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Hey Delaney
Erase.
It was nice seeing you today
Erase.
You broke my heart and I hate you for it ... but I can't stop fucking thinking about you
Erase.
I toss my phone onto the bed next to me, a spot where no one has ever slept. Rubbing the heels of my palms into my eyes, I attempt to push the vision of her out of my head. Her face is exactly how I remember it. From her warm brown eyes to her soft arched lips, every part looked exactly like it did before. When she loved me back.
My phone vibrates against the bed with a muffled tone. I guess Carina wasn't a fan of being left on read. Except when I pick up my phone to check the notification, it isn't Carina at all. It's Delaney. The last message I erased didn't get erased at all, and she just replied to it.
"Did you see who was here?" I ask Bryn while we stack the tables into the back storage room. It's a stupid question that I know the answer to, considering he was at the table with her.
"Colton." That's all she says, her eyebrows shooting into her perfectly coiffed hair. She was there for the beginning of our love story and witnessed the crash and burn of it all. And now, she will be here to witness whatever happens next.
"Bryn, close your mouth. you're catching flies." Her teeth click shut but her eyebrows refuse to come back to their rightful spot.
"Why didn't you tell me he was coming?"
"Don't you think it's pretty obvious why I didn't? I didn't know! What was I supposed to do, yell it across the table to you? Besides, he was on a date with Carina, I was trying to avoid drawing attention to the fact I knew he was here."
"Well you did a great job, I was blindsided and now we are fighting. You should have sent up smoke signals or something. I can't believe he washere. Did you see how good he looked?" She pauses, "you don't have to answer that, pretend I didn't ask."
"As much as I hate to admit it, he looked better than he did when we were kids." My eyes drift to the wall where I can mentally project what he looked like, rebuilding him from his new beard to his evergreen eyes. My tongue grazes my lips, lost in a daydream of what his lips might feel like now that they are attached to the man he has become. Would the tingles run down my spine like they did when we were teenagers locking lips for the first time? Would I feel my pulse quicken under my skin with his touch? Would the anger in him boil over and light the world on fire around me?
" ... mad I missed it! Warn a girl next time." I catch the last part of whatever Bryn is saying, my brain clouded in Colton Reeve fog, something I haven't had in years.
"I'm still trying to process it too, ya know. I haven't seen him since everything happened. And we never spoke after. Then he turns up at my shop with my friend. I'm sure he has a colorful set of words he wants to shout at my face. He must have snug out midway through because I didn't see him leave." Not that I was looking for him or anything. Definitely not.
"No doubt he saw you," Bryn says firmly, no question in her tone, and her eyes wander anywhere but to mine. She's hiding something, I know all of her tells after the years we have been friends.
"Spill it woman," I demand, moving closer to her, forcing her eyes to meet mine and I can see the lies dancing behind her irises.
"I might have confronted him in the bathroom ... alittle."
My head shakes as her truth sinks in. "What did you say to him?"
"Just to keep his distance. He asked how you are," she waits to finish her sentence, considering how to tell me all of what happened.
"I'm surprised he even gives a shit," I say, pouring myself a glass of lemonade and wishing I had put alcohol in it after all.
He saw me and bolted, abandoning Carina and whatever promises he made to her about their date. All because he would rather sabotage that relationship over being in the same room as me. Not that I can blame him, but after all these years, part of me hoped that he had healed. Maybe that saying about time healing all wounds isn't true. Some wounds use time to fester and infect, growing deeper under the skin where no amount of healing can reach them.
Up until tonight, I thought the pain from losing Colton was a distant memory. Yet the moment I saw him, the roots of it tangled around my bones, feeding off my veins and growing beneath the surface. Even without seeing the light of day, the roots spread throughout my body. And all at once, they were ripping through my skin to greet Colton Reeve. It was me who tore him apart before, but now it's the memory of us that is shredding through me like thorns. The pain in full bloom with his presence.
"The same could be said about you ... " Bryn addresses the elephant in the room, acknowledging how I got lost in myself thinking about him. "What do we tell Carina?" Thankfully Carina didn't hang around when the event ended, her confusion over why her date vanished ruined her evening.
"I don't think we need to tell her anything. Colton is from my past."
"Umm, if I remember correctly, he isn't just some random ex, he was the love of your teenage life. Not to mention you broke his heart into a million tiny pieces. And now he is back and avoiding you like you are going to give him herpes. I think we should at least tell her he's your ex."
"BRYN!"
"What! I didn't say youhaveherpes, just that he probably doesn't want to get them from you."
