Page 95 of Catching My Dreams

The tears fell then. Ella couldn’t keep them in, much as she hated showing the man in front of her that vulnerability. She wouldn’t have bothered hiding her tears from Noah that morning, but that had changed with only a few words from him.

Her throat burned with the effort to hold back her sob, and her jaw ached from gritting her teeth together to keep her chin from wobbling pathetically.

“You’ve always been self-centered, Montgomery, and I just can’t keep listening to you complaining about your headaches every other day when my mom and I are going through something you can’t even comprehend.”

She had so many things she wanted to say to him. So many things she wanted to scream at him, but all that came out was, “Fuck you.”

He swallowed, his throat working to gulp down whatever other bullshit he surely wanted to say to her. “I’m not trying to be mean. I—”

“How long have you been thinking about this?” she interjected.

Noah looked down, his gaze finding Archie, who was still looking up at him like he’d hung the moon in the sky. “A few days.”

Ella let out a short laugh, but the sound was broken and ugly. “So when you fucked me this morning, you were planning on dumping me. Real classy.”

She’d even gone down on him. He’d probably been planning his breakup speech while she’d been on her knees in front of him. Ella thought she might throw up.

“You’re disgusting,” she seethed, her mind replaying the moment that had transformed into a humiliating and degrading experience with her new knowledge.

Noah flinched, and it only made her angrier. He had no right to look pained when he was the one who was being the monumental asshole.

“Get out,” she said through gritted teeth, her anger consuming her even as tears continued to roll down her cheeks.

“Ella—”

“Get out!”

He needed to leave so that she could vomit or punch a hole into the wall or scream until she lost her voice. He needed to leave so that she could die of humiliation alone.

Noah opened his mouth to say something but must have thought better of it. His parted lips snapped closed, and he opened the door. She just wanted him to leave, but he lingered in the doorway and looked back at her.

“Believe what you want, Noah, but I’ve realized something over the last few weeks,” she said when he refused to go. Her tone was biting. “I might have my selfish moments just like everybody else, but I’m not self-centered. “

She cared so damned much, and it was like nobody even fucking saw it. If she had a way to help the people she loved, she did it. Not looking for Asher on the spirit plane had been the exception to that, not the rule. Was she the only one who saw that? Did Noah really still think of her as self-absorbed after all the time they’d spent together?

“I care about my gran, and I would do just about anything she asked,” she continued. “I care about Asher and Riley. I care about your mom. I was even stupid enough to care about you. So you don’t get to stand there and call me self-centered!”

He looked at her for a beat longer, his shoulders drooped and his eyes sad. Ella didn’t know what he had to be sad about. He’d gotten everything he could have possibly wanted from her. Her body, her heart, her time. He’d taken all of it and tossed it away like it was trash. Like she was trash.

When he closed the door behind him, Ella finally let her face crumple. She covered her mouth with her hand and smothered the sob she’d been holding in. Her bottom lip and chin shivered, and she bit down on her curled pointer finger to keep the shaking at bay.

She didn’t understand. How could she?

Ella stumbled back until her spine hit the wall. She slid down to the floor and shoved her hands into her loose hair, tugging on the strands until her scalp was screaming in pain.

She’d meant what she said. She didn’t believe she was self-centered, but Noah’s words lingered in the air, each one cutting into her thin skin like scissors slicing cleanly through paper. She’d let him in more than she’d ever let anyone else in before, and he’d decided that her flaws outweighed any of the good she had in her.

She knew she was a mess, but ending things because she had a stalker and family issues and complained one too many times about her migraines? Who the fuck did that? Noah had acted like Ella and her problems were nothing more than a burden for him to get rid of. If that’s truly how he felt, then good riddance.

Archie’s paws clicked on the wooden floor, and he licked her tear-splashed leg. Ella let out another choked sob and wiped her cheeks, only for more moisture to roll down her face. Even the front of her neck was wet with tears.

It was good riddance, but her heart wasn’t any less battered, and the humiliation of knowing he’d been planning to end things for days while she’d been oblivious remained mercilessly present.

She and Noah were meant to meet the others for a barbeque at Noah’s dad’s house the next afternoon, but she would no longer be included in those kinds of events. She would go back to being the outsider in Asher’s life. The knowledge burned, reopening old scars and flaring up old wounds.

But the worst part wasn’t losing the new and uncomplicated position in Asher and Noah’s lives. It was losing Noah. It was losing the man who’d drawn a sketch of her and her gran. It was losing the man who’d given her a dreamcatcher to chase away her nightmares. It was losing the man who’d become her home.

Much as she hated Noah for what he’d done, she still loved him, and a few seconds, hours, days, or even weeks wouldn’t change that. She knew that from experience, and getting over Noah this time would be so much harder. He’d burrowed far too deep into her heart for her to simply cut him out.

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