AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Hey, baby girl,” he answered excitedly. I could tell from the deep baritone voices in the background that he was with his friends. “I miss you. Are you still at the cemetery?”
My stomach tightened. “I am,” I crooked.
“You sound sad. Is everything okay, baby?”
Tears prickled my eyes, pushing the words I’d managed to muster down my throat. I needed to cry. I would explode if I didn’t let it all out. “Are you engaged?”
He laughed. Minutes ago, I would have found his laughter so cute and intoxicating that I would have laughed back. Right now, all I wanted was for what she’d told me to be a lie.
“Babe, are you drunk?” He wasn’t laughing anymore. Still, I could hear the humor in his voice. “If I had a fiancée, that would be you. Don’t you think so?” He paused.
“Baby, you don’t think I’m cheating on you. Do you?”
No, I don’t. I’m sorry I even asked. I must have been out of my mind.
I’d always been that girl in our relationship. The one who would look the other way if it meant she didn’t get hurt. I just couldn’t be that girl when there was a lump in my throat, making it impossible for me to gulp down enough air to stay alive.
“Someone called.” I closed my eyes and inhaled the smell of freshly cut grass. “She called me a cunt. She said I was sleeping with her fiancé and you are getting married a month from now. Do you know what’s funny?”
“What?” The humor in his voice was gone now.
I tore my eyes open and stared at the gloomy sky. Dark clouds covered the sun, leaving only a dim yellow glow behind. “Her fiancé’s name is Aaron Turner. Same name as you, babe. What are the odds of that?”
I’d finished talking, but Aaron was quiet.
“You’re not the Aaron she’s marrying, are you?”
He was still quiet.
“Babe? Tell me you’re not that Aaron and she lied to me. I want to hear you say it.”
He breathed. “I’m sorry, baby. I love you, okay? I just don’t think we're a good long-term match.”
I raked my fingers through my hair. My tears were pouring out now, hot on my skin and salty on my tongue. “You’ve lied to me for three years.”
“No, babe. Listen, okay?”
I bit my tongue and laughed bitterly. Nothing he said would change anything, but maybe I could get a bit of closure hearing his excuses. “I met Victoria on a trip eight months ago.”
Her name is Victoria.
“You ditched me—three years—for a woman you met eight months ago.”
“I didn’t mean for this to happen, babe. We just… It was love at first sight.”
My hands curled into fists, the sadness in my stomach burning into a flame of fury. “Did you ever love me?”
“I did, baby. I still do… I just...”
“You just lied to me,” I broke in, cutting him off. “I’m breaking up with you. Obviously. Let’s never talk again.”
I hung up and brought the phone between my thighs. It was coated with sweat despite the icy shivers shooting down my spine. I craned my head to my mother’s headstone and read the sentence carved on it:Here lies Elena Crux, a beloved mother.
If I lived like her, tucked away in the darkness of my broken heart, what would be written on my grave when I died? At least Mom had me, but I had no one.
I swallowed, pushing the knot in my chest further into my stomach as I stood up. Dusting off dirt from my butt, I forced a smile at Mom’s grave before walking away.
Time rolled by very quickly, and by the time my calves started to ache, a crescent moon was already illuminating the pitch-black sky, a thousand stars shimmering around it.
