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“Why didn’t you just tell me the truth? I knew you were lying anyway,” Matt says.
“So why did you keep on asking then?”
“Because I wanted to hear you admit it. I have to say, it made me happy for you, man, seeing you when you first walked in with Ivy. Your entire face lit up when you were staring at her, and she looked at you like you hung the damn moon.” Matt shook his head. “Leave it to you to say something so stupid, you fuck up a good thing with two simple words.”
Yeah. Leave it to me to fuck it all up with two words. Just Ivy.
The woman I’m in love with.
Just Ivy.
The woman I hurt.
The woman I failed.
Chapter 15
Ivy
Two weeks later
We’re still on for lunch, right?”
Sighing, I check my schedule and see that my lunch hour is completely free. How unfortunate. I’ve become so unsocial it’s painful. “I don’t know if I’m up to it, Wendy,” I start, but she cuts me off with an irritated snort.
“Screw that business, girlfriend. I’m taking you out to lunch whether you like it or not. We’re going to that sushi place you love, we’re going to order not one but two of our favorite rolls, and then we’re going to devour them until we feel like we’re going to burst. What do you say?”
Sounds like a nightmare. But I can’t say that to Wendy. She’s my best friend and she’s only trying to cheer me up after that fiasco of a so-called relationship with Archer. “Fine. Want me to meet you there?”
“Yeah, if you don’t mind. Say around twelve-thirty?”
“That should work.” Luckily enough, Sharon doesn’t mind if my lunch hour is flexible, as long as she can get a hold of me whenever she needs me. The more I’ve worked with her, the more I enjoy it.
She didn’t ask questions about the Archer experience either.I forwarded her pictures for my online portfolio, she expressed her pleasure with the interior design I came up with, and that was that. Nothing else was said.
Just the way I prefer it. Talking about Archer—heck, even thinking his name—hurts too much.
“See you then.” Wendy pauses, and I clutch the phone tight, scared of what she might say. “Chin up, okay, hon? Don’t let this get you down. He’s just a man, after all.”
“Right, just a man,” I say weakly, wondering if she realizes she’s mirroring the same hurtful thing he said about me.
Just Ivy... she doesn’t count.
If he walked into the room right now, I’d probably slug him in that too-pretty face of his. Let’s see if he would refer to me asjust Ivythen.
God, I miss him. I want him back—I’m in love with him. But I can’t forgive him for saying what he did to Matt. Doesn’t help that I spoke to my brother, and he told me some story Archer had spun to him as well. Denying that we were together, swearing up and down nothing was going on between us. Something about a picture Gage saw online of the two of us together, smiling at each other like we’re in love.
Archer didn’t bother to tell me about that picture either.
He lied to everyone. He lied to me. My heart still aches.
But would I ever get over him? I really, really hope so.
Someday.
I throw myself into my work because it’s the only thing that keeps my mind occupied and off my troubles. I move through my days like some sort of ghost. Functioning, able to complete my tasks, meet with clients, answer the phone, only to go home and crawl into bed. Watch sappy movies and cry into my pillow, wishing I wasn’t alone.
I am a pitiful, horrible wreck.
