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I hadn’t been anywhere
close
to reality.
This
was reality, this hell I was trapped in.
And I had chosen it for myself, like a fool.
She had been so right, and I wouldn’t fucking listen.
Ryan had warned me that first night in LA:
Just one word of advice: be careful. He’s my best friend, but… just be careful. Don’t give too much of yourself away. Not completely.
But I did. Like an IDIOT.
Riley had warned me, too:
Stop letting the cock go to your brain, Blondie… quit making excuses for him just because you like how he fucks you. Here’s the truth: as long as Derek’s getting his way, he’s sweet as pie. Problem is, he needs you to say ‘You’re so awesome’ all the fuckin’ time. And he gets bored real quick. Just remember that. What’s your type – assholes?
No. I – I’m in love with Derek.
So… your type is assholes.
She’d called it exactly right, and I’d been too besotted and lovestruck to know truth when I heard it.
Even Killian had told me:
From all the evidence I’ve ever seen, Derek’s not a one-woman chap. He’s a bit of a… free spirit, you might say. He’s just wired that way. It’s in his nature.
He had called me a frog, which I didn’t want to hear, and warned me about the scorpion, and I hadn’t fucking listened. I had written it off as the addled advice of a pothead.
Then it turned out that the pothead had ten thousand times more sense than me.
But no matter how much it hurt, I kept thinking of Derek, and playing all the beautiful scenes from our relationship again and again:
The first night I had met him, when we sat outside my dorm room and talked and laughed until three in the morning.
When he told Shanna,
I’m in love with your roommate.
Singing ‘Under The Bridge’ for me.
That impromptu volleyball game in the grocery store.
Telling me how he had cried during
Dumbo…
and when I started crying, saying,
I’m not going to make fun of you.
The candlelit dinner he had made for me in my dorm room.
The way he had touched me, made love to me on my dorm bed.
The way he had held me on that last day in Athens and whispered,
Stay with me, Kaitlyn… please. Stay.
And when I wouldn’t, how he had looked at me when he said,
Have a wonderful life. I love you.
I started crying again just to think of it.
But now all those scenes were tainted by his betrayal… and by my complete and utter stupidity.
Because I realized that all of them had happened four years ago.
I tried to remember the sweet times from the last five weeks… and all I could recall was us walking on the beach and him telling me that his father had died. But I had just felt close to him then. That moment hadn’t been about me; that hadn’t been about
us
.
I tried again. I remembered him calling me his girlfriend when we were tripping on mushrooms, but Shanna had nailed that one:
Was anybody naked at the time, or did a certain someone want to get naked, and the other someone didn’t?
