Page 74 of Auction Time
Denver didn’t say anything I didn’t know. He just highlighted it and brought my fears to light. Everything I feared. It was almost comical because the man spoke it all. Like the voice of the bad angel.
Cole wasn’t serious about me, he’d never be serious about me, he’d never love me, he’d never change for me.
The worst thing Denver had asked me, however, was if I couldn’t do better.
I almost said there was no better than what you wanted, but that stupid bet loomed in my mind. It hurt me that Cole would do something like that. It hurt me deeply that the night in question was the night I’d first trusted him with my body.
But it wasn’t just that. It was all of it.
I looked out the floor-to-ceiling window and gazed ahead at the shadows of the oncoming evening. I needed to go home. Get home and maybe sleep. I was tired and drained, and the hollow inside me kept getting bigger.
I didn’t know what to do to make myself feel better.
Not seeing Cole for the last two days was awful, but maybe he was trying to tell me something. After all, he wasn’t my boyfriend, so we could in theory just part, and that would be it.
I returned my gaze to the screen of my computer and emailed over the finals for the magazine.
There. Done. At least that was one area of my life that was going well. Mom was proud of all I’d done, and I was happy with the work too. Better to focus on that. Tomorrow when I came in, I’d put plans in motion for the next issue.
I packed up and left the office. I made it out to the parking lot and saw Cole’s truck pulling in.
He saw me and stopped where he was.
As he got out of the truck, two very distinct emotions flew through me.
The first was to run into his arms and stay there forever. The next came when I saw the saddened look on his face. In his eyes. What swept over me was the foreboding trepidation of hearing bad news.
“Hi.” He spoke first.
“Hi,” I replied, tightening my grip on my bag.
“I came to see how you were.”
I wasn’t sure how to answer the question. How was I indeed? Crazy for him and mad at him. Mad at myself and in love all at the same time.
“I’ve seen better days,” I confessed.
“Yeah, me too. Look, Vanessa…” he began, and his voice trailed off. I could have made some remark about the way he’d said ‘look’ like the time when I had, but I wasn’t in the mood. “The bet was stupid, and I never meant to hurt you. Mostly, I never even remembered it. I just wanted to be with you. The other night though, I realized there’s more about us, and it wasn’t just the bet I needed to apologize for. The bet was nothing. It meant nothing to me. When I first got back to Orange County, you were the first thing that came to my mind. Nothing would have stopped me from being with you. I think that’s the part I need to apologize for.”
My hands started to shake, and I swallowed hard. “You’re apologizing for being with me?” I couldn’t believe it.
He nodded. “Yes. That’s what I’m apologizing for. Denver might be an asshole, but he was right. You can do better. We both know that. I can’t give you what you need. I can’t give you… what you deserve.”
A tear ran down my cheek. “Cole…” Although I said his name, I wasn’t sure what I was going to say.
His eyes looked glassy too as he reached out and touched the edge of my jaw.
“Muse,” he breathed.
I swore I saw a tear run down his cheek too, but he moved away from me, jumped in his truck, and drove away.
The emptiness that filled me as I watched him go was quite unlike anything I could describe.
It was a mixture of emptiness and numbness as I tried to process what had just happened. The anger left me, replaced now with the heaviness of loss because I loved him and that never stopped.
* * *
The next few days that followed were awful.
