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Seeley had always liked the classics. Sinatra, Martin, Crosby. I’d always found it so charming. And after things went south with us, I couldn’t listen to any of their music without pain.
Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the knob and pushed the door open.
Seeley’s room was just very much… him.
Dark, yet classic and classy.
The walls were a deep gray color. The bedding and bed itself were black.
The man himself was sitting off the side of the bed in black jeans and a black tee, staring off at the wall, lost in his thoughts.
“Fuck off,” he hissed, sensing someone there. When he didn’t hear the door close again, his head looked over.
“Hey,” I said, since it was all that came to mind.
“What are you doing here?”
I didn’t want to tell him the whole truth, not yet.
“I don’t like how we left things,” I told him, moving inward, and pushing the door closed behind me.
“There’s not much to like about that,” he agreed, gaze sliding away. “But what good does hashing shit up yet again do?” he asked.
“Maybe,” I said, moving forward toward him, pulled closer by the deep unhappiness that was hanging in the air around him, a darkness that threatened to envelop me as well. “Maybe we don’t need to hash anything up anymore,” I said, sitting down on the mattress beside him.
“All we have is history. What else is there to bring up?”
I didn’t know what was the right thing to say right then.
All I knew was what was the truth, so that’s what I said.
“I miss you.”
“Ama… don’t,” Seeley pleaded, voice as tense as his jaw, as his hand curled into a tight fist.
“I do, though,” I told him. “I always have. I think I just got better at pretending I didn’t. But each time something really good or interesting happened, some part of me still wanted to pick up a phone and call.”
“Why didn’t you?” he asked.
Yeah, he’d been the one to cut off contact. But in my heart of hearts, I knew that if I’d actually reached out to him, he would have answered. He’d been betting on my stubbornness and my pride winning out. He’d always been a better gambler than I was.
“Because I was hurt. And then when I couldn’t take the hurt anymore, I was angry. Angry was a lot easier,” I admitted.
“But no less toxic,” he agreed.
“No,” I said, nodding even though he wasn’t looking at me. “And I think, to an extent, I kept piling onto that anger when I started to feel the flames of it die out, until I created this elaborate, ever-burning fire fed with small slivers of truth and a whole heaping helping of made-up bullshit.”
“What kind of made-up bullshit?”
“About being angry about how you turned out, or about your so-called wasted potential. Your path might not have been my choice, but it was never my place to judge it.
“And, clearly, this was what was right for you. You have built a family for yourself here. They all love you. You deserve that. Hell, I’m envious of that,” I admitted. “I’m very much alone. I have nobody,” I added, feeling the ache of it, sharp and piercing, making it hard to breathe. I tried not to focus on it for this very reason. “No one to open Christmas presents with. No one to kiss at midnight. No one to share the highs and lows with.”
“You were supposed to find somebody,” Seeley said.
“What?”
“You were supposed to find somebody. Someone like you. Smart. Driven. On the same path. You weren’t supposed to be alone. You were meant to find someone.”
