Page 146 of Mr. Aster
“I wanted to apologize to you for how I left,” he said, getting right to his point.
“Apologize?”
“Yes, I’m sorry. I’m so desperately sorry, Darcy. I wasn’t thinking. I think I was just scared that I might?—”
“What, hurt me?” I snapped, cutting him off because I knew he hated it.
He smiled. “Yes,” he said with some relief in his voice.
“Well, how ironic that by attempting to avoid hurting me, you managed to obliterate my heart, you miserable fuck.”
“I know and?—”
“Do you know how many days and nights I wasted waiting for you to get over yourself and at least send me a text to give me some closure?”
“I, I guess—” he stammered. “I know that?—”
“One hundred and fifty-one days,” I said, intentionally cutting him off again, “I woke up and checked my fucking phone for something from you. One hundred and fifty-one days. Before I took a shower, ate lunch, ate dinner, and went to bed, I checked my fucking phone for something from you. I turned into a desperate idiot not just because I fell for you like a fucking glutton for punishment but because I sostupidlytrusted that you wouldn’t hurt me. I believed you when youpromisednot to hurt me. Ibelievedyou.”
“I understand your?—”
“Not only did you hurt me, but you did it in one of the worst possible ways by walking out on me without an explanation, basically making me feel like used-up trash in the world of Sebastian Aster.”
“Fuck,” he growled, looking miserable from the inside out. “I’msofucking sorry, Darcy. I wasn’t thinking.”
“That’s fairly obvious to everyone who knows about our short-lived romance,” I said, feeling no sympathy toward this man. “You weren’t thinking then, and you aren’t thinking now. But who cares? It was just the winery owner’s daughter, right?”
“That’s not true at all,” he said earnestly.
“You know what is true?” I questioned him. “That I’m finally happy. My life is so much better than it was even before you came into it, and now here you are to pull me back in just because you’re sorry? No. Fuck no. I will not hear a goddamn thing you have to say. You carelessly threw away everything we had, and for that, I won’t forgive you.”
That part was highly theatrical, and I knew it, but I was really trying to drive my point home.
“You’ve made your point clear,” he said.
“Good, then we’re done here,” I said, feeling quite happy that I didn’t cave in and take the man back for any reason, especially because he wassorry.
“I see you’re angry with me,” he said.
“I’mdonewith you,” I answered him. “I’ve been done with you for quite some time.”
“Well, I’m angry with you, too. I’m not done, though, but I’m still angry,” he said, stopping me, yet again, in my tracks.
“You?Youare angry withme?” I said in some weird, screechy tone.
“I am, and for the very same reasons you’re angry with me…orwereangry up until you becamedonewith me,” he said in a tone that prompted me to narrow my eyes at him.
“Pray tell, Mr. Aster,” I said, mimicking his stuck-up mom’s bullshit words. “Why could you possibly be angry with me?”
“You never called or texted me, either.”
“Excuse me?” I snapped.
“You returned my call and didn’t leave a message. I had no idea what to think,” he said.
“You’re not turning this on me,” I said, although I remembered what a chicken shit I was back then. Okay, fine. He wasn’t wrong. I’d known for a long time that things fell apart for many different reasons, one of them being that I didn’t speak up or stand up for myself and demand answers from him.
“We both did this and ruined a beautiful thing,” he said, echoing my internal sentiments.
