Page 112 of Fresh Canvas
“Dang it, Val. I promised myself on that stupid plane I’d never let you make me cry again.” My watery laugh sounded as hollow as I felt. “Guess that makes us both liars, huh?” I walked back to the fountain and stooped to gather my things.
“Amantha, listen?—”
“No,youlisten!” I whirled on him, my tearful eyes hardening. “I amsosick andsotired of being manipulated. I’m done being naive. Why do I keep falling for men who think they can have their cake and eat it too?” I studied him through my raging tears.
What a fantastic actor. Apprehension was only one of many emotions flitting across Val’s face.
“You’re just like Ryan,” I whispered. Tears flowed in rivulets down my cheeks, dripping off my jaw and splashing the pavement. Pain swelled to a crescendo in my chest, and I couldn’t stay here a minute longer. I brushed past him.
“Amantha, wait!” Val’s warm grip arrested my wrist in an all too-familiar way.
“Don’t,” I shouted as I snatched my hand back, “touch me,Val.” His beautiful name cracked on my hiccuping sob. “You don’t get to touch me anymore.”
Clutching my sapphire velvet, I strode away from the second man I ever loved.
VAL
Amantha’s bare feet disappeared into the shadows, a sea of sapphire trailing behind her. A shard of ice protruded where my heart had been only moments before.
Time ceased to exist, though the world impossibly continued. A couple strolled hand-in-hand by the fountain. A night city bus unloaded passengers a few yards away. It was as though my brain had forced me into a timelapse, rewinding and replaying the incomprehensible in reverse.
There it was again.
Amantha’s wrist flew back into my grasp with an echo of her strangled sob. Her silver eyes brimmed again with heartbreak, as she told me I was just like her ex-husband. She stepped backward toward the fountain, its waters flowing back and up into an endless vacuum. The heels of her hands attempted again to staunch the flow of her tears. She had promised herself she’d never cry over me again.
I felt like a monster.Heartless. Sadistic.
My feeble shell imploded, crushing me to the core.
Slamming my eyelids shut, I forced my way out of the sickening time loop. I stumbled on shaking legs toward a bench, slumping down and cradling my head. Panic sped my breathing, my vision blurring.
Not again.
The stupid panic attack refused to release its claim on me. My mind produced an image of Amantha’s shy, beautiful smile and breathy voice as it swam in and out of focus.“My dad used tohave panic attacks sometimes… Five senses… Cold water… Touch helps too.”
The ghostly sensation of her pink fingernails trailing over my palm made me close my fist to see if she was still there.
She wasn’t.
I stumbled toward the fountain before crumbling to my knees beside it. The reflective water spilled over my cupped hands. I splashed my face, cold water dripping from my jaw like her tears had.
Such a monster.
Another icy wave met my skin, making me involuntarily gasp in response. After a few minutes, the wavy park began to stabilize. Returning to the bench, I sank down with trembling knees.
A Cormac Padraig?Amantha had been convinced I stole one.
ThatIwas a criminal.
Fitting, since I am one.
Hurting a woman like Amantha was a crime. I didn’t know a heart could fold in on itself the way mine had. Each day that had passed in pretend ignorance of her created a new fold in its origami. Even if I withdrew the bloody paper crane and offered it to her, could she ever forgive me?
Of course not. She never deserved to be ghosted, and I never deserved her in the first place.
That night at my apartment, Stella’s go-to joke had so effortlessly slid from Amantha’s perfect lips.“I’m going to slip you a sedative and make you relax.”A haunting verbatim. The sign I’d been waiting for. I had known instantly it was a mistake to have fallen in love with Amantha.
She was just so… good. Amantha was effervescent sunshine. Her soul was pure and kind. She had already suffered through so much.
