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A knock on my door pulled me out of my head, and I glanced up at it like the devil himself was on the other side.I didn’t know if I could face her yet.I knew I couldn’t hide forever, but I thought I’d get a little longer than an hour.
“Yeah,” I called out.
“Dad?”The handle jiggled.“Can I come in?”
I opened my laptop so at least it looked like I might’ve been working and then walked over to the door.When I opened it, Jenna was standing there in her sweats and tank top, her wet hair tied up in a top knot.I glanced down the hall behind her.
“Where’s Sadie?”
Jenna frowned.“She left almost an hour ago.Said she got a call from her brother or something.She seemed upset, so I might go over there tonight instead of staying here.”
“Okay.”It was all I could say, even though I was dying to ask her for every tidbit of how Sadie had looked or what she’d said.
Jenna got up on her tiptoes and placed a kiss on my cheek.“Love you, Dad.Don’t work too much tonight, okay.I’ll be back in the morning.”
She walked out without a backward glance, and I went back to my desk, pulled my scotch out of the bottom drawer, and poured three fingers into a highball glass.
If there was ever a time to get shit-faced and drown your sorrows, this was it.
Never fall in love
SADIE
I was led to believe you couldn’t survive without a heart, but I was proving that wrong.My heart was still sitting shattered in Travis’s kitchen and had been for a week now, and it hadn’t killed me yet—even if I felt like I was dying.My chest was heavy, it hurt to breathe, and I’d lost all motivation to do absolutely anything but go to work and come home.Jenna came over that night, and I managed to get her to leave without letting her see me by convincing her I was sick.It wasn’t a total lie.I was so upset, I threw up because I was crying so hard.I called in sick to work on Monday, but then decided the distraction might do me some good.
It had been less than effective.
I had a new motto for life.Never fall in love; it only led to a broken heart.
My phone chimed with a text alert, but I already knew who it was.Jenna had been texting me regularly, and I knew she was worried about me, but I could barely look at her right now.Not only did I feel massively guilty about what I’d done, but I also hated that the one person I wished I could spill everything to and cry my eyes out with was her when I couldn’t tell her a fucking thing.
So I ignored the text.
Unfortunately I couldn’t ignore the pounding on my door fifteen minutes later.I wasn’t surprised when I opened it to see Jenna’s face filled with worry.One look at me and it morphed into fierce and protective.
“Whose ass am I kicking for breaking your heart?”
I thought I’d cried out all my tears, but at her question, a sob escaped and more tears came pouring out of my eyes.She walked in and pulled me into her arms.
“I’m a horrible friend,” she mumbled.“I didn’t even know you were seeing someone.Was it that one-night stand guy who had you all twisted up a while back?”
The tears fell harder, my entire chest heaving from my sobs.Somehow, Jenna moved me toward the couch and then pulled my head down to her lap where I cried, releasing all the emotions that had haunted me relentlessly for a week.She ran her fingers soothingly through my hair, but didn’t say anything.She didn’t try to make it better, and I loved her all the more for it.
Honestly, I didn’t know if there was a way to make this better.
I’d never felt for anyone the way I felt for Travis.
Once the tears finally subsided and I was left with just small hiccups, she broke the silence.“What happened?”Her voice was soft and gentle, not accusing or angry that I didn’t tell her when we’d never kept secrets from each other.
I sat up and grabbed a tissue from my coffee table, blowing my nose and trying to buy myself time.I adjusted so I was sitting cross-legged on the couch next to her, my gaze locked on my hands fidgeting with the throw blanket on my couch.
“It wasn’t supposed to be anything serious.It was just one night, but then that one night turned into nearly every night for the past month.You were finishing your internship and dealing with your mom.I didn’t want to mention it because it was just supposed to be a fling.”
When I didn’t continue, she said, “A fling doesn’t make you cry like this.You weren’t even this upset when you broke up with Greg, and you guys dated for over a year.”
I nodded because I couldn’t deny that she was right, but I wasn’t sure what else to say about it.
So instead I went with the simple and painful truth.“I fell in love with him.”
