All the air left my lungs. This is exactly why my mom said I shouldn’t eavesdrop because sometimes you hear things you wish you hadn’t. I stumbled back a step and put my back to the wall, needing some support to keep upright, putting my hand on my heart.
Why wouldn’t he want me to tell him? My mind screamed that there was only one logical explanation: he doesn’t feel the same way.
Chapter 6
I finally pushed off the wall and went to the bathroom. I checked each stall and when I confirmed that they were all empty, I immediately broke down. I looked in the mirror at the tears falling down my cheeks and started to hate my heart a little bit. What’s the point in loving someone who doesn’t love you back? Why did I ever believe that letting my heart make the decision about him was a good idea?
I had so many questions. Like why was Carson playing me, because that’s what this is. He knows I have strong feelings for him and he doesn’t feel the same, yet he’s still trying to stay with me? Why would he say all those sweet things and worry about if I was going to go with him when he goes to med school or not? Why would he say he always wants me in his arms if he didn’t mean it? Why would he make me think we had a chance?
I swiped away my tears and looked in the mirror. The girl I saw looked broken and defeated. The chorus to That’s What You Get by Paramore started playing in my head as I stared my reflection down, hoping the girl I was looking at would disappear and give me back the girl I was this morning. That girl was happy and she had hope, even if it was blissful ignorance. This girl was just so not who I wanted to be.
“Enough. Look at what he’s done. Is he really worth all of this,” I said to my reflection.
My reflection didn’t answer, just stared back at me with despondent eyes. My heart on the other hand seemed to have an answer to this question.
Of course, he is, you love him.
I shook my head and splashed cold water on my face. I ignored the answer my heart gave because it obviously has no ability to see the writing on the wall. I checked my phone. Time to go and face the music. I looked in the mirror one last time and saw that I had somehow managed to look like I hadn’t been crying at all. Well at least that was something that had went right today. I guess that was one benefit to not wearing makeup on a regular basis. My face was still a little flushed, but nobody would notice any difference on that.
I slowly walked to class, preparing myself for what would come, failing to fight back the tears as I went. When I got to the corner where they had been talking I wiped away a few traitorous tears and pushed myself to keep walking. I made it to the classroom and slipped in, taking my usual seat beside Carson. When he smiled at me I was mentally making a goal for the day: I would act like nothing is wrong, even though I’m totally wrecked, so I smiled back as best as I could manage.
I could feel Carson looking at me out of the corner of his eye. I dammed off my tears and focused on taking notes. He didn’t try to touch me, or say a word. Thank god for small favors! I didn’t think I could keep a hold on my tears if he asked what was wrong or if I felt the brush of his skin on mine.
After class I made up an excuse about having to get home to study. Really, though, it was time to start putting up some boundaries between Carson and I. I ran out the door and straight to my car, where I blasted my music to drown out my thoughts.
I don’t know how I made it home, but I found myself curled up in bed wearing Carson’s clothes before I came back to myself. I heard my mom call out to me when she got home, but I didn’t answer. I just laid in bed staring at the ceiling, tears building up and blurring my vision.
I didn’t hear her come in, so I was surprised when my mom crawled into bed with me. I didn’t say anything for a minute and neither did she. When I lost the battle with my tears she broke her silence.
“Talk to me baby. What’s going on,” she said quietly.
I blubbered my way through what happened and she sat me up and wrapped me in her arms. I was quiet for a minute but she didn’t say anything. She must have sensed that I wasn’t quite done yet.
After a while I sat up and explained to her why I was upset. She listened, quietly, attentively, and waited for me to finish.
“The part that breaks my heart the most, is that even though he doesn't want to hear it, I love him. I love him so much that I won't tell him, because I want to give him whatever he wants. I want him to be happy. I’m wrecked, but all I want is his happiness,” I sobbed.
“Oh baby,” she said, wrapping her arms around me in a maternal hug, “He’s such an idiot. He’s gonna realize what an amazing thing he had one day, and by then you’ll have moved on, and he’ll have no one to blame but himself.”
My mom’s words kind of shocked me into getting myself together. I moved out of her hold and flopped back onto my pillow. How does one get over their soul mate? Is it even possible?
“I can’t move on mama, he was it. He was the one. You remember how you always told me that I would know when I found him? Well I knew. I’ve always known,” I sniffled.
My mom didn’t seem to know what to say. She laid back with me and finally sighed. I grabbed her hand and squeezed, needing a little bit of my mother’s strength to get me through.
“If it’s meant to be, it will be,” she said quietly.
“And if not,” I asked just as quietly.
“Then we’ll figure it out together.”
A little while later I fell asleep clutching my pillow, I didn’t have any energy left inside me to cry anymore. I woke up the next day with a pounding headache and my eyes were sore. I stumbled to the bathroom and downed some pills for my headache before stumbling downstairs for coffee. My mom saw me enter the kitchen and must have been worried because she walked up to me and put her hand to my head. My body was switching between feeling like a block of ice and a volcano, so it was a pretty safe bet that I had a fever.
My mom sent me back to bed and told me to get some more sleep. I promised I would, then Carson walked in. I felt my heart break a little more as Caron walked right up to me. I wanted to run away because he was the last person I wanted to see me like this. Yet, he was the only person I wanted to be with me while I felt like this, so I stood there, unmoving. He put his hand to my forehead and frowned. He kissed my cheek and told me to go back to bed.
I was thankful to have a reason to escape because Carson acting sweet and caring was killing me. I went to bed, and ended up staying in bed for the next two days. Carson stopped by each afternoon but I kept his visits short saying that I was tired. By the time I was starting to feel a little better I only had two more days until my birthday and, honestly, for the first time ever I hated the idea of celebrating my birthday. My mom left early for work that morning, so I was left to get ready and contemplate everything on my own. I was dressed and heading down to make coffee when Carson walked in.
“Good morning baby,” he said with a smile.
“Hey,” I said with a yawn.
I made my coffee a heck of a lot stronger than I usually do, and instead of adding pounds of sugar and milk per usual, I drank it black. Carson raised an eyebrow and I shrugged. I hadn’t been sleeping well on top of being sick, so today was a strong coffee kind of day.
Carson kept his eyes on me, watching me closely. He must have seen something he didn’t like because he took my coffee and wrapped his arms around me. He kissed my cheek and looked deep into my eyes. For the first time, ever, the feeling of his arms around me didn’t give me butterflies. He was waiting me out, expecting me to tell him what was up. I shook my head, gently pushing away from him and grabbed my coffee, downing it before telling him we had to get to class.
He grabbed my hand and led me to his truck. I took a deep breath and prepared myself to be trapped in a confined space with him. This was going to be exceptionally tough for me, because his unique smell was going to be all around me, and that’s one of my most favorite things in the world.
I sat in the truck with his arm around me think
ing. It wasn’t like we’d broken up, but I knew this relationship wouldn’t be able to go anywhere if he didn’t want me to tell him how I felt. There was no possibility or hope left. With his smell around me I kept thinking about how unfair this whole situation was. What god or saint decided it was a good idea to dangle everything I wanted in front of me and then snatch it away like that?
When we got out at the school he walked me to class and kissed me lightly before taking off. I sighed and walked into class, dropping down beside Kami. She smiled at me but upon seeing my expression that smile quickly faded. She could tell something was off with me but wisely kept her mouth shut.
I could feel her eyes on me throughout class, obviously surprised that I was paying attention. I had laser like focus today, and that struck me as funny. It only took a broken heart to get me to focus in English class.
After class Kami grabbed my hand and pulled me to a stop. I tried to pull away from her, needing to escape to keep from talking about this. She tightened her grip, so I turned around with a sigh.
“Babe, what’s up? I know something is wrong. I know you and I know you’re shutting down. I also know that you only do that when you’re seriously hurt,” she said gently.
“I don’t want to talk about it yet Kami. Right now all I need is to get back into the swing of classes after 2 days out, to focus, and to not lose it,” I said before walking off.
I knew she was following behind me so I just kept walking. I walked into my classroom, not saying anything to Carson as I went by him. From the corner of my eye I saw that he looked at me and then at Kami. Kami stopped and talked to him, and I knew she was telling him all about what had just happened. He looked back at me when she left and he sighed.
He sat down beside me and grabbed my hand, not giving me a chance to pull away. He looked at me and he looked sad. I bit my lip and fought the urge to kiss his sadness away.
“Why don’t you want to talk to me or Kami about what’s bothering you,” he asked quietly.
“Because I need to come to terms with it first. When I do, then maybe I’ll be ready to talk. For now I just need to deal with my feelings and thoughts on this by myself,” I said seriously.
He sighed again, but he didn’t push me on it. “Alright, just…don’t shut me out baby. I couldn’t take it if you did that.”
My tears from earlier wanted so badly to make a comeback. I want to let go, to forget, and then he says something sweet like that. It is words like those that give me hope for something I know can’t happen. After the spark of hope came a wave of anger. Now he wants to hear what is on my mind? I was saved from saying something I would undoubtedly regret by the teacher walking in. I bent over and stared into my bag for a second, just giving myself a minute to wrangle my angry tears.
When I had myself together enough I grabbed my notebook and pencil out of my bag. I started off writing notes but somewhere along the way I tuned out. My hand still wrote but my mind went blank. I was there, but I wasn’t.
After class finished up I saw the teacher shooting me a concerned look. Great, now he was worried too. I hate wearing my emotions on my sleeve, or I guess, more obviously, across my face. I quickly got my stuff together and Carson grabbed my hand before I could escape.
“Come on babe. I haven’t had you curled up in my arms for 2 days. I need some firefly time,” he said before dropping a kiss on my cheek.
I agreed, because despite how horrible I was feeling, and despite how much I wanted to be angry, I needed him too. I curled up against him and laid my head down on his shoulder as he drove. He wrapped an arm around me and held me tight. It’s the perfect moments that were really going to kill me because I didn’t know if they really mean what I thought they meant anymore.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying things don’t mean anything because he doesn’t love me. I’m just saying that I used to think of these moments as perfect and loving but now I’m not so sure. What are these moments really?
We pulled into his driveway and I stopped thinking about what these moments could mean. I just focused on putting one foot in front of the other as we walked inside. Then I focused on laying against him while some movie played. I couldn’t have told you what we were watching, because I was so disconnected from the reality of everything. He got up and played another movie after the first one finished, and then he pulled me back to him. I remained in my disconnected state until after the second movie.
“That’s it. Talk to me,” he said as he turned the movie off.
“No. Not yet,” I said quietly.
“Yes, now. Do you even realize that you kept your eyes on the screen through the entire movie but you didn’t see a thing?”
Oh jeez, he’s angry! He has never been this angry at me. His anger was connecting me with reality again.
“That’s not true,” I said weakly.
“Yes, it is. You always cry when we watch the Notebook. You just laid there looking dead. What the hell is breaking you baby,” he asked, anger and worry warring in his tone.
His anger was feeding mine now. How dare he be mad at me when I’m angry with him! After all this was all his fault! He is the one that’s breaking me and putting me in this situation.
I sat up, slamming my hands down on either side of the couch then stood up crossing my arms. “I find it so funny that you ask me that question,” I said with a snort.
“I don’t understand,” he said as he shook his head.
“I mean it’s funny that you suddenly want to know how I feel,” I said angrily.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Firefly what the hell did I do,” he said as he took a step towards me.
I was spared having to reply to him by my ringing phone. He reached for my phone, as if to tell me not to answer it, but I stepped back and held my hand up to him. I expected Kami, but when I checked my phone I felt my heart race. It was my mom. She never calls unless it’s serious.
“Hey mom, what’s up,” I said as I picked up.
“Hey, you need to come home. Your sister is here, and she’s really not okay. She needs you baby. I got here and I came up to your room expecting you, but instead I got Kami curled up in a ball crying,” my mom said seriously.
“I’m on my way,” I said as I began to feel frantic.
I hung up and grabbed my bag. “Baby, we aren’t done talking about this,” Carson said seriously.
“Oh yes we are. I’m done with this. I have to go because my best friend needs me.”
Carson looked shocked. I had never talked to him that way before and we both knew it. He didn’t say anything to me as I ran upstairs and straight to my place. I busted through the front door, dropped my bag, and took the stairs two at a time. I stood in my doorway for a second, and all the anger from earlier fled at the sight of my best friend curled in a ball and sobbing. I immediately went to her and wrapped my arms around her.
“Talk to me sweetheart. What happened? Who do I need to hunt down and murder slowly?”
“Reed,” she sobbed.
I had expected that, but at the same time I was hoping that she wouldn’t say that he was the cause of this despair I saw on her face. I didn’t want to have to kill Reed. Now I might have no choice. He broke my best friend, so I would have to break him.
“Okay,” I said, running my hands through her hair. “I’ll kill him later. Tell me why I’m killing the jerk.”
“I slept with him,” she said quietly.
Oh god, that was unexpected. This was worse than I thought. If she slept with him then I knew she had fallen for him. She has a rule about not sleeping with guys unless she had fallen hard for them.
“Alright. What about that means I have to kill him?”
“Well we slept together after the game the other day. A week or two ago I told him he would have to give a relationship a shot if he wanted to sleep with me. He said he would. You know what he said to me afterwards? He said that he had lied. He was only interested in sleeping with me. I saw hi
m after class today and I just lost it.”
Oh hell no! No one, and I mean no one, uses my best friend! If he was smart, he would already be headed out of the state right now to escape from what I’m going to do to him. I reached for my phone and walked out of my room. I called Reed and he didn’t answer, so, of course, I left him a voicemail.
“Reed, its Alara. You better learn to run and hide real fast,” the anger I felt was bringing out the deep southern twang in my voice. “Me and you, we aren’t good, because you broke my best friend. I have never seen her this broken, and it’s your fault. You had the nerve to make her fall for you and then you pull this crap!” I was fuming, and maybe this anger coming out wasn’t all for Kami’s sake, but it sure was making me feel better. “You and your best friend are one in the same. Both of you managed to make us fall for you and then break our hearts. God, I really hate you and Carson right now!”
I hung up the phone and contemplated throwing it, pacing the hallway for a moment. I dismissed that idea and went back to Kami. I laid down beside her and held her. While she cried for her pain, I cried for her pain and for my own. Guys totally suck!
“Rocky road and cookie dough while watching a comedy on Netflix,” I asked when we both stopped crying.
Catching His Heart (Love And Baseball Book 1) Page 12
