I’m lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, when I finally hear the telltale signs of the security alarm being disarmed. I check the time on my phone and see it’s just after eleven p.m. I shoot off the bed and rush downstairs. When I enter the kitchen, I come to a standstill at the mere sight of him. Not because the sight of him takes my breath away, which it does, but at the haunted look I see in his eyes. With a calm that doesn’t match his vacant eyes, he grabs a whiskey glass from the cupboard and then a bottle of whiskey from the shelf. He pours himself an extra-large whiskey. He throws the whole lot back, and then, without warning, he lets out a strangled moan and launches the glass at the refrigerator, just a few feet from where I’m standing, causing tiny shards of glass to explode across the kitchen floor.
I gasp, and Chase’s tear-filled gaze lands on mine, a look of regret flickering in his eyes.
“Shit, I didn’t know you were there. I…shit, I…fuck.”
He tears at his hair, and I see his internal struggle, feeling it like it is my own. A tortured sob passes his lips, and that’s all it takes. I’m practically walking on broken glass to get to him, not caring about anything, not even the pain of the glass becoming embedded in my sock-covered feet. When I reach him, he collapses into my arms, and I cradle his head as he cries uncontrollably against my chest. His two hundred pounds of muscular weight isn’t a match for my hundred and twenty pounds, so we both end up sinking to the floor, but I never loosen my hold on him. I don’t ask questions. I just allow him the peace to mourn, praying to the gods above that he’s only mourning the loss of one person, not two.
I try to be strong for him, but when I can feel his trembling body against mine, I find myself crying with him, my heart breaking along with his.
I’m not sure how much time passes, but eventually, his sobs subside, and he finally glances up at me. A mixture of grief, hurt, sadness, and anger pass through his eyes, and I wish there were something I could do to take his pain away. He takes his phone out and shows me a picture, and I gasp in awe at the beautiful baby sleeping peacefully in an open cot incubator. She has a tube in her nose and a few pads on her chest with wires coming out.
“Oh my gosh,” I say with pure delight to my voice. “She’s beautiful. Does she have a name?” I ask.
He nods. “Yes. Sophia. Since Olivia and I were young, she always wanted a little girl named Sophia, so it only felt natural to call her that.”
“Is she okay?”
He nods. “She’s fine. She’s healthy, and she weighs five pounds and eight ounces. They’ve got her in the NICU, helping her breathe because of the distress she was in before she was born, but the doctor said she’ll maybe only need a week or so in the NICU before she can come home.” His eyes fall down to his phone, and a slight smile pulls at his lips. “She’s so beautiful; she looks just like Olivia.”
He gulps heavily, and I hear in the struggle of his voice that he’s barely holding on by a thread right now.
“I hate that Olivia didn’t get to meet her.” He looks up to the ceiling. His eyes fill with more tears, and I caress my fingers up and down his arm, trying to soothe him. His eyes remain on the ceiling when he continues to speak, “After they brought Olivia back to the ICU from surgery, they got her comfortable, and they finally took her off life support. She held on for several hours, but her lungs and heart weren’t a match for the machine that had been keeping her alive, and eventually, she just…let go. I can still hear it, you know, the gasps she made toward the end.” He shakes his head, tears spilling from his swollen eyes. “It was a mix of snoring and gurgling, and I just felt helpless, watching her finally succumb to death. I can never unhear it, I can never unsee that final moment when her chest stilled, I can never unfeel the sensation of her cold hand in mine. It will always be ingrained in my mind. Much like the vision of my mom in a puddle of her own blood, I will never be able to erase it, not ever.”
I try to hold in my own sob, but my lungs give out, and I gasp before letting out a cry. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
He shakes his head and angrily wipes at his eyes. “Thirty-four years old. Gone before her time. The only legacy she leaves is her daughter, her beautiful daughter who will never get to meet her mom. I don’t even care that Sophia isn’t mine—at least, not by blood—but I’m still so fucking angry with her because, now, Sophia won’t get to grow up with a mom, all because some bitch called heroin killed her. I’m angry that she won’t get to see her daughter grow and mature, that she’ll miss her birthdays, Christmases. Hell, she’ll never have her mom at her graduation or her wedding. She’s going to miss everything.” His nose runs, and he sniffs through his cries, wiping it away with the back of his hand.
“Now, there’s this baby, this beautiful little girl who relies solely on me, and even though I’m fucking terrified, I’m going to protect her with my everything. I’m gonna be the father I’ve always dreamed to be, and I swear, I’m going to give her everything I didn’t have. I’m going to give her the best life possible. She doesn’t deserve anything less.”
“You’re going to be an amazing father,” I tell him with confident pride.
His lips pull up into a barely there smile before more pain glazes over his eyes.
“I’m not going to fail her. I won’t…and she’s the reason I need to say the next words.” His eyes stare fiercely into mine with a gaze that screams out, Please don’t hate me.
I slowly begin to pull away when I get the feeling that he’s about to break my heart.
No, please don’t. Don’t break my heart. I’m begging you.
“Sophia is the only good thing to come out of this, and I already love her so much. She might not be my blood, but the second I saw her, I knew she was mine. I felt an instant bond between us, and I just know she was meant to be in my life. I was meant to be her father. Right now, she needs to be my full focus without any distractions. I need to dedicate my everything to her, and it starts by keeping her as my number one priority.”
He pauses for a moment, and my heart begins to race as I wait for the inevitable.
“Kaelyn, when I said I loved you, I meant it. What I feel for you is beyond anything I’ve ever felt, even with Olivia. Last night was the best night of my life, and I don’t know what I would have done without you these last few months. You’ve been my rock, and I will always be thankful for that, but today, seeing Sophia for the first time, it put my life into perspective, and it made me realize that I need to put this little girl first, forever and always. Putting her first means putting you second, and with her in my life, you’ll only ever be second place, and you deserve more than that. You deserve the world, and I can’t give you that. I will never be able to give you that. I was being greedy, keeping you for as long as I have. I wish things were different. I wish I could live my forever with you, but I can’t. My forever is my daughter now.”
My throat closes up, and I struggle to speak. “What are you trying to say?” I ask even though it’s pretty fucking obvious what he’s trying to say.
He clasps hold of my hand and looks me in the eye, his own eyes blurring with heartbreak.
“I’m saying that what we had last night can’t be our reality. We can’t be together. I mean, we can still be friends, but right now, I think it would be best if you stayed elsewhere while your apartment gets fixed up.”
I let his words sink in, and when they do, it’s like my lungs stop working. I gasp, unable to catch my breath. A giant gaping hole appears where my heart used to be, and I know I’ll never be able to take a normal breath ever again, especially when it feels like there is a boulder sitting on my lungs.
I thought I’d experienced heartbreak before. I thought I knew what it was like to be torn in half, to feel like your soul was destroyed…but I was wrong because the pain I feel right now is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I feel like I’m dying. It’s like he’s taken a jagged knife to my internal organs and sliced me into a million pieces. I’m bleeding out, and he’s keeping my
heart for last until I’m almost out of blood. Then, he takes that bloody knife and stabs me in the heart with it, taking my soul with my final breaths.
I handed him my heart, and this is how he repays me. Stating I don’t deserve second place. Hell, I don’t care if I was fifth place. I would take whatever I could get from him.
I love him.
“Kaelyn, say something…” Chase begs, his voice trembling when I don’t utter a single word.
Instead, I just let the pain drown me, and nothing, not even my thick skin, will stop it from penetrating my nervous system. The pain infects my entire body because I’m too far gone to stop it.
“Kaelyn, please…”
“Don’t,” I say as I shift away from him, my breathing choppy as it takes everything within me not to cry. “You’ve said everything you needed to say. I understand. I do. Your daughter should be your first priority, it’s what a great father should do. But what I also understand is that every guy I’ve ever let close has broken my heart, so I should have known you wouldn’t be any different.”
He winces at my statement, and before he can open his mouth, I stand and tighten my trembling hands into fists, my nails biting into my skin. “I guess I’ll start packing then.”
Chase hurriedly stands, frowning. “I didn’t mean you have to go right now. It’s late. At least wait until morning.”
I shake my head, staring at him with hurt. “Stay until morning? Are you kidding me? You’ve just told me we have zero future. How do you expect me to stay here, to sleep, to breathe with you under the same roof when you don’t even want me here? That you don’t want me. No. If you want me gone, then I’m gone.”
I make my way upstairs, feeling his heavy steps following me.
“Kaelyn, please don’t leave like this. You’re obviously too upset to drive.”
Just before I reach my bedroom, I spin on him and angrily point my finger at him. “Well, you should have thought of that before you broke my fucking heart,” I hiss, my bottom lip trembling. “I just…let me fucking leave, okay? I need to get out of here,” I say, swallowing the cry that’s dying to tear from my chest.
He just nods and steps back, letting me get on with packing up my shit. In record time, I have my suitcase packed, and I’m charging past him and making my way for the stairs.
“Kaelyn, wait…”
I ignore him as I practically fly down the stairs and rush through the house. It isn’t until I’m at the front door, and I’m shoving my feet into my boots that he catches up to me.
“Don’t leave like this. Please understand why I have to do this.”
“I do understand. I understand you’re grieving over your wife, your best friend. I understand you’re trying to be the greatest dad you can be, but what I don’t understand is why you have to cut me out of your life, why, before you’ve even given us a chance, you’re already pushing me away.”
He inches closer until our chests are touching. “I’m not cutting you out of my life—” he says.
I shake my head, stopping him from saying anything more, “Don’t you dare insult me again by throwing the we can still be friends bullshit because, now that I’ve had you—all of you—now that I’ve fallen hopelessly in fucking love with you, I can’t go back to before. I can’t.”
I desperately try to push the onslaught of tears that continue to threaten away, but the longer I’m here, the harder it is to fight them. I’m afraid, if I don’t leave in the next ten seconds, I’m going to start bawling here in front of him, and I can’t do that. I won’t cry until I’m alone.
“If I’m being honest with myself, we’ve never been friends. We’ve always been more, even when we were trying not to be.”
I let out a heavy exhale, the pressure in my chest making it hard to breathe. “I was willing to wait for you, for as long as possible. I was going to let you take as much time to grieve over Olivia, to acclimatize to becoming a father, but that’s when I thought we had a chance at being an us, but when you take that chance away, our chance, when you push me away…I can’t just stop loving you to be your friend. It doesn’t work like that.”
He grasps the back of his neck, his eyes pleading with mine to understand why he’s breaking my heart.
“Kaelyn, I’ve got to think about what’s right for you and the baby, and I’m trying to protect you. You deserve better than second best.”
“Yes, and so do you,” I point out. “When are you ever going to let yourself be happy? You deserve to be more than second best, too. You deserve a second chance at love. And I’m here, giving you that chance, just wanting to love you. Unless you’re too afraid I’ll hurt you like Olivia did?”
I let the question stew, and when he lets his gaze fall to the floor, not uttering a single word, well, it seems I get my answer.
“You don’t have to worry about me hurting you because you got there first. Congratulations.”
As I step out of his way and reach for the lock on the door, he grasps my arm. “Kaelyn, I’m so sorry.”
With my back to him, I say, “Not as sorry as me. Have a nice life, Chase.”
And, with that, I march out of his front door, and I’m forced to walk away again, leaving my shattered heart scattered along with the broken glass on his kitchen floor.
I expect the tears to burst from me the minute I get in my car, but when they don’t come, I put my car into drive, and I find myself on I-35, heading to Austin, toward my best friend. Since it’s the middle of the night, it takes just a few hours to get there, and before I know it, I’m pulling up in front of Jo’s house. As I exit the car, the night chill hits my arms, and I realize I’m only wearing a flimsy sweatshirt that isn’t suitable for the middle-of-the-night January temperatures. I wrap my arms around myself, and the closer my steps get to the front door, the more pressure builds in my chest until it feels like I might throw up, a lump firmly lodged in my throat. I knock on the door. It’s an excruciating twenty seconds until I hear the flick of the lock, and the door opens, revealing a sleepy Drew. He blinks as he takes me in. If I wasn’t so fucking distraught, I would have definitely let my gaze linger down his fine abs.
“Kaelyn,” he croaks, worry etched along his forehead before glancing down at the watch on his wrist. “Shit, it’s three a.m. Is everything okay?” he asks when he sees the tremble of my bottom lip and tear-filled eyes.
He widens the door, and I walk in, my steps that of a lost puppy.
“I, um…I—”
“Baby, who’s at—” Jo begins to ask, but when her eyes land on me, she immediately rushes down the stairs, panic on her face. “Kaelyn, what’s wrong?” she asks when she steps in front of me, her gaze wide with concern, her eyes checking me over for any injuries.
I try to speak, but all that comes out is a high-pitched wail before I collapse into her arms, sobbing hysterically.
“Chase, he…” I murmur against her chest.
She pushes me out to arm’s length and forces my eyes on hers. “Kaelyn, babe, he what? What did Chase do?”
“He, we…he doesn’t…wa-wa-want me,” I stutter out before burying my head against her neck, letting the hours’ worth of tears that have been building up finally fall.
Showering Is Overrated
Kaelyn
A week later, and I’ve officially hit rock bottom. I’ve taken permanent residence on Jo and Drew’s couch where I’ve been on a constant Grey’s Anatomy binge. I started from the beginning, and I’ve gone through so many deaths this week; it’s a surprise I can even see out of my eyes. I’m about to get ready for the ultimate death when Jo appears in front of me. I blink, startled, not even realizing she’s returned from work. I see the look of disgust in her eyes as she takes me in—from the grease mop on my head to the same pajamas I’ve been wearing for three days straight. She then flickers her attention to the pointe shoes on my feet. The ones Chase bought for me that made me fall back in love with ballet again, then proceeded to break my heart not even twenty-four hours later. Y
ep. Those pointe shoes.
I’ve been wearing them since day one of camping out on the sofa and I haven’t been able to part with them since. I know I must look ridiculous but honestly, I don’t care. If I want to wear my ballet shoes while mourning over a relationship that barely even began, then I will do.
“You need a shower,” are the words she greets me with.
“Hi to you, too,” I deadpan, inching my head around her, so I can focus on the TV.
She moves in my way and crosses her arms over her chest.
“You smell, and I’m not exaggerating. You smell worse than Junior, and you know how often that kid likes to shower. You’d think showering was a crime.”
I roll my eyes. “Showering is overrated.”
I’m being childish, I know, but I give zero fucks about anything right now, including basic hygiene. I see her eye the remote control on the arm of the sofa, and we both charge for it at the same time. Jo latches on to it before me, and I groan when she flicks the TV off.
“I was watching that,” I complain.
“No, you were just making yourself more depressed, stewing in your own misery. This,” she begins by pointing at me, “isn’t healthy. I don’t even recognize my best friend anymore. You’re not yourself. You haven’t left this spot for days. You’re not eating, you’ve lost weight, and you look like a hobo. Sorry, a ballerina hobo,” she adds, glaring at my pointes.
“Well, that happens when you get your heart trampled on; you tend not to give a shit.” Even the way my words leave my mouth are monotone, completely dull of any life.
My Forever (Our Forever Book 3) Page 29
