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JEWEL
Seven days.
Seven days had passed since Nicu disappeared, and I was a hot mess. I laughed derisively at the thought of how composed I’d been during my conversation with Cat after the debacle at her house. After three days, I broke down and texted him. Nothing. I left a voicemail. Again, nothing. If this was payback for all the times I’d ignored his texts and calls, then he’d made his point.
I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see Nicu’s recognizable broad set of shoulders, swathed in the fine wool of his fitted Italian suits. Seven days later, and I still checked out my surroundings, but now it was with a sinking heart because he never materialized.
Sitting on my bed, I hugged my knees to my chest as I morosely stared out my dorm room window. I curled my toes inside my fluffy socks. He’d vanished, and as if to taunt me, even the weather had turned. The stunning crimson, burnt orange, and vivid amber leaves had been stripped off their branches by the perpetual rain and gusts of wind that darkened the sidewalks and plunged the world in a dreary tint of gray and sepia.
At first, I prayed. Then I bargained. Finally, I reached the anger stage. And still, he didn’t show. Not a telephone call or a text. Nothing. Dejected, I fell into a gloomy mood that nothing seemed to be able to pull me out of.
Cat had suggested that Nicu needed time to cool off.
Too much time without any communication had passed for that, which led me to one conclusion: he’d left me.
Like my father, like Mother. I didn’t even get a chance to choose fear over love. He chose for me. I thought a part of me would be relieved if it were over, because I could go back to the security of my old life. I’d been dead wrong. Instead, it was living in hell. That’s what being thrown from paradise was. It had happened to me with my family and now with Nicu.
I sniffed as I plucked at a loose thread on the sleeve of my midnight-blue angora sweater.
My focus was shot.
My studies languished.
My heart was shattered into pieces
I felt bereft. He’d abandoned me, and I couldn’t blame him. I hadn’t made it easy to love me, but there was one thing I did blame him for—he’d lead me on with his constant stalkerish presence. He’d set me up to believe he’d stick around. After everything I put him through, I hadn’t anticipated he’d bail after one argument. Granted, it was an ugly one.
The point was that he’d left me. Now, if I could only get to acceptance…
Sofia broke into my thoughts. “Sheesh, I’m getting sad just looking at you,” she confessed.
Shit, I’d forgotten she was there. I gave a little shrug, and then moaned. Even my shrug reminded me of him.
“What can I say? I’m depressed.”
Lying on her belly, Sofia laid down the book she was reading on her bed and wagged a finger at me. “Come on, girl. Snap out of it.”
I gazed out into the street; night was descending rapidly, as it tended to in late October.
“You’re going to see him again. He’s going to show up to his brother’s wedding, and then you’ll kiss and make up.”
I groaned. “God, please don’t remind me. It’s only two weeks away.”
I thought I caught sight of a tall shadow under an awning, kitty-corner from my building, and my spine straightened. The man stepped into the light of a lamppost, then dashed across the street in the pouring rain. My shoulders dipped in disappointment. It wasn’t Nicu. Regret smacked me in the face.
Jerking my head away from the window, I scolded myself. I had to stop doing that. When was I going to get it through my thick head? The guy wasn’t coming back. I ached for him. Ached. For. Him. There was an empty feeling in my gut, and my heart felt like it’d been carved out with a knife, left to bleed out. I thought nothing could replicate the pain I’d experienced when my family broke up. I was dead wrong. This was a strong contender. A tightness wrapped around my throat, and tears pricked my eyes.
“There won’t be any making up or kissing. He ghosted me, Sofia. I can’t forgive that,” I sniffed. Especially after what he knows of my past.
Goddammit, I did not want to cry. I would not cry.
Sofia was at my side in an instant, wrapping her arm around my shoulder and cooing, “Everything will be okay, Jewel. I promise. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but you’ll get through this. And fuck him. Just fuck him, because if he was so quick to disappear over one little argument, then he doesn’t deserve you. What kind of man does that anyway? I mean, I’m Dominican, and we argue like we breathe. It’s an expression of love. You don’t ghost someone after one silly fight.”
I snuffled into my elbow. “I hate him. I hate him for giving me hope that someone would love me. I hate him for making me think he would always be there. I hate him for abandoning me, because that was the absolute worst thing he could’ve done. The one and only thing I could never forgive.”
I barked out a laugh of disbelief, embarrassed at how over-the-top ridiculous and self-pitying I sounded, but I couldn’t help myself. I’d fallen in love with the bastard, and he’d repaid me by betraying my love and repeating what my parents had done. He couldn’t have hurt me more if he’d tried.
Tears spilled out of the corners of my eyes, skating down my cheeks. I hadn’t cried when my father was handcuffed in front of me and pushed into the back of a police car. I hadn’t cried when I first saw him, haggard, on the other side of a glass partition at Rikers. I hadn’t cried when Mother dropped me off at school with a peck on the cheek and an awkward goodbye. I only cried after visiting my father alone.
