Lessons in Letting Go (Study Abroad Book 3)

by Jessica Peterson

  I’ve got to speak with her. I’ve got to see her. It’s killing me, having to wait until the auction is over—having to wait until I can have a private moment, out of the press’s watchful eye—to talk to her.

  I woke up this morning more than determined than ever to keep freezing Laura out. The club, and coach, took the good news about my knee really, really well. Yes, they are not thrilled about the media maelstrom surrounding the photos, but the team has plenty of experience with the press; they know how easily the truth can get twisted. So Cristina conferred with William Wallace about my idea with Monica Cruz and Laura’s auction, and a couple hours later I got the happy news that they were in; the club would throw money at a charity to save a player they still believed in.

  My relief was enormous, but short lived. A couple hours after that, Nuestro Día released the entire recording of Laura’s “interview” at Cristina’s insistence. I told everyone I didn’t care, I told them I was done with Laura. But as soon as I hung up the phone with William Wallace, I listened to the recording.

  My stomach dropped about ten stories. It was obvious in the first fifteen seconds that Laura was being recorded without her consent. She didn’t talk to the press. She was talking to Emily on the phone, and had the misfortune of being followed by a reporter with zero journalistic integrity.

  I wanted to call Laura. I wanted to apologize, to grovel. But I couldn’t. The wheels were already in motion for the charity auction to happen—the auction that was going to make me look good in front of the press. The club is paying a pretty penny for the hotel and for Monica to attend with me. I couldn’t go back on the team, on William Wallace; I needed this image boost, and so did my team. I couldn’t let the lads down, and I certainly couldn’t blow off Monica, Madrid’s darling.

  And what could I possibly say to Laura if I called her? “Hello Laura, I’m so sorry I took your event hostage without telling you, and, oh!, I’m also sorry I’m taking a model as my date, I promise it doesn’t mean anything but I really need to look good for the press, and I wouldn’t look good enough with you”?

  I’d look like a total ass. I know now that Laura did nothing wrong. She doesn’t deserve to be treated like this. But it is too late to make it right.

  I hope I can make it right tonight. As soon as I get Monica in a cab, I’m going to find Laura to plead my case. I don’t know where she might be or who she’s with. But even if I have to strangle that guy Javier with a guitar string, I am going to find Laura, and I am going to make things right.

  “Everything all right?” Monica asks as we’re heading out of the hotel.

  I blink. Even in the darkness her painted lips still burn red, the color of a ripe cherry. “Of course. I hope you enjoyed yourself?”

  She smiles, bats her eyelashes. “I did, very much. The invitation was unexpected, but I’m glad I could make it. It’s not every day I get to walk the red carpet with the one of the world’s best footy players.”

  “It’s not everyday I get to walk it with the world’s loveliest supermodel,” I reply. I struggle not to wince at the terrible line—seriously, it’s a curse—but Monica only smiles harder, a flirty thing.

  I dig my wallet out of my pocket and grab a five Euro note. I hand it to the doorman with a request for a taxi. I’ve got to get Monica out of here, quickly, so I can be on my way. I’m practically shaking with impatience. I have so much to say, so much to put right. I don’t want Laura to hurt anymore.

  Monica crosses one leg over the other and leans toward me. She’s waiting for me to ask her out for a drink, a smoke, a fuck. The taxi pulls up. I let out a sigh of relief. If I leave here now, I can be at Laura’s in twenty minutes.

  I open the door.

  “So,” she says, pausing on the curb. “Would you like to get a cup of coffee or something? I had a very nice time tonight, and I am not ready to go home.”

  The way she looks at me—confidently, playfully—makes me think Monica Cruz very rarely gets turned down.

  But supermodels aren’t everyone’s thing. I hate to be rude, but I have got to go.

  “Listen, Monica”—I blink at a sudden barrage of flashes. I start, blinded, and grab onto the taxi door for support. Shouts echo across the hotel entrance, and then we are surrounded by a gaggle of photographers. The paparazzi found us.

  Shit.

  Going home together tonight? one of them shouts in Spanish.

  Everyone in Spain will love this, another says. Madrid’s sweetheart and Madrid’s bad boy, falling in love!

  “Looks like we’ve been followed,” Monica says, a smile on her lips.

  “Bloody hell,” I grunt. I can’t very well turn down Madrid’s sweetheart in front of the press—and, by extension, in front of all of Spain. They’ll hate me for it.

  But if I do take her home…they’ll absolutely love me.

  “Okay then,” I say, sliding into the taxi beside Monica. “Looks like we’re going to my flat.”

  The paparazzi follow us all the way to my building. My mind races as I try to come up with a way to get out of this mess so I can go see Laura.

  I got nothing.

  I run a hand through my hair.

  Shit.

  ***

  Laura

  I grab a couple trash bags from Rhys’s giant, gleaming kitchen—a kitchen I’ve never seen him use—and head for the bedroom. Tears, hot and fat, dot my clothes as I take them off their hangers and shove them into the bags.

  So this is how it ends, I think. A story in the tabloids and a couple of trash bags full of my shit.

  I should’ve seen it coming. I knew, I just knew, Rhys and I were doomed from the start. Who did I think I was, dating a professional soccer player with a Welsh accent and an angry heart? I’m just a normal girl from Philadelphia with a carb-and-cheese phobia who likes to read. I have no place in Rhys’s world. I don’t belong in his stratosphere.

  I don’t deserve a place there. Not only am I not pretty enough or skinny enough; it’s obvious I’m not brave enough, not confident or smart or free enough. Not like Monica Cruz is.

  I clean out my drawer in the bathroom. I dump my toothbrush and a bunch of nasty hair ties in the trash. I look at the mirror above Rhys’s sink. My heart twists, tears at the pale, swollen face looking back at me. God I’m ugly.

  I’m miserable. I am a miserable fucking person, just like I was back at Meryton. I haven’t changed one bit, and I probably never will.

  I’m tying up the last of the trash bags when I hear the front door open, followed by a trill of female laughter. My blood runs cold. Rhys is supposed to be out with Monica Cruz.

  Unless, of course, he decided to bring Monica Cruz home.

  I gotta get out of here, stat.

  I grab the bags and head out of the bedroom. I try to keep my head down, but even so I somehow manage to meet eyes with Rhys as he strides into the kitchen.

  He draws to a sudden, almost comical stop, like he’s been hit in the chest by a bullet. One of his crutches falls to the floor. His blue eyes somehow manage to go wide and contract all at once.

  He looks so good in his tux, his hair pulled back from his face. Good enough to be on the cover of a magazine.

  I was insane to ever think he’d end up with someone like me.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey,” I reply. “Don’t worry, I’m on my way out.”

  His eyes move to my bags. He looks back up at me, his handsome features tightening in distress. Disbelief.

  “You’re giving up on me?” he says, leaning precipitously on his one remaining crutch. “You’re leaving?”

  I look away. “Come on, Rhys. We were over before we started.”

  Monica appears in the kitchen behind him. She draws up short when she sees me, her perfectly painted smile fading.

  God, why does she have to be even prettier in real life than she is on the cover of Vogue? Her loveliness is blinding.

  I look at the two of them together, both celebrities, both stunni
ng specimens of the human species, both glamorous as fuck. And here I am in my tent-like black cocktail dress holding trash bags full of other tent-like clothes.

  He brought her home with him. He chose her.

  The worst part of it is I get it. I get why he chose her over me. I’d choose her, too. I would choose someone else, someone better than me. The two of them—they know what they want from life, and they are fighting for it fearlessly. They are brave, they are free, they are healthy and confident.

  They are both far, far superior to me. Miserable old me. I am not pretty or perfect. Worse, I am a coward. I am ashamed—of my body, of my life, everything.

  I hate myself.

  All the hang ups and self hate I tried so hard to let go of close in on me, squeezing my lungs, making it difficult to breathe.

  This is all my fault. I’m the one to blame for this mess. I overreached, and I got burned.

  Monica glances at Rhys, then she calmly but quickly disappears from the kitchen, murmuring something about “freshening up”.

  My face contracts and tears blur my vision. I want to be angry, I want to rage at him, but I can’t. This hurts too much. I want to fucking crawl in a hole and die there.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and duck out of the room.

  I make my way down the hallway, pulse thumping in my ears as I pass now-familiar landmarks: Rhys’s laundry basket, the tray on the narrow hall table where he keeps his keys and his wallet, his shoes lined up by the door.

  I hoist the bags over my shoulder and open the door. I only have twelve steps to the elevator; then it’s three floors down, and I’ll be out of this building, out of Rhys’s life, out of this vortex of pain.

  I hear Rhys’s uneven footsteps behind me, heavy and hurried. From the sound of it, he’s still on one crutch. “Laura,” Rhys calls after me.

  I don’t respond. Instead I pick up the pace. It doesn’t matter if he chases me, if he begs me to stay. I am not good enough for him. I don’t deserve him, I can’t handle him; I’m only going to mess this up.

  I’m a miserable person who will only make him miserable, too.

  “Jesus Christ, Laura, wait,” he says.

  “I didn’t mean to interfere with your night,” I say. I feel smaller by the minute.

  I reach for the elevator button, but Rhys beats me to it, slamming his palm against silver placard on the wall. The motion is so violent, so sudden, I flinch.

  “Please stop,” I say. I huddle against the elevator doors, away from him. Tears are spilling out of my eyes now, spilling everywhere, there’s no stopping them.

  He looks at me, eyes full, wounded.

  “I didn’t”—he pauses—“I didn’t mean to scare you, Laura.”

  “Congratulations,” I say, nodding in the direction of his apartment. “She is beautiful.”

  “Who, Monica?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “I don’t want Monica.”

  I look at him. “Well it’s obvious you don’t want me. And I get it, Rhys. I totally get it. I wouldn’t want me either. You probably just forgot to text me about our relationship being over, and I get it. I don’t belong in your life or your world. I never did.”

  Rhys’s brow furrows. “What? What the hell are you even talking about—”

  “I’ll be out of your hair in four minutes,” I say, slumping against the elevator after I press the button. Exhaustion settles over me, heavy and hard. I’ve tried to be a better Laura—a freer one—but I failed miserably at it.

  I scoff, the sound more than a little hysterical. I’m just so beat down, I don’t know what else to do.

  “You think this is funny?” Rhys says. “Laura, you’re breaking my fucking heart here. Hearing you talk like this…I hate it. I hate to hear you say those things about yourself. They are absolutely not true.”

  He reaches out like he wants to thumb away a tear, but I move away from his touch. I’m shaking now.

  “Please don’t,” I whisper. “I made a mistake. A stupid mistake. I feel so bad about everything. I just—I just want you to be happy, Rhys, but you will never be happy with me.”

  The elevator dings behind me; the doors slide open, but I don’t move.

  “Wait,” Rhys pleads. “Laura, wait, just give me a minute.”

  He swallows audibly. When he speaks again, his voice is tight, like he’s struggling not to cry. “So you never believed in yourself? You never believed you could change?”

  “Maybe I did, once upon a time.” I shrug. The elevator doors close behind me. “But now? Now it’s pretty clear I am who I am, no matter how hard I try to be something better. I should’ve never involved you in any of this. I’m sorry.”

  “Did you ever believe in me?” he asks, softly. “Everything I told you, everything we’ve done together on your bucket list—none of that gave you any faith in me?”

  I inhale. My chest feels hollowed out, sore. “None of it worked, did it? So no. I guess not.”

  “Wait,” he says. His voice is gravelly now. He must be crying, but I can’t look at him. I can’t deal with how my betrayal has devastated him. “This whole time—ever since London—you’ve been waiting for me to fuck up?”

  Pain lights up my gut, my head, my eyes. “Yes. I don’t know. I guess I have.”

  “Laura,” he says. “What the fuck? You’re killing me right now.”

  “You’re just…you’re the most superficial person on the planet!” I cry. “You and your cars and your private jets and your shopping sprees—you’re fucking ridiculous, Rhys. You fooled me into thinking you were a decent human being, but now I see that you’re full of shit. All you care about is money. You’re so hung up on your stuff.”

  Rhys cocks his head to the side. “Oh, am I, princess? What about you? I know you’ve bought a whole new wardrobe since we got back from London, and most of it came from expensive places.”

  “I didn’t buy a lot,” I say. I’m choking on the pain now. “I paid for it on my own, so why do you care? I’m not some deranged cleat chaser who’s after you for your money.”

  “I care because you’re accusing me of being so hung up on my money, but you don’t get that you are, too. And don’t tell me you paid for it—I know you used daddy’s credit card for that stuff.”

  “That is none of your business.”

  “It is when you’re saying I could never live life as an ordinary person like you, even though we both know you’ve got quite the privileged existence. There’s nothing ordinary about staying at a five-star hotel on your first night in Madrid. There’s nothing ordinary about living in your boyfriend’s six-figure flat. If anyone’s full of shit, it’s you, doing this bucket list thing while still treating yourself to all this superficial shite. The whole thing is so ridiculous, you’re lucky I don’t laugh in your face.”

  His words—these horrible, horrible words—they would’ve made liberated Laura angry. But they don’t.

  They make me cry.

  “Laugh in my face?” I say. “Isn’t that what you did tonight by bringing a model to an event you stole from me? Isn’t that what you’ve been doing this whole time, stringing me along, making me believe that what I said and what I felt mattered, when really all that matters to you is…well, you?”

  The heat in his eyes contracts into something like pain. We’ve become toxic people—the kind who stab each other just to see who can bleed the most.

  ***

  Rhys

  I’m horrified.

  I’m horrified that she never believed in me.

  But I’m absolutely devastated that she no longer believes in herself because of me. Because of what I did to her, she is insecure, she hates herself. Because of me, she’s morphed back to square one. All the work she’s done, all the things we said and did together—I erased it in a single stroke.

  No wonder she’s hurting.

  Truth be told, I wanted to hurt her, I wanted her to hurt the same way I hurt seeing my carefully controlled life go up in flames. I wa
s not prepared, however, for how horrible it’d be making her feel this way. She’s in serious pain. So am I. I struggle not to take her face in my hands, not to wipe away her tears and tell her I’m sorry, tell her I love you, I love you, I’ve always loved you.

  But I’m hurting, too. This is beyond repair.

  We are beyond repair.

  I turn my head away from her. “The rumors you started will haunt me for the rest of my life. When I play a bad match, or I’m photographed doing something stupid, I’m going to have to work twice as hard to clear my name. In the end, that’s all I’ve got, Laura—all I have is my name. And you totally trashed it, and now my family is going to suffer. So many people depend on me. I don’t think you understand—”

  “I don’t.” Tears stream down her throat. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t care, Rhys.”

  Her eyelashes clump together, small rivulets of mascara marring the skin beneath her eyes. The only person I hate more than Laura Bennet right now is myself. What kind of monster makes a girl cry like this?

  “Whether or not you care, the damage is done,” I say, struggling against my own tears. “I confided in you, Laura! I told you things about my family I never told anyone else. I thought I could trust you. I thought you understood. But you were careless, and that kills me.”

  “I said I’m sorry,” she says, straightening. “It was an accident, Rhys. A stupid mistake. I would never betray you on purpose. Knowing I’m responsible for everything that happened—that kills me. What’s done is done. It’s obvious I don’t deserve you. I never did.”

  I scoff. “Maybe you’re right, love.”

  The second the words are out of my mouth I regret them. It’s the most vile, most hurtful thing I could possibly say to Laura. But I said it, it’s done, we’re done. We’re really done.

  Laura straightens her shoulders, like the blow I just landed knocked her confidence back into place. She bends down and grabs her trash bags.