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Love,
Ben
My heart hammered behind my chest. I didn’t like the guilty feelings swirling inside me.
“It’s a load of crap.”
I slammed down the cup of coffee and hissed as it spilled over the sides. Will stood close, as silent as a shadow, reading the email over my shoulder.
“Do you mind?”
He ignored me. “Click on the next one.”
Will looked at me, refusing to move from his spot. Whatever, fine. I clicked it. The tone of this onewas a lot angrier.
Natalie, what the fuck?
I feel like absolute shit and you probably have no idea. It really hurts you would ignore me after everything we’ve been through. I keep seeing photos of you with that asshole. I don’t understand why you like him. He sounds like a complete jerk.
Can you please tell me what I could have done differently? I tried to be a good boyfriend to you and I was always there when you needed me. I really don’t deserve to be treated this way. When you met me in the city, you made me believe that there was still hope for us. Now, I feel like you’re rubbing this in my face to hurt me. Maybe you’re only with this guy to piss me off. I really don’t appreciate being ignored and I expect a response from you.
-Ben
“He expects a response? What are you, his property?” He let out a bellyful of laughter. “This guy is such an entitled ass. Coming from me that says a lot.”
The email made me cold all over.
“He's trying to manipulate you.You’re out in the world, living your life, and he thinks that it’s all about him. You must be doing this to hurt him, not because you’ve moved on. He’s a narcissist, and he wants you to feel guilty.”
I rubbed my arm. “I need to tell him it’s over. That we’re done.”
“You are over. You broke up almost a year ago. Don’t contact him; he’ll only send you more messages. If you ignore them, he’ll stop caring about it.”
I feel like absolute shit and you probably have no idea.
I could hear the despair in that line of text and couldn’t stand I was making him feel bad about himself. We may have broken up, but I still cared about him.
He sank down to my level and held my arms. “Baby, listen. His problems are no longer yours. You care too much about what people think of you. He will be pissed for a while. So what?”
“Let's just change the subject.”
“I got a flight out of Genoa for this evening.”
I turned my face back toward the ocean and felt a tug on my heart. “Do we have to leave?”
He stroked me. “Yeah, but Cinque Terre will always be here. You can come back.”
* * *
It was another exhausting night of travel for all three of us. When Will’s town car arrived to pick us up from O’Hare, I collapsed into the car and almost fell asleep. When I woke up, I felt a heavy, warm weight on my lap and realized that the cat had crawled onto my lap.
“We’re here.”
The car pulled into a driveway and stopped in front of a mansion that rivaled Luke’s in San Francisco. The red brick home was surrounded by color; plants and bushes of all types thrived around the house. The road circled a round pool where a large, golden fountain played. When the door opened, Tom dashed from the car to lie on the steps on the house, flailing his body in apparent ecstasy.
The light brown wooden doors opened and a woman in her fifties emerged, dressed in white capris and a sky-blue blouse. She beamed when William swept out of the car.
Here we go, I told myself, watching his mother hurry down the steps to greet her son.
