Page 103 of Hypnotized By Love

Sierra made it worse when she said, “I love you and I know you’re in a lot of pain right now, but haven’t you learned to let people explain yet? To not jump to conclusions? You didn’t even let him tell his side of it.”

“What side can he have?” I asked, wanting to put those defensive walls back up. Mason couldn’t have a side. He’d written the article. I’d seen it. Discussion over.

“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “That’s why you need to ask.”

“No.” And whether that was because I couldn’t admit that I might have been wrong or because I couldn’t deal with the pain of him admitting that he’d hurt me deliberately, I wasn’t sure.

“Sometimes you are more stubborn than a stain in a laundry detergent commercial,” she informed me, sounding exasperated. “Not now, but maybe when you’ve calmed down a little, you could go over there and hear what he has to say about it. I’ll go with you. Or I’ll go over there and pretend that I’m you and—”

“He’ll know,” I said, weakly.I could be robbed of every single one of my senses and I would still know you.His words reverberated inside my head. How could he say those kinds of things and then write such a horribly mean and false article? One meant to destroy me?

My heart hurt, twisting back and forth in pain while my head throbbed.

“So you talk to him, then,” she said.

“I saw the proof in black and white. There’s no explanation, no way to dispute it. I’m not making this up.”

“I believe you,” she said.

The problem was, I didn’t know if I believed me. If I was sure of what had happened at his place tonight. Had I been scared? Trying to run away from him?

But that wouldn’t explain the article and the pain he had deliberately inflicted on me, just for the sake of his job.

Then I thought of his parting words—how he’d called out to me, reminding me that I had promised not to jump to conclusions where he was concerned.

And I couldn’t even begin to process all the feelings I had surrounding that. There was definitely anger but also something else that felt a bit like guilt.

It was all too confusing.

Exhaustion racked my entire body, and all I wanted to do was sleep. “I’m so tired. I need to go to bed.”

Sierra helped me up and tucked me in.

“Will you stay with me?” I asked her. “I don’t want to be alone.”

She got into bed beside me. “I’m not going anywhere. Get some sleep. Things are going to be okay.”

The problem was, I didn’t think I would ever feel okay again.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The pain I felt at losing Mason was this ever-present, thrumming ache. I could never forget about it. Even when I was at work, I was still thinking about him. I knew time was supposed to heal my wounds, but all time was doing was reminding me on a constant minute-to-minute basis how empty everything felt without him in it. How broken my heart was, and how the entire world felt dark without him. Like he’d been the sun and I hadn’t realized it until he was gone.

My parents knew something had happened. Heather and my mom had obviously held some kind of summit about it, but no one asked me what was going on. I wondered if Mason had told them.

Or Sierra.

I felt like a ghost in my own life, drifting from place to place, not feeling entirely real or even visible. A shadow instead of my full self. I tried hard to suppress my feelings for him, all the good and the bad, but it didn’t work.

Sierra’s words stuck with me, much as she did. When she wasn’t working, she was by my side, watching old movies with me like I used to watch with Mason and handing me tissues while I cried through each one.

Mason didn’t try to reach out to me. I ran through a variety of emotions on that one, too. At first I was glad he didn’t call or text, because I never wanted to speak to him again. When some of that anger began to fade, I was hurt that he didn’t even attempt to check up on me. Then back to mad because I must not have ever mattered to him. Then sad again over what we might have had.

While I recognized I wasn’t being rational, it was how I felt.

I also kept doing internet searches for his name, waiting for the article to appear. I didn’t know how much lead time a publication or editor would need before putting an article like that up online, but it never showed.

Which made me question myself—had Sierra been right about that, too? Should I have let him explain? Maybe he’d decided not to publish the article. Maybe his feelings weren’t fake.

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