Every Day I Loved You

by Robin Edwards

  Every Day I Loved You

  A Chic Lit, Romantic Comedy and Good ol’ Fashioned Romance all rolled up into one.

  By Robin Edwards

  © Copyright 2018 by Robin Edwards

  and Second Chances Press

  All rights reserved.

  In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited, and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.

  Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher. Names and persons in this eBook are entirely fictional. They bear no resemblance to anyone living or dead. To protect the privacy of certain individuals the names and identifying details have been changed. This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  About the Author

  More Books by the Author

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  PROLOGUE

  This is what I’ve been reduced to, eating Cap’n Crunch straight out of the cereal box. Why not a bowl you ask? It’s because I don’t have milk so what’s the point? I was completely out of milk like I was out of everything else in my life.

  No job, no house and no fiancé’. Everything I have ever known for the past six years, gone, in a blink of an eye. If I weren’t so horrible at snapping my fingers, I would have done it to illustrate my point. Never in a million years did I imagine I would have moved all the way across three states back to the suburbs on the outskirts of Seattle to live with my parents at the ripe old age of twenty-four. If only my high school classmates could see me now. Did I tell you that the freshman reunion is in two months? Don’t I have the best luck? That was sarcasm in case you couldn’t tell.

  I also never imagined that I’d catch my fiancé, Roger, in the middle of coital bliss in the department printer room before the office opened up in the morning. You see, between the two of us, I was the early bird. I was the one who got up in the morning, made the coffee and went to work early to open up the office. I didn’t do it because it was my job to do so, I did it because it was Roger’s company and I would have done anything for him but ask him to do anything for me? Right, I’d sooner see a pig fly before I’d ever see Roger do anything remotely for me but I was hooked on him. All he had to do was give that charming smile of his, my knees would go weak and I’d give in and do whatever he asked of me. Looking back on it now, I was such a sucker.

  Unlike me, Roger wasn’t an early bird, he never arrived at the office before ten o’clock in the morning and yet, one Friday morning I caught him at work before anyone else typically showed up, banging the new intern on the copy machine before my very eyes when he should have been out jogging like he always did.

  I was completely shocked, not only because he was cheating on me but also because he wasn’t getting up early to jog the entire time I assumed he was. Oh yeah, he also told me this was the only way he would have been able to get away with it because according to him, I was everywhere he was. How was that my fault? It was his idea.

  Being angry was an understatement, I was enraged, and I was going to shout so many four-letter words at him with some longer ones added as a bonus. I might as well have been playing scrabble, but he pulled the biggest jerk move in the entire world. Not only did he not care that he was caught, but he did not care that I threatened to break up with him. I was so upset, it gave me the leverage I needed to make him cry and grovel if I wanted and boy, did I want to see that happen. Or so I thought.

  So there I was, threatening to break up with him and I did the whole ‘I’m going to break up with you because you didn’t realize how lucky you were’ bit and then just break it off like a band-aid.

  Turns out, he wasn’t going to grovel at all. He just stood there and acted like I was the one being dramatic and a nuisance, so I followed through on the break up just to call his bluff. He fired me right then for insubordination (the name calling), and I tried to call his bluff on that one too since this was taking place all the way until other staff members showed up and were privy to what was supposed to be a private matter. He was serious about firing me. He even called security and had them walk me out of the building. Okay, I lied. They dragged me out.

  Not only that but I was asked to leave the house we shared after he locked me out of it and threatened to call the police because I was trespassing but he eventually allowed me a few minutes to grab as much as I could. He said I should be grateful that he cared enough to give me that much. Jerk.

  Sure, it was his house I lived in before he proposed to me two years ago, but it was ours after that. The six years we were together, especially the two we spent engaged picking out china patterns and selecting venues together didn’t seem to matter anymore.

  I was fired, kicked out and broken up with all in the same day. I had nowhere to go because I stayed in California to be with him. After we graduated from Stanford University, I had a chance to go back home, but we didn’t want to split up, so I vowed to follow him wherever he wanted to go. We were supposed to be in it together.

  Now I’m occupying my childhood bedroom that also doubled as my parents’ yoga room. Everything was still here untouched including my stuffed animals, doll house, trophies and my posters of various celebrities that I’m too embarrassed to admit.

  Kill. Me. Now.

  You can’t imagine how embarrassed I felt when I made that call to my parents to let them know I failed at life. As kindhearted as they were, they allowed me to move back in and even offered to pay for the flight home if I would agree to see a therapist. Not just any therapist but my dad’s golfing buddy, Dr. Phil Naubert, III.

  They thought what I went through was such a traumatic experience that I would benefit from talking about how I was feeling to a stranger but also to get some advice on how do I transition to a new life without Roger. Although my parents didn’t think it was too funny, I laughed hysterically at the idea of seeing a therapist to talk about my problems when I didn’t think I had any, at least not anymore.

  According to my mother, they started getting into what I called New Age hokum where people saw therapists and talked about their feelings to analyze them afterward. Sure my parents were as hippy as they came, but they weren’t liberal hippies. They were just Jack and Janet to me, and they weren’t supposed to believe in this kind of stuff. They weren’t acting like the parents I’ve always known and loved when I left for college several years ago and saw during the last winter holiday I remember being home.

  In the end, I relented because I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t crash on any couches because my friends were Roger’s friends first and of course they’d take his side, and I know this because, at a point where I thought they’d have heard about our split, I expected to receive at least one phone call. I just wanted to receive one measly phone call where I was offered condolences, but I didn’t receive a single one. In fact, I swear my friend coun
t on my social media profiles seemed to be lower than they were previously. I couldn’t prove it because I didn’t pay attention to little things like that, but I could have sworn it.

  My first meeting with Dr. Naubert took place a week after I moved back home and as ridiculous as it was, I remained polite and considerate the entire time I was there. After initially sharing my current state of affairs, Dr. Naubert gave me this dark, leather-bound journal. He recommended as a part of his assessment that I take the time to write in the journal every, single day. That idea was completely idiotic.

  I thought the idea was so idiotic, pointless and was a diatribe on the seriousness of my situation even if my appointment with him wasn’t my recommendation. I demanded that we get to the good stuff and Dr. Naubert continued to insist that we’d get to the good stuff if I agreed and followed through on writing in that journal every day. It was probably more new age hooey only gullible people fell for but not me. I’m not writing in that thing.

  I didn’t care that tomorrow was the first day of the New Year, it wasn’t a sign, and it didn’t mean anything to me at all. I would not be caught dead writing in a journal every single day, or ever. I don’t care who he was and what he was trained to do. He didn’t know me nor anything about what I was going through. It wasn’t going to happen, and that was the end of it.

  ONE

  December 31st –

  Hey Journal,

  It’s me, Margaret, your new owner. Um, I have to be honest, I’ve never written in a journal before, so I don’t know how this is going to go because I think doing this is completely stupid. That’s not to say it’s any judgment on what your purpose is but I’m just not a ‘writing down my feelings’ kind of woman.

  I’m sorry in advance if my journal entries end up being a little lackluster if you get my drift. If they do end up a little lacking, would you cut me some slack? I really don’t want to do this, I think it’s a bit stupid like I said earlier. I don’t think my opinion will change much. I’ve always figured writing my thoughts down on paper was a little passé.

  Why write your thoughts down on a piece of paper if that piece of paper can’t even talk back or give you advice? Why have a journal when you can pay $200 an hour for a therapist, it’s the same thing, right? I don’t want anyone to think that I am obsolete or anything, it’s just if I’m going to spill my guts out I would at least want a response in return.

  I’m not sure if you noticed, but it is January 1st tomorrow, the start of a new year. It’s a time where new habits can be started and old, redundant ones can be stopped. That’s what my therapist said today. It was his idea that I write in a journal. In fact, he was the one that gave you to me as a way to start something new in my new life. I guess you are going to be like a new friend because as embarrassing as it is to admit, I don’t have friends anymore. All of my old friends were Roger’s friends and when Roger said goodbye, so did they. I wouldn’t be living with my parents again if that weren’t the case.

  If Dr. Naubert was right when he said writing in a journal would fix me because according to my mother, I’m broken, then you are going to end up knowing more about me than anyone else in the world and frankly, that’s a little scary. I guess that’s all I have to say for today. Dr. Naubert didn’t give me any instructions or topics to write about, all he said was he wanted me to get used to the idea of writing and getting my thoughts out on paper.

  -Margaret K.

  “Well, that was ten minutes I’ll never get back.” I sighed as I closed the leather-bound journal and placed it in between my mattress and the box spring. It was my old hiding spot that I used when I was a kid whenever I had something that I didn’t want anyone else to find out about when as adults we all know it’s the first place anyone looks but I was a kid, I didn’t know any better.

  I placed my arms behind my head as a lied down and looked up at the ceiling, trying to figure out where my life went wrong. I had no idea that everything I’d ever known was going to turn into a shell of life here and it didn’t matter if I was home again, this wasn’t the life I built and I wanted what I had with Roger back.

  I couldn’t believe how everything turned upside down in a matter of a week and it felt so surreal. It felt like I was having some kind of nightmare and any minute I’d wake up and be in the bed I shared with Roger, snuggled up under the sheets back in California, but I wasn’t waking up. This was real, I couldn’t go back in time and there was nothing I could do about it.

  “Margaret!” my mother, Janet, called in a singsong voice down the hall.

  “What?” I replied.

  Janet peeked in the door and whispered, “You’ve got a phone call.” and then winked before handing me the telephone.

  What in the hell was that about?

  My parents were the only two people in the world that probably still used a cordless, landline phone from the nineties. The thing was white, had an antenna, was bulky and it made my arm tired holding it.

  “Hello?” I asked flippantly.

  “Hey, love. How are you?”

  Liam.

  He was the only person in the world that was allowed to call me by any term of endearment besides my parents. He had such a beautiful English accent and it was the kind of voice that always put me at ease and calmed me down whenever the varsity football team teased us in high school.

  “Hey, Liam.” my cheeks flushed at the sound of his exotic voice. It’s been a long time since we last spoke.

  “I distinctly recall asking how you were, Mags.”

  He was also the only one that was allowed to call me Mags and it sounded good coming from him. “I’m doing well, Liam. Where are you? Last I heard you were getting ready to save the world.”

  Liam laughed at the sentiment, “Since you are doing well, I’m guessing you won’t need this pint of ice cream.” he added.

  “What kind of ice cream?”

  “It is the kind of ice cream only a nutter like me holds with his bare hands while freezing his balls off underneath your window. It’s mad, it’s completely mad.”

  Was he really standing right outside of my window?

  I rushed across the room to look out of my window and down to my front lawn only to see Liam standing there, looking up at me and holding up the carton of ice cream as promised.

  This wasn’t the Liam I remembered with his oversized glasses, logo t-shirts and a baseball cap with the lid flipped up. No, this was a far cry from what Liam used to look like. Standing outside my window in the freezing cold was a grown man with beautiful, green eyes.

  “Yes, love. It’s me.” Liam said as I continued to stare down at him, hardly believing my eyes.

  “Oh, I’m sorry Liam. Come…come right up.” I stuttered before I hung up and flopped back onto the bed.

  It took a minute, probably because he was being cornered by my parents in the dining room. During the entire time I’ve known Liam, they loved and trusted him more than any other guy when I was in his care, not that there were any other guys. Liam was practically the only guy I spent more time with than anyone else until I met Roger. They didn’t mind Liam being alone with me in my bedroom because he was just…Liam.

  He the dorky kid in high school who could be found any day of the week, ranting about the environment, world hunger, AIDS epidemic and every single humanitarian topic you could possibly think of. He was also that dorky kid with big glasses, flipped up cap and an oversized hoodie who just walked into my house uninvited and grabbed an entire bag of potato chips before heading upstairs to hang out with me. I guess it was his ignorance towards social norms that made him likable and trustworthy.

  Heavy footsteps thumped on the staircase at a rapid pace, and within seconds there he stood in my doorway, “I bring you heaven!” Liam announced in a booming voice holding up the pint, a plastic spoon and he followed it with the sound of a cheering crowd which only made me laugh.

  “Hi. What do you have there?” I giggled.

  “Are you ready for the most amazing
piece of heaven to fill your senses, Mags?” he said as he hopped on the bed right next to me.

  “That seems a little too good to be true, don’t you think?” I asked.

  “Are you calling me a liar, Mags?”

  “No, not at all.” I smiled.

  “Well, then trust me when I say this salted, caramel ice cream is divine,” Liam said as he took the cap off and stuck the spoon inside before handing it over to me.

  That was like Liam, always charming and considerate whenever we were together. I couldn’t believe that it had been a few years since we last spoke or hung out together and I couldn’t imagine why I let something as great as our friendship slip away.

  “Liam, the carton is half empty.”

  “Sorry, it was just so good I couldn’t help myself.”

  Feigning distrust and suspicion, I dove right in. He was right this was amazing.

  “Where did you find this?” I asked before handing the carton back to him.

  “Me mum saw it when she was out doing some shopping. This was my favorite back home, and she picked up a few pints for me.”

  “You have good taste. It’s amazing, I definitely have to check out this brand the next time I’m at the grocery store.”

  “Mm, I know right? Don’t worry, I’ll bring some over next time,” he said with a mouthful. “What are you doing today?”

  “I don’t know, I’ve just been holed up in my room since I landed and I haven’t really taken the time to think about what I wanted to do while I was in town. By the way, how did you know I was here?”

  “Your mum told me,” Liam answered as he continued to eat voraciously.

  “She told you I was here?”

  “Yep, she called me right up when she heard you were coming home.”

  “Jesus. I never knew the three of you were in cahoots.” I shook my head although it was no surprise. They did love him after all. “Hey, don’t eat the entire thing.”