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Apparently, so did he.
“Peter?” I answered the second my phone rang from beside my laptop. My tone was frantic and worried, like there was no reason he'd call unless something was wrong.
What other reason was there, especially when I’d already gone with Dad to collect my stuff?
“Hey, Lennon,” he said in a disgruntled monotone, as if calling were a boring chore he didn't want to do.
“Hey,” I replied, narrowing my eyes with immediate suspicion.
Then … he said nothing. The only sound I heard from his end were the even, timely breaths, blasting the speaker with force and fury. I stared ahead at the computer screen, the squiggly lines of my typed edits blurring together, and I waited. Wiggling the mouse from side to side, tapping lightly against the space bar, but not pressing … just fidgeting and waiting.
Finally, with a forlorn, prolonged sigh, he said, “I have beensomad at you.”
“I know,” I replied quietly, dropping my gaze to my tapping pointer finger.
“No, I mean …” Another blast of air against the speaker. “I have never been so angry and disgusted with someone before. Not someone I was with anyway. I …fuck. I would never hit a woman, but, dammit, Lennon, I could've. I imagined it, and I'm not saying I'm proud of it, but …”
My teeth scraped over my bottom lip before I replied, “I get it.”
“You don't though.” He snickered, laughing with a heavy dose of bitterness. “You not only cheated on me, Lennon, but you also did it with the one guy I’d asked you not to see. You knew I didn't like him, you knew I didn't trust him, but you did itanyway. So, now, I've spent the past four days realizing that, holy shit, it wasyouI was wrong to trust.”
A pang of sour disgust struck my gut, and I slumped deeper into my desk chair. Hiding from the shame destined to find me anyway.
“I don't know what else to say, Peter,” I whispered, sounding pathetic and sorry and weak. “You didn’t ask for this, and I’m—”
“Tell me you're done with him.”
Startled, I shot my gaze up to stare at the blurry computer screen. “What?”
Peter groaned, an aggravated sound. “Tell me you're not going to see him again, Lennon. Tell me it's over.”
Four days had passed since I had kissed Dylan, four days since I had dropped to my knees for him and ruined my relationship with Peter. I had spent the days in between wallowing in the sludgy depths of everything I'd done wrong and accepting that my nice relationship with a good, normal man was finished. I wasn't proud of what I'd done, and Peter hadn’t deserved an ending like that, but it had happened for a reason. Whether that reason was a good one was beside the point. The point was, what I had with Peter was over, and I was slowly starting to get used to being alone again.
I’d never expected him to call though.
I’d never expected him to want me back.
How the hell could he want me back?
“I-I …”
“I have tried to accept that we're done,” he went on, cutting me off with his frantic, desperate pleading. “But if there is anything left of us to build on, I need to fight for it. I love you too much to just let it go that easily.”
He loves me?
My eyes slammed shut against the sight of my computer, now dark and asleep.
God, he loves me…
“Peter …”
“Just tell me you’re done with him, Lennon. That's all I need to hear, and I'll fight for this. But you have to tell me.”
I dropped my forehead to my open palm, regret blazing a trail through my throbbing veins. “I want to, Peter, but …”
“But what?”
“I can’t,” I replied, barely audible above the sound of his breath.
