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He didn’t look at me. He looked away, like my face was too difficult for him to see. “I looked like a fool, Cleo.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not as fucking sorry as I am.” He stepped back, rubbing the back of his neck again. “Fuck, I woke up this morning happy…and now it’s gone.”
“It’s not gone, Deacon. We’ll work it out.”
His eyes didn’t move to mine.
“Okay?”
Still, nothing.
“Deacon…” No. I wouldn’t be able to move on if I lost him. He was my world. He was my everything.
“I need space.”
Oh god. “Deacon, please. You and Derek…are my family.” They filled the big crevasse in my chest. They wiped away all the pain from my losses. They gave me a place where I belonged, where everything was right in the world. “You’re my family.” Tears blurred my vision and made it hard to see the coldness in his eyes.
He stepped back and glanced at the door. “Please leave.”
I couldn’t believe this was happening. I couldn’t believe I’d just lost him. “I love you—”
“Cleo.” He turned to me, his stare impenetrable. He didn’t feel anything for me—at all. He spoke to me the way he spoke to Derek when he wouldn’t listen, like he was disciplining my unacceptable behavior. “I asked you to leave. Now, leave.”
I couldn’t go. My feet wouldn’t move.
“I want Matt to take care of me for the foreseeable future. I don’t want to see you.”
He stabbed me over and over.
When I didn’t leave, he got tired of waiting. He turned around and walked down the hallway to his bedroom. His door shut a moment later, followed by the click of the lock.
I didn’t want to go into the hallway in case I ran into anyone, not when I looked like this. But I had no other choice. I couldn’t stay here. I stifled my tears, forced the sobs to stop jerking in my chest, and walked out of his residence.
It was a long night.
My stomach ached while I lay in bed because I was hungry but too distraught to think about raiding my fridge. My phone was on the nightstand, and it lit up every few minutes. I always grabbed it, hoping to see a message from Deacon.
But they were just emails from clients.
The tears came and went, starting up suddenly then drying out. Then the process would repeat over and over. At some point, I became dehydrated and developed a migraine, so I had to take a couple pills just to get through the night.
When morning came, I called in sick.
“I can’t come in today. I think I caught a bug.” I lied into the phone, still in bed because I hadn’t moved.
Matt was surprised because I never called in sick. “Damn, that must be a pretty bad bug.”
“You have no idea…” Tears formed in the corners of my eyes and dripped onto the sheets.
“Will you be back tomorrow?”
I couldn’t hide in my apartment forever. I had too much on the schedule. Just taking one day off was already a huge hit to the entire staff. “Yeah, I’ll be there.” It wasn’t like I had to worry about seeing Deacon…since he didn’t want to see me.
“Alright. Get better.”
I spent my day on the couch, watching TV, trying to keep my mind occupied with something stupid on cable. But my mind flicked to Deacon all the time…the love of my life.
Did I just lose him?
What did space mean, exactly?
Did he dump me?
It seemed like it since he didn’t want me to take care of him anymore.
Yesterday, my life had been perfect. I woke up with Deacon beside me, a dream hunk, a gentle soul, my other half.
Now, I was alone.
I kept looking at the phone, hoping he would text me and check on me, but he never did.
I wanted to text him, but I knew I wouldn’t get a response.
There was nothing I could do right now.
And doing nothing…was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do.
I went to work the next day, getting there later than I had been since I didn’t sneak out of Deacon’s residence at the crack of dawn. I walked up to my desk, seeing Matt and Anna sitting there. “Morning.”
They both stared at me nervously, exchanging glances with each other before looking at me again. And they never said a word.
Oh fuck.
I stopped at my desk, seeing the box of my things. The picture of my parents and me was thrown on top like it had been tossed inside. My notepads, office supplies, everything I bought was there too. I’d bought my own keyboard because it reduced the pain in my wrists, and it was there too. I stared for several seconds, my hands touching the edges of the box, realizing this was the moment of my demise.
Not only had I lost Deacon, but the only other thing I cared about.
