Page 33 of The Rules Of Attraction
He never told me he had to close down his restaurant because he was too sick to run it. He never told me he had to take loans to pay for his extensive medical bills insurance wouldn’t cover, and run the home we ended up losing.
He was still trying to protect me from pain, and overcompensate by being both father and mother. Just like he always had.
There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t have done for me, and I would have traded all that I had when I had it to help him.
I just never had the chance to know.
“You sound terrible, I should be there with you. Someone should be there with you.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“Are you though? What are you feeling about Tom?”
“I don’t know if there’s a word to describe it.” Saying I was hurt opened the floor for me to wonder if I was still hung up on losing him, and I didn’t want to be.
“Do you still feel for him? What you’ve done so far is classic for someone who just broke up with their boyfriend. Although you guys haven’t been together for a while.”
“It’s the shock. In my head they’ve only been together for four months and their getting married. I was with Tom for eleven years and …”
I didn’t want to go down this road again because it was painful.
“And marriage was never in the cards for you guys.” Eilesh filled in.
“Yeah, exactly. But… I don’t feel the way I used to about him. I haven’t had time to recover from one thing before another happens. I’m hurt.”
It was the hurt that I couldn’t quite describe to anyone, and just as my delicate heart started to function again it got hit with this news to worsen the wounds.
“Of course.” She sympathized, her voice soft.
“As for feeling for him… I don’t know. I don’t think I can just switch off that way. But, I’m not pining over him. He was bad for me, and I want to get to that stage where I can let it all go and snap out of this gloom.”
“Summer, the best thing you can do is keep busy. Even better if you’re working on something positive. Take the job. This is like a golden egg being handed to you. Bradford never even bothered to contact my office for your résumé because he knew I sent you. That’s how much I’m trusted in these parts.”
“He told me you only send the best.” I was impressed with how quickly he’d accepted me, without asking any further questions.
“I do. You loved being a lawyer.” She reminded me. “This is the way back to that.”
My skin tingled. I’d absolutely love to go back to what I loved, but that had been tainted too. It would have been so nice if I was going to work as an associate, not a PA.
I knew sometimes life dealt you a bad deal and you had to take a step back to move forward, but this just felt like I was living in a perpetual nightmare where things kept going wrong.
The job should have been the simple part of this equation but, even that had gone to hell. I slept with my boss.
Me.
“I can’t do it.” I winced.
“Summer, seriously. I feel like I should tell you to suck it up. People sleep with their bosses all the time and knowing Alex maybe he’s already forgotten you.”
Great…
I knew that was supposed to make me feel better, and give me some encouragement but I didn’t want him to forget me. I didn’t want him to remember me either, which was just ridiculous because I couldn’t have both.
“Yes, maybe he has forgotten me. I can imagine him picking up women in clubs on a daily basis. While poor me, he’s the second man I’ve ever slept with in my life.”
More coughs sounded on the line and a few curses. “Damn it Summer, will you stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
