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We've exchanged a few heated texts, but I no longer get a high like I used to. I still don't have my wife with me, and anything that used to give me joy no longer does.
A few weeks ago, I had my assistant put Hugh's personal items into boxes. Not that I should give him anything after what he did, but I don't want the shit. Plus, he'll remember how he lost it all every time he looks at it. And to further humiliate him, I'll let him carry it out of the office in front of the staff and security.
But today is the day to close the book on him. So I get back to the L.A. apartment from surfing at the public beach and text him.
Me: Time's up, meet me at the office at nine.
Hugh: You don't order me around me.
Me: I think you need to understand the situation you've put yourself in.
Hugh: That's funny coming from you. From what I see on the news, you're nowhere near my daughter anymore.
Rage ignites deep in my soul, quickly flaring all around me. I pound out on the screen another text.
Me: It's this or a jail cell. Take your pick.
He doesn't respond, but my gut says he'll show up.
I shower, hating how I can only rinse off on the beach. I go into the closet and stare at the few items Blakely has here. As she requested, I sent her things to Apartment Thirteen, but not all of them. And she said nothing about the few items here, so I kept them.
I reach for the shirt she wore the day she got changed for the charity event. I've not allowed the cleaners to wash it. Every morning I come in here and I inhale her scent. Today's no different.
I put the material close to my nose, taking as deep a breath as possible and leaning against the door while closing my eyes. My insides quiver. I fight the urge to tell her not to worry about her vow and just come home.
The phone vibrates, and I glance at the screen.
Kalim: Blakely's interviews got canceled. We're going to fly back to L.A. later this afternoon. We'll land around 3:30.
My blood heats. I reread the text, contemplating if I should meet Blakely at the airport and try to convince her to come with me or not. It's the same conversation I have every time Kalim texts me that she's going to be landing. But, like always, I force myself not to do what I am dying to do.
One part of me wishes Blakely would get over our issues. The other part wonders if it's me who has to get past it. Maybe I just shouldn't worry about it. At least she'd be back with me. Yet something about her coming home, not forgiving me, and not accepting me for who I am and all of my faults the way she told me she would just seems wrong.
So I decide against it. If she's not going to hold up her vow, I'll always have it in the back of my mind that she really doesn't love me, and I'm not living like that.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to fill my lungs with fresh air, but it's just stale. I inhale another whiff of her scent on the top, and her beaming smile fills my mind.
The recurring debate plagues me.
Will she ever look at me like that again?
How can she claim to love me but not forgive me?
Were her feelings for me superficial? Have I been kidding myself all these months that she was the only woman on Earth who would never hold my faults against me?
She promised me. I didn't tell her to say those words. She said them of her own free will.
She didn't mean them.
Yes, she did. She's just being stubborn.
More heartache fills me, and it's more intense than I recall. They say time heals all wounds, but for me, time's not doing anything but making things worse. And I'm wondering how much more I can take.
Stop being a pussy.
I force myself to hang up the shirt, get dressed, and go to the office. I arrive an hour before Hugh and try to get lost in my work.
It's pointless.
