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“Oh, I won’t.” I chuckle as she makes her way down the stairs and to her car.
As I watch her car make its way down the driveway, I try to imagine what it will be like to see Marissa again for the first time since I left. My heart broke the night I left Magnolia without a word, but I knew Marissa needed time to think about how she felt about me and if she was willing to give us a real chance. I told her how much I loved her, and I plan on loving her for the rest of my life. I know staying here and fighting for our love would have been easier, but she needed to make that decision on her own.
“Now it’s my turn to take a leap of faith,” I mumble, thrusting the black box into my pocket and heading back inside.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
MARISSA
“Can this week get any weirder?” I mumble as I prop my feet up on the edge of my desk, leaning back slightly in my chair, and put my hands behind my head.
I’ve spent the last two weeks training Campbell, which wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. He and I have history. There’s no denying it. I’m pretty sure Colt and Dolores expected me to throw a fit and demand they fire him, but what happened between Campbell and me is in the past. Does it still sting a little that he made a fool out of me in high school? Of course, it does, but I don’t hold it against him.
Things are going to be awkward for a while, especially with everyone wanting to see how we’re going to act around each other, but after a few days, they’ll find some other gossip to pay attention to. Hopefully, it’s not about Finn and my… Hell, I still haven’t been able to think about what happened between Finn and me. Did we break up? Were we even together in the first place? It seems I keep coming up with more questions than answers as more time passes.
My skin flushes as memories of the last night we spent together play through my mind on a movie reel. It’s awakened a need for him that is both overwhelming and frightening all at once. I’ve never connected with another man in the way I connect with him, and I probably never will. After a few days, I realized I made a mistake and that I had to find a way to explain my reservations to Finn, but instead of picking up the phone like a normal person, I headed to Tallywackers, hoping to catch him. But when I got there, the place was slammed. Shelly told me that Finn had headed back to Texas, and my heart shattered. Now, just thinking about him feels like the entire world is crashing down around me. I want to rage against anything and anyone standing in my way, but I know this one is on me. I fooled myself into believing Finn would understand how I feel, but I was wrong.
I believed that this time would be different. I thought that he wouldn’t leave me for something better. That even if he had to go back to Texas, he’d still include me in his life.
I’ve run every different scenario in my head. That it was last minute. Maybe he got called back to NASA for some super-secret project. Maybe that is why he didn’t call. I mean, how could he explain having to leave without giving some details? But none of those possibilities stop the soul-deep ache in my heart from festering when I’m alone, slowly consuming me until there isn’t anything left but pain.
My only saving grace has been training Campbell and the fact that Colt spends less time at work now that he and Sutton are together. I’m happy for them, really, but I can’t stand seeing the smile on their faces, knowing I’ll never have that again.
“It’s not like it matters to Finn, anyway,” I whisper to myself, the pain of what happened the last time we saw each other still fresh.
No matter what the reason, Finn still decided to leave without a word. He could have texted me from the airport or, hell, even sent an email. But instead, once again, someone I care about has left me without a word, and I’m left wondering if he ever cared for me in the first place.
“You all right, Marissa?” Campbell asks skeptically as he pokes his head into my office. His eyebrows are pulled down in concern.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” I mumble, not wanting to have this conversation with him. Hell, I don’t want to have this conversation with anyone at all because I don’t think my heart could take it. “What can I do for you?”
“I just wanted to talk to you for a few minutes.”
I know that tone of voice, and I don’t like it at all.Please, someone, shoot me now.
“Sure,” I respond when I really meanno fucking way.
I don’t want to have this conversation with him right now. I wanted to have time to prepare, to get my emotions and mind in sync before taking a trip down memory lane. There’s no way he’s missed the tension in the station every time he walks into a room, or the way people clam up when he’s around. It’s only natural that he wants to get things out in the open sooner rather than later, but I really don’t want to. At least not until I have a few days to process. He owes me that much, right?
“We need to talk.”
“About?” I pull my feet off my desk and sit up, trying to keep the panic bubbling to the surface from breaking free.
“Don’t play dumb with me, Rissa.”
“First, don’t call me that. You lost the right to call me anything besides my legal name the moment you proposed to Emmeline in front of the entire senior class,” I snap back, instantly regretting it.
Reminding Campbell about how badly he hurt me won’t solve anything. Yeah, his actions turned me into the woman I am today, but not everything is completely his fault. I told him everything that happened was water under the bridge, and I meant that, but he doesn’t know me anymore. We haven’t seen or spoken to each other since graduation. The familiarity we used to share is gone.
If I don’t get control of my emotions, he’s going to start thinking I still have feelings for him when I don’t. But how do you explain to someone, who was once your everything, that it’s his fault you’re the way you are? He’s the reason I can’t open myself up to Finn, that I have probably lost the only person besides him that I’ve ever loved. That my life didn’t turn out how I wanted it to because of his selfishness. That I’m content with how my life has turned out, but I can’t feel any sort of happiness because it all seems pointless without Finn by my side.
“Yeah, and look where that got me,” Campbell snaps back.
There’s a snide remark on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it down the moment our eyes lock. The pain of what happened between him and Emmeline is written all over his face. Their marriage may have ruined all my hopes and dreams for the future, but there isn’t a doubt in my mind that Campbell loved her with his entire heart and soul, or he wouldn’t have married her. He wouldn’t have slept with her if he didn’t, no matter what anyone said. Even though things didn’t work out between the two of us, I know what he’s feeling right now. Hell, it’s probably a million times worse because they were married and had a child together.
Back then, our biggest concern was what we were going to do on a Friday night: go to the drive-in or cow tipping. There was a time when Campbell meant everything to me. He was the sun, moon, and stars all wrapped into one, but at some point, he decided I wasn’t enough.
I’ve mended my broken heart the best I could, but I never really knew why. Yeah, he gave me a list of reasons why he was breaking up with me, but then, only a few months later, he was with someone else, married, and had a son on the way. And here I am, still that devastated little girl who no longer had the life she dreamed of.
