feel like that.

I don’t want Marlowe in here trying to make me go out.

I just want to be in the dark.

“Think of how far you’ve come, Sum. All the work you’ve put into being healthy and getting better. It would kill me to see it all go to waste.”

“Ithasall gone to waste. He married someone else, Marlowe. Everything I’ve done has been for fucking nothing.”

“Don’t you dare say that, Summer.” She looks at me furiously, shaking her head. “Don’t you dare let a guy be the reason you lose all the progress you’ve made. He may have been the motivation but you didn’t go for rehab just for him, did you? You went foryou. Please don’t let this ruin you. You’re stronger than that, I know you are.”

I look up at her, exhausted and defeated. “I don’t know how to stop feeling like this,” I say quietly, my voice catching in my throat. “I don’t know how I can ever be happy without him.”

Her eyes shine with sad understanding. “I know it feels like that now. I know it feels like all you want to do is go to sleep and wake up when the pain has stopped, but I promise that eventually it will get better.”

“How?”

I don’t understand how it could ever get better.

For two years, I imagined what my future would look like with Auden. I dreamt of the house that we’d call our home, a place by the ocean with a balcony where we would watch the sunsets together and fall asleep in each other’s arms every night. I’d try to picture the faces of the children we’d have. A son who looked just like him and a daughter who looked just like me. The vacations we would take together, the holidays we’d celebrate, the way our family home would forever be my sanctuary. The place where I’d feel safest.

But I’ll never know what it’s like to have any of that. Because that future doesn’t belong to me anymore. It belongs to Cara.

He chose her over me in a competition I didn’t even know I was a part of.

She’ll get the house on the beach with the sunsets and the children and the holidays. She’ll know the safety of Auden’s arms for the rest of her days and the comfort of breathing his air.

And all I’ll have is my shattered heart to try and put back together.

“You can start by getting coffee with me,” Marlowe says, taking my hand and laughing when I roll my eyes. “Come on. We’ll get coffee and come straight home. I promise. I just think you’ll feel different when you’re in the fresh air.”

“Fine.”

“Great.” She smiles triumphantly. “And have a shower, you fucking stink.”

It takes severe effort but I do as she tells me, heaving myself out of bed and into the bathroom, where I wash the last two weeks of misery off my skin. Then I change into trackpants and a baggy tee, and meet Marlowe to leave.

She looks me up and down with a raised brow. “You could have made a bit of an effort.”

“For what? We’re getting coffee.”

She rolls her eyes, standing there in a summer dress with her raven-coloured hair styled perfectly into waves. She’s no longer the meek teenage girl she was in high school, she’s a woman through and through. While she’s undoubtedly gorgeous, it’s her confidence that has had the best transformation. “You haven’t even dried your hair.”

“Whatever.” I push past her. “Wanna do this or not?”

We walk the short distance to The Grind in comfortable silence. The late summer sun beats down on me and it’s so unbearably hot that by the time we make it to the coffee house, my forehead is dripping in sweat.

Max spots us the second we step inside, flashing us his signature smile that he uses to charm the panties off women. I lift a hand in a small wave before turning my back on him to order my drink at the counter, an Americano despite the humidity.

“That poor boy has got it bad for you,” Marlowe whispers into my ear as we order our drinks.

“No, he doesn’t.” I tut.

“Then why is he staring at you?” She casts a glance over her shoulder to where Max is making light conversation with an elderly customer. His body faces the woman, but his twinkling eyes are on me.

I scoff. “Probably because I look like a hot mess. Stop reading into things cause you’re reading it all wrong.”

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