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At some point, I must fall asleep, because I wake up some time later to dark skies outside my window and the creases of my pillowcase on my cheek. My phone is still clutched in my hand, but the line has been disconnected.
I guess she hung up the call.
Everything hurts.
My eyes are sealed shut from crying, my body bone-weary from the sobs that have wracked through it. I'm sleep-deprived and dehydrated, exhausted beyond the realm of anything I've ever known before. All I've done for over a week is hide in my bed and cry.
It's been like a purging of all my pain. An exorcism of sorts, I guess. Every piece of emotional baggage I've been dragging behind me for years has been spilled all over the floor. And it's forced me to confront every demon inside of me, every skeleton in my closet, every monster that hides underneath my bed.
Because Cole was right.
I don't trust him.
But the tragic thing is, he's never done anything to make me feel that way. He's never, not once, given me reason to doubt him. And yet, it's all I've done for six years.
I should have known back then that he'd have understood what happened to me, if only I'd had the courage to tell him. I should have trusted in the goodness of his heart not to turn his back on me because a man much older than I am took advantage of my naivety.
But the person I looked up to most in the world brainwashed me into thinking the sexual assault was my fault. It's hard to see clarity when your father betrays you like that. It steals you of all that you thought you knew about the world. It makes you question everything, makes you doubt everyone.
Even those you love the most.
So, when my daddy told me Cole wouldn't want me anymore after what I'd done, I believed him.
But I was younger then. Innocent. I hadn't seen enough of the world to know not to take everything at face value, didn't have enough experience to make my own mind up on things of such seriousness.
For that, I can forgive myself.
But I'm not sure I can do the same this time around, for so easily believing him capable of doing something so damaging to me.
Because I'm older now—wiser, even, though not by much. I've experienced enough of life to know better than to mindlessly believe the black and white and not look deeper into the gray space.
Thing is, after I saw that photo and instantly came to the conclusion that Cole was the person to leak it, I didn't stop for a single second to consider that maybe there was more to it than that. I didn't consider how little sense it would make for Cole to be the person responsible. How out of character it would be.
If I'd just let myself think for a moment, I'd have realized that his heart is too pure to do something like that. I'd have remembered that he loves me, cherishes me, worships me at times. I'd have recalled how supportive he's been of all my eating difficulties and how much he's helped me with them. But most importantly, I'd have appreciated how understanding he'd been when I told him what happened to me, how he'd believed me without question.
Maybe if I'd taken that moment to think, I'd have extended him the same courtesy.
At the very least, I should have given him a chance to explain.
But I did neither.
Even when Leighton told me it couldn't possibly be Cole, I was adamant that it was. She trusted him when I didn't.
Regret tugs heavy at my heart as I roll over in bed, burying my swollen face in the cold side of the pillow.
I miss him. God, I miss him so much. Everything feels wrong without him.Who even am I without him?
It's terrifying, looking into the future and not seeing Cole, imagining a life without him, meeting a man who doesn't smell like pine wood and smoke, and starting a family with children who don't look like the perfect cross between Cole and me.
The thought guts me.
Even in the six years we were apart, I didn't let my thoughts stray to ones like these. Because I would never have been able to dig myself out of the hole of devastation if I did. So, I guess it became a form of self-protection to simply ignore the truth.
But maybe if I'd forced myself to face it back then, if I'd adjusted to the reality of life, it wouldn't be so damn hard to cope with it now.
We can't be together anymore.
I wasn't prepared for those words to come out of his mouth. My heart wasn't strong enough to withstand the weight of them, my soul too weak to deal with the irrefutable verity of a life without him.
