Page 111 of RomeAntically Challenged
But no matter how long she looked, or how many times she told herself she was missing something, she couldn’t locate a single toiletry or item of clothing.
“Emmitt?” she cried out, not expecting an answer this time. He’d summed up everything she needed to know in a single sticky note.
Swallowing past the pain, she leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. The hurt cut so deep, it became impossible to think or breathe. Just when she thought she couldn’t bear another moment of it, she looked down and found the note still in her hand.
No quippy signature or comment about the future. She didn’t even warrant his name at the bottom of the note. Just a single letter that caused all the hope that had been growing inside her heart to well up and slowly slip down her cheeks to puddle on the cold tile floor.
They’d made no promises, there’d been no talk of what was to happen after her contract was up, but she’d let herself believe it would all work out. That was on her.
But to leave her with only a note, no explanation, nothing but a meme that was more suited for a high school yearbook than a goodbye after what they’d shared? After confiding in him about the ending of her last relationship? That was mean and spiteful.
Which was even more upsetting, because Emmitt was a lot of things, but she’d never imagined mean and spiteful were among them. So what did that say about her? Because her therapist was wrong; other people’s choices were most definitely a reflection on her.
The wording in this note, or the lack thereof, told Annie exactly how important she’d been in Emmitt’s life. The one person who, only moments ago, Annie couldn’t imagine her life without had walked away with only a sticky note.
Maybe he thought ending it the way they had begun was poetic. She thought it was bullshit.
“Bullshit!” she sobbed, her words echoing off the tile walls. “You hear me? I call bullshit, Emmitt! On you, on us, on your stupid smile. But mostly I call bullshit on this sticky note.”
She crumpled it up, then wadded it until it was nothing more than a glorified spitball. She threw it in the toilet and flushed. Then flushed again, making sure she never had to see it again.
Annie had experienced rejection. She’d lived through heartaches, big and small. She’d even managed to dust herself off after heartbreak. But Emmitt had accomplished in a single sticky note what no one else had ever come close to achieving.
He’d destroyed her desire to ever be loved.
Chapter 27
Annie needed to be more specific when it came to her wishes.
When she’d left Connecticut to go in search of a life-altering experience, she hadn’t expected to wake up in the fetal position on a strange couch with her eyes swollen shut from crying. Nor had she expected to suffer through the lowest moment of her life with an audience.
“Are you awake?” Beckett asked.
Unable to stay in the cabin for even a night, Annie had called Beckett around two in the morning. Her friend caught on quickly that she was an emotional disaster and a danger to drivers at large, so Beckett’s dad picked Annie up.
That had been two days ago.
“I’m awake,” Annie said, pressing her hand to her eyes. Her head throbbed, her face was puffy, and when she blinked it felt as if she’d exfoliated her eyes. Then there was the cold emptiness that had settled so deep inside, her bones ached.
“You said that ten minutes ago, then went back to sleep,” Beckett said. “I’m not falling for that trick twice.”
“Eleven minutes and twenty-one seconds ago,” put in a monotone voice that sounded a lot like Siri—had Siri been a pubescent boy.
Annie opened her eyes to see Thomas, Beckett’s brother, curled up at the foot of the couch. Dressed in navy blue sweatpants, a navy blue shirt, and navy blue socks with a blanket draped over his lap and a book in his hand, Thomas looked as if he’d been there awhile. “Morning, Thomas.”
“It’s afternoon,” he said. “I want to play Minecraft. I’d like you to get up now.”
“Hey, buddy, can you give Annie and me a minute to talk in private?” Gray said from the entry to the kitchen, and Annie threw the covers over her head.
“My name is Thomas, not buddy, and I will give you one minute,” Thomas said, and Annie heard the beep as he set his watch alarm.
“What Gray meant was he needs to talk to Annie,” Beckett clarified. “He isn’t sure how long he’ll need, so why don’t you and I go to your room and you can show me your baseball card collection.”
“I don’t want to go in my room. I want to play Minecraft, and I can’t play that in the bedroom. I can only play that out here so they can have one minute.”
“We going to do this today?” Beckett asked, and apparently, they were. Thomas started counting down the seconds until Gray’s minute was up, Beckett started bartering, which turned to bribing, and before the clock struck zero, Gray promised to take him to the ballpark next time his local softball team played a game. Finally, he relented, leaving Annie and Gray alone.
Yippee.
