AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ll get out of your hair,” I mumbled, and walked out of her house. She trailed after me, slamming the door behind me. It made me shudder with anger and regret, the two emotions warring in me.
I wanted to turn back around and knock on the door, apologize for every slight, imagined and otherwise, because I didn’t want to lose her and the babies. But I didn’t know how to let go of my pride, how to stop being angry that she believed Toby, of all people.
He’d lied to her. Cheated on her. Broke her heart.
But yet, she still believed him. Maybe she wasn’t over him at all, and all of this was for nothing.
I deserved better.
I left my car parked in front of Katie’s building and walked down the street to get some air and cool down my temper. I heard some blues music coming from a dive bar, neon signs blinking from above the entrance. I went in, almost zombie like.
There was smoke hanging in the air, the mirrors behind the bar milky from years of dust. The glasses were dirty, too, but I didn’t care. As long as there was booze in it, I would have drank out of a shoe.
A woman ogled me from the far end of the bar. Redhead, short skirt, smudged mascara. Not my type even if I had been in the mood. It wasn’t a place where I normally hung out, so I didn’t have to worry about running into anyone I knew. I had three, four drinks before I couldn’t take any more of the cheap whiskey that they called top-shelf in the place.
“You’re in a real mood,” the redhead said, sticking her nose in the air after asking me to buy her a drink. I hadn’t responded.
She was right. I was definitely in a mood. And all I could think about was Katie. I called my driver to take me home, too drunk to drive, not drunk enough to still feel. I’d have to get himto pick up my car in the morning. ’I didn’t care if I ended up getting a parking ticket.
In the back of the car on the way home, I looked out the window, wishing I had had that last whiskey to drive Katie out of my mind.Fuck. I missed her. I’d missed her all week, and the only time we’d gotten to talk, we’d argued.
I didn’t know what to do to make things better. I didn’t know how to change to be what she wanted. Wasn’t I good enough?
She kept testing me. She kept pushing me away, and maybe that was because she didn’t want me at all.
Chapter 23
Katie
Icried the whole night after Adam left, lying in a fetal position on my bed. I called Addie first thing the next morning, my face feeling puffy and hot.
“I need you,” I said to her as soon as she answered, my voice cracking.
“I’ll be right over,” she said, and when she arrived, I just called from my bed to tell her to come in.
She walked into my bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed. “What happened?”
I rolled over, sniffling. “Adam and I broke up.”
Addie’s eyes widened. “No,” she whispered.
I nodded, tears pooling in my eyes again. “Yes. He came over and wanted to know why I hadn’t answered his calls, and he was so mad at me...” I trailed off, crying again, and Addie huffed out a breath and got under the covers with me.
“It’s gonna be okay, Katie. He’s just upset right now. He’ll come around.”
“No, he won’t,” I wailed, taking a moment to cry into Addie’s neck until I finally calmed down. “He won’t come around because there’s nothing to come around to,” I insisted.
“You’re not making sense, Katie,” she said hesitantly. “You really care about Adam. You were so happy when he was excited about the twins?—”
“But everything’s different now. You don’t understand, Addie. He wants the twins, but he doesn’t want me. Do you know what it’s like being in love with a man who doesn’t want you?”
“All the way through high school,” Addie said dryly, and I couldn’t help but choke out a laugh.
“I’m sorry,” I told her, and she just shook her head.
“That was then, this is now,” she said. “But I really don’t think it’s that Adam doesn’t want you.”
“He didn’t deny anything that Toby said, Addie,” I continued. “He didn’t deny it, just got defensive. So does that mean it’s true? I’m so confused.”
