Page 66 of Love is Fake

My friend sends me a mock-salute and is half-way out the door when she pauses.

“He’s just a guy, Iz, you don’t need him. You’re gonna be okay,” she vows.

“I know.” I conjure the best smile I can, hoping it’s convincing, and close the door behind her.

“And turn you damn cell back on!” she shouts from the hallway.

Just a guy. It’s the phrase I would have used with any man other than Lennox, because to me he was so much more than that. It didn’t take long for him to become everything to me.

I shake my head as if it were possible to physically force that thought from my mind. Delving into those feelings is a completedead end. They can’t go anywhere, which means it’s time to park them.

I give my cellphone a wide berth. It’s been off since I called Kiara from the Uber, asking her to come over. Lennox tried to call me more than once before then and rather than ignoring his calls, turning my phone off seemed like an easier option. Part of me wants to check if he’s left any messages, wants to hear his voice. But that’s the weak side of me talking; the side that still wants to hear what he has to say, as if any explanation could make any of this okay. Mostly, I’m too pissed off and, more importantly, too hurt to deal with anything Lennox has to say right now.

I’ve allowed myself a week of wallowing, it’s time to get my shit together.

I sniff my sweatshirt, wrinkling my nose at the ripeness I smell. Time for a shower. And after that I’ll call a company to get my stuff back from the Gray Mansion and then maybe I’ll order a pizza and drink a whole damn bottle of wine. And that’s how I’m going to get through this, I reason. One task at a time. If I can focus on the next thing and then the one after that and then the one after that and on and on, then I don’t have to ask myself how you go from thinking you can’t live without someone to having to.

I won’t have to think about what it feels like to know you thought you were in love with someone who apparently didn’t come anywhere close to reciprocating your feelings, no matter what you thought. I won’t have to think about how you stop loving someone, even when it’s clear they don’t love you back.

Chapter

Nineteen

Things between Kiara and Kai are proceeding at pace and I’m truly happy for her. We haven’t talked about the elephant in the room. I know for a fact Kai has tried to tell her what happened between me and Lennox, but Kiara has stopped him every time. She knows I don’t want to hear it and she has no desire to play piggy in the damn middle.

In moments of weakness, I’ve been tempted to ask the fateful words.

“Did he say anything about me?”

But I’ve managed to stop myself.

They’re the same moments when I think about going onto social media or searching the news for his name. So far, I’ve managed not to crack, and it’ll only get easier from here on out, right?

Days go by and then a week – apart from the initial flurry of voicemails and texts, all of which I ignored, the name Lennox stopped appearing on my phone several times a day. I guess he got the message, finally. Even for someone as thick-headed as him, me not answering for days at a time is a pretty clear indicator that I don’t want anything to do with him. At leastthat’s what I thought. It turns out Lennox is more thick-headed than most.

It’s late at night, ungodly late. Even though I’m not asleep, the buzzing of my doorbell annoys me. I frown at the video screen not instantly recognizing the big man loitering there with a ball-cap pulled low against the rain.

I press on the intercom. “Wrong apartment.”

“Isabella?”

Everything inside me goes still at the voice, athisvoice and the sound of my name wrapped in its huskiness. Even after everything, just hearing him makes my heart beat louder, faster and somehow slower, all at the same time.

“Go away, Nox.”

I’m proud at how strong I sound against the crumbling of my defenses.

“Please, Izzy, if you’d just let me explain -,”

I put my hands over my ears because I can’t deal with this, not now. I’ve managed to get to a place where I felt like I was doing better, where I wasn’t walking around in a fog of heartbreak the whole time. Where I wasn’t crying myself to sleep every night and waking up each morning knowing the pain the day would bring. Or maybe I was and I was just getting better at hiding it. Either way, I was less of a basket-case than I had been.

“Sometimes you don’t get to have it all, Nox. You don’t get to have a damn fiancéeandhave me. You don’t get to keep me on the backburner just in case your first choice falls through,” I explain to him tightly.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, about me and Honey -,”

“Nox!” The sound of her name is like a knife going through me. “We’re not talking about this. There’s nothing to talk about. It’s over.” I hit my forehead against the wall, telling myself I’m doing the right thing.

Lennox’s broad shoulders roll as he sighs and as he looks directly into the camera; I wonder how the hell I’m ever going to get over him. It’s bad enough he’s impossible to avoid with his face on billboards, on every sports channel and magazine, but he made me feel more than anyone I’ve ever met. Andthat’swhat I can’t forgive him for – he made me want him, only him and now I don’t know how to want anyone else.

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