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After the first year, Mark began to lose interest in me. It first started as nights away with his friends, a couple times a week, to long stretches where Mark had plans every night, with no space for me. “You don’t drink, Shiloh. There’s nothing worse than being sober around a bunch of drunk people,” he would say. I always told him I could come, get a soda or something, but he always found an excuse for me not to go.
“You don’t know Colby. It would be weird.”
“Your bedtime is nine-thirty, we’ll be out until at least two.”
“You won’t have fun.”
I never met his friends. I never met his parents. Summer did her own sleuthing, and he didn’t have a good reason, like a girlfriend or a secret double life.
He just didn’t want to incorporate me into his life.
There would be stretches of days he wouldn’t call me, just to blow up my phone when I didn’t answer him, the exact minute I made the decision to let him go. The affection and sex came and went with his moods. If he felt like he was losing me, he held my hand, put an arm around me, showed me the smallest bit of attention. Any crumbs he gave me, I licked them up and panted for more.
When we had sex, I always consented, but there were lots of nights I slept over that I cried myself to sleep because I felt used. I’ve always enjoyed sex, but it became mechanical and quick, with nothing in it for me.
That man stole my spark. My sister was so worried.
“I know we didn’t find anything. Trust me, welooked,” Summer said as we sat on the couch, watchingA Walk to Rememberfor the umpteenth time. “But you should dump him.”
I didn’t because I was hopelessly in love with him.
So, the nights he went out, I picked up extra shifts, saved my money. Rory and I would snuggle when Mark didn’t touch me.
The night Rory died changed everything.
We had just gotten home from the vet, and I was hysterical, crying in my sister’s arms as our roommates circled me. Kelsey and Peyton had just moved in, but were attached to Rory in the short time they knew him. They knew how much that dog meant to me.
Mark didn’t. Or he didn’t care.
Instead, he kept plans with a friend he hadn’t seen since college, when I was obviously in pain and grieving.
It was the fatal wound to our bleeding-out relationship.
I believe that everything happens for a reason and that Rory left the world so I could finally gather the courage to break it off permanently.
When I ignored his calls for a week, he showed up and apologized profusely, smothered my face with kisses and dried my tears.
“Give me a chance,” he asked, and I shook my head. He always did this, and I refused to fall for it this time. He knew I had put in my two weeks, that I was moving to Goldheart to take care of my grandfather.
“No, I can’t,” I said. “You don’t love me. I’m moving anyway.”
“I’m here because I love you.”
He knew I would fall for that, and he was right.
“I will be in Goldheart for six months. We can discuss it when I get back.”
“Okay,” he had said, his face shining bright.
Mark now called and tried more than he ever did in the time we were together.
I hoped he would lose interest after I moved, that he would finally let me go.
He never loved me. He loved my attention. But he still did things like this. What I wouldn’t have given for a bouquet of flowers right after Rory died. I would still be driving to Sacramento every chance I got.
I would still be in love with him.
I’ve been touching the blossoms for minutes when my grandfather turned his head.
