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Chapter Five
Mia
I didn’t even think about him when I got up that morning. My eyes were swollen because of all the tears from the night before. But today...today was going to be a day for me. A day spent doing something that I truly enjoyed. And it wasn’t going to be ruined by him, like the bookstore had been. Hopefully, something was going to go my way this weekend.
After a quick shower, I dressed in a pair of dark wash skinny jeans, a black turtleneck sweater, and my red leather jacket. My black spikey-heeled boots completed the outfit perfectly. After running the straightening iron carefully through my chocolate locks, I appraised myself. Damn, not bad, I thought.
I grabbed my camera bag and some other amenities I’d need for the day, and I left my apartment and headed for my local Starbucks. If I got there early enough, it felt like the city was still asleep. Like it was just me and the sun, and of course, my camera. I made my way into the park where it overlooked a pond, and then I sat, waiting for the perfect shot.
I thought about Terry as I walked, and I wondered whether or not I would see him again or if he had decided enough was enough. If he knew, just like I did, that you could only do so much damage to someone before it felt like you were killing them unnecessarily.
I sat in the park, waiting for the perfect shots to fill my lens. I thought of all the times he had been in LA and hadn’t even had the nerve to come over to me. He thought he was being so sneaky, leering behind a pillar in the art gallery. Staying on the opposite side of the room and trying to lose me in the crowd at parties during Fashion Week. At the library fundraiser we always attended together, he stayed on any other floor than the one I was on. But I always knew he was there. His scent would fill my nose, or his voice or laugh would fill the room.
Just for a minute, my mind would trick itself into thinking he was there with me. I would look around, waiting for his eyes to catch mine like they used to, and when they did, he would smile at me—my smile. His head would tip slightly to the right, asking me if I was okay or if I needed him to come and rescue me. If his head tipped to the left, he was the one in need of rescuing.
In all those times that I would catch his scent or hear his voice or laugh, I never did look around to find him waiting for me to come rescue him. At one particular after party during Fashion Week, I’d heard his laugh ring out, and it drew me to the edge of the railing of the hotel balcony. I had instinctively searched the crowd below, looking for him among the partygoers. Finally, after seconds of frantically searching, his laugh rang out again, and my eyes landed on him.
He’d stood in the center of the room—the man who had broken my heart and raised a strange sense of hope from me all at the same time. On the surface, Terry had looked the same, but there was a matureness to him now that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I knew I would need to be closer to figure out just what that was, but it made him look incredibly sexy. And it was at that second a tall, leggy woman with long black hair wrapped herself around his midsection.
It was at that second I felt my heart stop. I had known he would eventually find someone, but it still didn’t change the fact that, when I saw him with her, it felt like a sucker punch to the gut. I stood on that balcony with my mind in overdrive. How long had they been dating? Were they living together in London? Was this the reason we were no longer together?
Maybe that was what he had been trying to save me from: he didn’t want me to see him with her when he so obviously knew that I would be alone. In his way, he was trying to spare my feelings.
Sitting there in the park, it happened again. I listened to the gentle crunching of his shoes as he approached. The wind slightly blew, and I caught a whiff of his cologne. He was here again. I braced myself for the conversation that would follow.
