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I don’t know how long I stare at the scratch of his writing. Long enough for a coat of ice to secure itself around my heart.
I’d spent the earlier years of my life as cold as fucking stone. Numb to all feeling. Good and bad. It was better that way. Removed, you didn’t get hurt. Keeping people at a distance, they couldn’t hurt you. They couldn’t disappoint you.
Then Brooks happened.
He thawed me.
He opened me up to the promise of more. He offered me love and support and friendship.
I introduced him to heartbreak in the same way he plunged me headfirst into it.
We’ve spent the past few years drowning. Last night, I thought we’d finally hit the surface. But he’d just been tying concrete blocks to our feet, making certain I’d hit rock bottom this time.
I stand on autopilot when a soft strum of knuckles taps against my door. I shove my arms into a hotel robe, my hand still clutching his letter as I move toward the noise. I’m still tying the terry cloth around my body as I open the door, coming face-to-face with the person I’d least expected to see.
“Alex?”
“I just need to grab my shit,” he murmurs evenly, refusing to make eye contact.
“Uh, sure.” I step back to let him move past me.
I don’t move away from the door as he moves around the space we shared not twenty-four hours ago.
“It hurts like a bitch, doesn’t it?”
I look up at him blankly. “What?”
He looks how I feel. The bags under his eyes bulging with lack of sleep and clothes disheveled, he smells of booze.
“He left with his redhead,” he declares superciliously. “It hurts to be made the fool. I’m glad you got to experience it firsthand.”
His redhead.
The paper in my hand crumples in my fist.
Alex looks at it, then back at my face, a small smirk playing on his lips.
I drop my eyes, shame washing over me. “I’m sorry.”
It’s a weak apology, but it’s honest. I never meant to hurt Alex. Up until I came face-to-face with Brooks again, we were happy. We’d spent a year building a life, and I threw it away for someone who discarded me the first moment he could.
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” I tell him.
He stares at me, his carelessly packed duffel held comfortably in his hand.
“Did you fuck him?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
His bottom lip tips out. “Then you meant for it to happen, Henley. When you step over that line, it’s thought out.”
He walks past me, and I place my hand on his forearm without thought.
“You’re wrong,” I tell him, unsure why I continue to speak. “That’s the bigger problem. I didn’t even think about you,” I admit, a tear running down my face. “I don’t say that to hurt you, but as an explanation. Brooks owns a part of me that consumes me when I’m with him.”
He watches the tear track down my cheek. “Maybe do the world a favor then, Henley. Until you work out whatever the fuck you and Brooks are, don’t involve yourself with anyone else. It’s not fucking fair.”
