Page 30 of False Play
I froze, and the grip on the cart handle tightened until my knuckles turned white. The pressure started to numb the palms of my hands, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
Why the hell washehere? This store wasn’t close to our—I mean—hiscondo.
“Joe,” I croaked but cleared my throat and straightened my back. Tension slowly crept up my spine and made every joint of my body tighten.
The air crackled with uncomfortable silence until a high-pitched voice said, “Hi, Kennedy.”
It took me a minute to register the other voice. I did a double-take when I realized where it was coming from. The woman standing next to Joe looked somewhat familiar, though I couldn’t quite place her.
“I’m Meghan. Scott’s daughter, remember?” She smiled at me, though it was forced and didn’t reach her eyes.
Ah. Scott was Joe’s boss, if I remembered correctly.
“Right.” I nodded quickly. “Nice to see you again.”
Meghan was young and pretty in an obvious sort of way. She was petite and skinny, with perfectly styled blonde hair and green eyes. The type of girl I used to envy when I was ateenager. But the older I got, the more I learned to accept myself. Yes, I was different; there was no denying it. But I was still beautiful. I learned to love the complexity of my skin and my curls, and the normal brown color of my eyes. Though insecurity still crept in sometimes, because I was still human, I never stopped loving myself.
I could see Joe settling with her. She was the sort of woman Joe’s parents expected him to be with. Dainty. Sweet. Someone who came from money and connections.
A pang of annoyance flickered through me as another uncomfortable silence passed between us. Chicago was a big city, but I still managed to run into him.Un-fucking-believable.
“Babe, go grab the ingredients for tonight’s dinner, and I’ll meet you in a few, yeah? I gotta talk to Kennedy.”
Oh, goodie. I think getting my teeth pulled would have been more enjoyable than enduring a conversation with him.
She smiled at Joe then looked back at me and awkwardly waved before walking away with their shopping cart.
“I’ve been meaning to call you,” Joe said.
“Well, here I am.”
I was at a point in my life where I wasn’t going to be pleasant if I didn’t want to. I also didn’t have the energy to pretend for the sake of a man’s ego. Joe had made sure of that. Still, I knew it was mostly my fault. He didn’tforceme to be in a relationship with him. He didn’tforceme to waste my time. But the memory of how much I had settledstung. It was a normal way of feeling, I supposed. Though I hated every single second of it.
“You haven’t picked up the rest of your stuff.”
I crossed my arms and fisted my hands as I stabbed my palms with my perfectly manicured nails, not wanting to seem fidgety in front of him. “I’vebeen busy.”
His gaze shifted to my shopping cart, unimpressed. “Clearly,” he scoffed.
“I’ll try to go as soon as possible. Is that all?”
His eyes darted upward, refusing to meet my gaze. A nervous tick of his that always got on my nerves. “The sooner the better, because I’m in the process of selling the place.” His comment took me by surprise, and it must have shown on my face, because he so gracefully—and for literally no reason—added, “I’m moving in with Meghan.”
The words shocked me at first. I half-expected them to hurt like alcohol being rubbed into a freshly made wound. But when the pain didn’t come, and what surged was bitterness instead, I drew a sharp breath as a dark chuckle slipped past my lips. “Funny. I thought you were incapable of letting that place go.” The knot in my throat tightened with every word.
I didn’t expect him to have a hard time moving on. When we broke up, we made our feelings pretty clear. The bitterness I felt wasn’t because I was hurting or mourning the relationship we once had. There wasn’tanythingleft to mourn.
But the dark thought crept out of the shadows and took hold of me.
It hurt knowing hewascapable of change,just not with me. Part of me always knew I had never been Joe’s first choice. Now that we were broken up and I could see it from a different perspective, the signs were there. I was just blind to it. But seeing it in real time was a much different dose of reality, one I wasn’t ready to swallow.
The realization that I longed to be someone’s priority hit me like an arrow straight in the chest, and my heart sank into the pit of my stomach. But as quickly as the pain spread from my chest to the rest of my body, I pushed it back, because if there was one thing I hated more than anything, it was showing any signs of weakness.
It was gut-wrenching to admit I was a simple girl who wantedmore. Someone who wanted to be loved. Wanted.Cherished. Because I wasn’t supposed towantthose things. I had the career, the independence.
What could love possibly provide for me?
Hurt? Bitterness? Emptiness?
