by J. S. Cooper
“You never know what could happen. Maybe we could talk to Xander?” Eliza said softly and I shook my head vehemently at her words.
“No way.” I glared at her. “This is between us. I don’t want anyone else knowing what a fool I’ve been.”
“I’m so sorry this happened,” Eliza said. “I hate him. I hate him for doing this to you. You have to promise me you won’t go back to him. You have to promise me that you’re going to move on with your life.”
“I don’t want this anymore. I never want to talk to him or see him again,” I said as I looked at her. And of course as soon as I said that, my phone rang. I looked down at the screen and my stomach jumped as I saw Henry’s name. “It’s him,” I whispered as I looked up at her.
“Don’t answer it,” she said, her face tight.
“I need to speak to him,” I said, knowing that I shouldn’t. Knowing that he could only break my heart one more time. “I need to speak to him,” I said again, trying to convince myself as I answered the phone. “Hello,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.
“Lacey,” he said, his voice pained. “Hey.”
“Hi,” I said coldly. “What do you want?”
“I tried calling you. You never called me back.”
“What do you want?” I said again.
“Can we talk? Please?”
“I don’t think there’s anything either of us has to say,” I said and I could see Eliza staring at me in concern. She touched my shoulder and I just stared at her, grateful that she was there to give me support.
“Can I see you, please?” He almost pleaded. “Can we talk?”
“Talk about what, Henry? I’m over it.”
“Please. I want to explain.”
“Fine. You can come over tonight,” I said. “Seven p.m.” I added and then hung up. I looked at Eliza and broke into tears again. “I hate him for making me feel like this,” I said. “I hate him. I hate him.”
“I know, but maybe this will give you the closure that you need.” She looked as unsure as I felt. “At least I hope it will.” She sighed and pulled me into a hug. “And for the record, I hate him too.”
***
The doorbell rang at 7:00 p.m. on the dot and I headed toward the door as if I were walking toward my executioner. I was so nervous and excited to see him, and I knew that wasn’t a good sign. I opened the door and as I looked out at him, I felt a strong surge of love running through me. This had been a mistake. I couldn’t see him anymore. The more I saw him, the longer it would hurt. And the longer it would take for me to get over him.
“It’s good to see you, Lacey.” He leaned over and gave me a hug. My body tingled at his touch and I stepped back quickly without saying anything. “You’re mad at me?” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. I don’t care,” I lied as I looked away from him. “It is what it is.”
“I’m sorry, Lacey. I’ve handled things poorly.”
“It’s fine,” I said and then I snapped. “Actually, it’s not fine. You’ve treated me like shit.” My voice rose as I stared at him. “You’ve been horrible to me and I don’t know how you think coming over here is going to make this better.”
“I haven’t treated you horribly.” He shook his head, his eyes wide. “I haven’t lied to you.”
“You’ve played with my feelings. You’ve manipulated me. Just because you say we’re not dating doesn’t mean we weren’t going on dates. Just because you say you don’t want to be in a relationship doesn’t mean that I’m not going to develop feelings.”
“I told you that we would never be in a relationship. I told you that we would never be dating. I told you that.” He sounded angry. “I told you that from the beginning.
“You never told me that you had a girlfriend.” My heart thudded as I said the words, somehow willing them to not be true. “You never told me that was the reason why.”
“What does it matter?” His voice was cold as he gazed at me and my heart dropped. So Claudia was his girlfriend? “I didn’t have to tell you.”
“You did have to tell me,” I said, my voice almost pleading with him as I felt tears welling up in my eyes. “You did have to tell me. I never would have entered this situation had I known.”
“Exactly,” he said with a solemn face. “You never would have said yes. You never would have spent time with me. You never would have…”
“Exactly.” I nodded as I talked over him. “You should have told me. You should have let me decide if I wanted to get into a situation like this.”
“Lacey, if I had to do it all again, I still wouldn’t have told you.” He stared at me, his green eyes narrowed. “I never would have told you because I couldn’t imagine never having met you.”
“What?” My jaw dropped as I gazed at his handsome face, wondering how I could have let myself fall for this guy so quickly. He was so selfish. How could he just stand there, breaking my heart as if it meant nothing to him?
“If I would have told you, you never would have spent time with me. You never would have given yourself to me. We never would have shared all those special nights together or any of our other moments. Would you have wanted to give up that special connection we shared?”
“But they weren’t special.” I looked away as my voice broke and a tear rolled down my face. “None of those moments were special to you. You used me. You have a girlfriend.”
“I didn’t use you, Lacey. And Claudia, well it’s complicated.” He sighed.
“How is it complicated?” I poked him in the chest. “She is or she isn’t. You need to tell me the truth.”
“She’s not my girlfriend, well not anymore. She was at one point.”
“I see.” And then because I couldn’t stop myself. “Don’t you want to be with me?” I stood there feeling cold as I waited for him to respond.
“I don’t have those sort of feelings for you.” He shook his head as he looked away.
“So you don’t like me like that at all?”
“Correct,” he said almost immediately. “I’ve told you before that I’m not looking for a relationship. I like you as a friend.”
“I never thought you could be so cruel,” I said as my heart broke yet again. Hearing the words coming from his mouth in person hurt so much more than I’d ever thought was possible.
“I’m not being cruel. I’m being honest. I’m sorry,” he said, his mouth stern and I could feel my heart racing at the harshness of his words.
“I never thought you’d be the one to break my heart.” I took a deep breath as I stared into his eyes. “I never thought you could treat me like this? I never thought anyone could make me feel like I was nothing. Someone I loved.” I didn’t care that I was letting it all out now. I didn’t care that I was baring my soul to him. I hated him. I wanted him to hurt. To feel some remorse. I wanted him to feel bad.
“Lacey.” He reached over to me. “I don’t…” His voice trailed off.
“Stop.” I pushed him away. “Don’t say anything. I don’t want to hear it.”
“Let me explain.”
“There’s nothing to explain.” I stared at his face. The face I’d memorized and dreamt about. The face that meant more to me than my own. “I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I don’t want to hurt. I don’t want to care. All I want is to let you go and never see you again.”
“Lacey.” His voice was pained.
“I hate you,” I whispered. “I really and truly hate you for what you’ve done to me.”
“Lacey, please.” His voice broke. “I’m sorry.”
“What do you want from me, Henry? What do you want? You can’t just treat me like this. You can’t come into my life and take what you want when you want it. You can’t get jealous over other guys. You can’t make me feel like you like me and want to be with me and then open up. And then go all cold and dismissive.” I pushed him away from me. “You can’t do this to me. I’m a human being. I have real feelings. I fell in love with you
and you don’t even like me. You don’t even care about me at all. I don’t even know why you came here. I don’t even know what you want from me?”
“Lacey, you mean a lot to me.” He sighed. “I need to explain something to you.”
“What?” I snapped. “What the fuck do you need to explain now?” I almost screamed. “I don’t care anymore. I don’t want to hear about it.”
“I don’t want to lose you from my life, Lacey.” He looked worried. “I don’t want for us to not be friends anymore.”
“We’re not friends.”
“If you just give me some time. If you just stop being so pushy. Stop needing me so much.” He sounded defensive and he just made me angrier and angrier.
“I’m not pushy. And I’m not needy. Stop twisting this on me.” I glared at him. “I don’t want to deal with this anymore. Or you. I want you to leave. I don’t want you in my life.”
“Lacey, please. You don’t mean that.”
“I do,” I said and for the first time in my life I meant it. “I do mean it. I never want to see you again. I want to pretend you don’t exist. I want to pretend I never met you.”
“Lacey, can I just say something.”
“What?”
“Claudia, she, she was a girlfriend of mine when I was young. We were in love. We thought we’d get married.”
“Okay?” I looked away from him. I didn’t want to hear this anymore. I didn’t want to know.
“She cheated on me.” He sighed. “It broke my heart. I ended things. She didn’t take it well.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“She tried to kill herself.” He grabbed my hands. “She was heartbroken. She ruined us and she couldn’t handle it.”
“Okay.” My voice trailed off. “So you took her back?”
“No.” He shook his head. “We’re not a couple any longer, but I feel a responsibility to her. I feel a love for her. I care about her. She was my world at one point and we were both crushed in our own ways by what happened. She still depends on me and she still wishes she could be with me.” His voice cracked. “It’s a lot of responsibility. And the worry and the concern I have for her has never left me. I don’t love her in that way anymore. But I can still remember the way my heart broke, first when she cheated on me and then second, when she tried to kill herself because of me. I never want to feel that way again. I never want to be that attached to someone again. I don’t want to ever make anyone feel like that.” He clung to my hands. “I really like you, Lacey. You’re one of the closest people in my life right now. I know this might not seem like a lot, but I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want…” His voice trailed off. “I’m sorry. I’ve hurt you, haven’t I?”
“Yeah.” I nodded slightly. “Yeah, you really have. I love you, Henry. I know you think that that’s my problem. I know you think that you’re absolved by it all because you told me the rules before we met, but that’s not how life works. Feelings don’t pay attention to some arbitrary rules. I love you, Henry and I don’t want to feel like this anymore. When we’re together I feel so alive. I feel like we have this amazing connection, but if you don’t feel the same way, then maybe something is wrong with me? Maybe what I’m feeling is not real. Maybe…” My voice trailed off as I stared at the man in front of me. “I don’t know what to think or feel anymore. I just know I can’t do this anymore. I just know that I can’t hurt like this anymore. I tried my best. I tried my best to have this be on your terms, but it’s not worth it. I need to think about me.”
“I don’t want to lose you, Lacey.” He grasped my hands. “Please.”
“If you don’t love me, you need to let me go,” I whispered. “And if you won’t let me go, then I need to let you go. And I am letting you go. As of right now.” I reached up and touched the side of his face. “I understand your hurt. I understand why you feel connected to Claudia. I do truly understand. However that’s not a reason to completely back out of all relationships. That’s not a reason to completely close off. At some point, you have to grow. You’re emotionally unavailable and I can’t be that crutch for you. You can’t have me when you want me and then back off when we get too close. I’m sorry.”
“Okay,” he said as he dropped my hands, his eyes shutting down. “Okay.” He just nodded and stared at me for a few seconds. “Okay,” he said again. “I’m going to go now.”
“Bye,” I said and watched as he walked down the corridor and out of the door without saying another word. I wanted to run after him, but I knew there was no point. There was absolutely no point. I’d put everything out there. I’d put myself on the line and he’d still walked away. He’d walked away as if I’d meant nothing to him. I wished I could have avoided the heartache. I wished so many things, but I knew that that wasn’t fruitful anymore. It didn’t matter what I wished now. I just had to get over it. I just had to get over him. I’d fallen hard, but I needed to get myself right back on my feet. Yes, I loved him and yes, I felt like I’d never be the same again, but there was nothing I could do about it now. Now I had to accept it was all over. Now I had to be the strong one. I’d loved and been rejected and that was a part of life. It wasn’t the fairy tale I’d hoped for, but sometimes you had to accept that fairy tales didn’t always come true.
Chapter Nineteen
Two Months Later
Henry
I sat on the couch in Eliza’s apartment stiffly. She stared at me with venom in her eyes and I tried to give her my best smile. I didn’t blame her for hating me. I didn’t blame her for not wanting me to be here. I knew she didn’t want to do this. I’d had to pull every string I could to get Xander to talk to Scott, so that Scott could talk to Eliza and try and convince her to let me talk to Lacey. My heart pounded as I sat there waiting. I closed my eyes and thought of her face. Of her expressive beautiful eyes. Of the way she’d cried the last time she’d seen me. And then I thought of how I’d walked away. Of the words I’d said. And I wanted to punch myself. I was a fucking fool. The biggest fucking fool. And I was scared that I’d ruined everything.
“I don’t think you should be here.” Eliza glared at me. “You really should leave.”
“I know you hate me. And rightfully so, but I just need to see her. I just need to talk to her.”
“She doesn’t need to see you.” Eliza shook her head. “She’s just now starting to really get over you.” My heart sunk at her words. I didn’t want Lacey to be over me. I didn’t want her to move on. I wanted her to love me. I wanted her to always love me. How could I have been so stupid?
“Every second of the last two months has felt like decades,” I said to Eliza, my voice cracking. “I know you don’t care and you shouldn’t, but I messed up. Big time. I need her to know that.”
“What do you want from her, Henry?”
“I want to tell her the truth.”
“That is?”
“I want to tell her how I feel. I want her to understand that I’ve been a stupid scared idiot. I realize that now. I want to apologize.” I stared into her eyes. “I don’t know if you’ll understand.”
“You love her, don’t you?” Her eyes lightened as she stared at me carefully. “You love her.”
“Yes.” I nodded. “I love her.” I spoke slowly, the words feeling weird from my mouth. “I love her more than I’ve ever loved anyone before in my life.”
“Oh God.” Eliza buried her face in her hands. “Please, dear God, please,” she whispered into her hands and then leaned forward and grabbed my hands tightly. “If you hurt her again, I will kill you. I will personally stab you in the heart and kill you, do you understand me?”
“Yes.” I nodded as she continued to squeeze my hands. “I understand.”
“Okay. Good.” She sighed and jumped up. “I’m going to text her to come home.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” She grabbed her phone. “I swear to God by all that is holy that if this is a mistake I will never ever forgive you.”
&nb
sp; “I just need to talk to her. Please.” My voice cracked and I could feel my heart racing. It made me feel scared and that shocked me. This was a feeling I hadn’t felt since childhood. I wasn’t scared of anything, but the possibility of Lacey not wanting me anymore, of not loving me, of not forgiving me, made me feel scared. I didn’t know how I’d continue with my life if she didn’t forgive me and understand. This was ten billion times worse than I’d ever felt about my situation with Claudia. Maybe because I’d never thought that Claudia was the one. Even through the heartache and pain of her cheating. I’d never felt this despair. I’d never thought she was the only one I wanted to wake up to every day of my life. I loved Lacey with everything that I was and I was so scared that my unthoughtful and scared actions and words had ruined everything.
“She’ll be home in ten minutes.” Eliza looked at me. “Don’t fuck this up,” she said and walked out of the room. I sat back on the couch and waited, my heart feeling like it wanted to burst out of me. The fear running through my veins was palpable and I knew that if Lacey didn’t forgive me and still love me, I would never be the same again.
The door opening about fifteen minutes later made me jump up. I hurried to the doorway as quickly as possible because I needed to see her face.
“Oh,” she said as soon as she saw me. Her face looked even more beautiful than I remembered it being. “You’re here.”
“I am.” I nodded as I walked toward her, wanting to throw my arms around her so that I could pull her into my embrace and never let her go. “Is that okay?”
“I guess,” she said, looking away from me. My heart stopped for a second as I continued to stare at her, hoping she would look at me and give me some sort of sign that she was open to forgiving me.
“I’m sorry, Lacey.” The words came pouring out before I could stop myself. “I’m so sorry for everything. I’ve gone and made a mess of this whole situation and I just need to talk to you. I’m sorry I’ve come barging back into your life and if you never want to see me again—God, that makes me want to cry just thinking about it—but if you never want to see me again, I will walk out of your life and leave you alone. However, I’m hoping…I’m hoping that you can forgive me. I’m hoping you still don’t hate me. I’m hoping that…” My voice trailed off as she looked at me again, her eyes wistful and sad. And I leaned forward and grabbed her hands. “I’m hoping that you still love me because I’ve been such a fool and I love you more than anything else in this whole world and I know this is all coming out in a rush, but I don’t know how to stop myself. I want you to be in love with me still. I want you to tell me that you can forgive me. I want you to know that I know I’ve been hurtful and cruel and selfish and a jerk. And I hate myself more than you could know. I want you to know that the last two months have been hell for me. That I’ve thought of you every second of every day, even in my sleep. I’ve dreamt of you. I’ve had you on my mind. In my heart. In my soul. I have been such an idiot and I know it. And I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve someone as beautiful and kind and funny and patient as you. I don’t deserve to have your heart, but I’ve been hoping on everything that I can. And I even bought a bible, just in case. I’ve been saying prayers for you, Lacey. And I never in my life ever read the bible.” I made a face. “I’m rambling and I’m sorry. I just…I just want you to know that I love you so much and it’s been hell staying away and I wanted to be a better man. I wanted to let you move on with your life. You deserve better than me. And I know it. You deserve so much better than me. But I want to spend the rest of my life showing you that I can make you happy. I can love you and adore you and be everything you need, if you just let me.”
