Page 32 of Healing of the Heart

“You haven’t changed,” Amory says, appearing to not have heard Blake at all. “You say you have, but you haven’t. You’re still just a cheater except now you made me cheat with you.”

“No I didn’t,” Blake says. “Neither of us are cheaters because she isn’t my girlfriend.”

But Amory doesn’t listen. Her face is red with anger, and she goes to her bag and grabs some clothes before she locks herself in the bathroom.

When she emerges, fully dressed with shoes and everything, Blake frowns.

“Amory, please,” Blake begs for her to listen, “let’s just talk. This is a huge misunderstanding,” she says, but Amory leaves the cabin, ignoring Blake behind her.

Blake doesn’t know what to do, so she talks to the only person she thinks might understand, she calls Jenna again.

Jenna picks up the phone, sounding a little confused. “Blake? What’s up?”

Blake can’t blame her confusion considering they just hung up moments ago, but she tries to explain to Jenna what is going on. “Something went wrong with Amory,” she says.

“What do you mean?” Jenna asks.

“She heard me and you on the phone,” Blake says, “she thinks we’re dating.”

“Wait, what?” Jenna asks in confusion and surprise. “Did you tell her that we’re not?”

“I tried to, but she wouldn’t listen. I don’t know what to do or why she would think that. All she heard was me tell you that I love you and she went berserk. I think I fucked up.”

“What do you mean?” Jenna asks.

“I mean, I betrayed her trust all of those years ago,” Blake says, “no wonder she thinks that I’m cheating on her now. I don’t exactly have the best track record with those things that she knows about.”

“Hold on,” Jenna says, “first of all, she’s a grown adult. You are not completely responsible for how she handles her issues. Yes, what you did was messed up, but she should know better than to jump to conclusions and assume stuff that flat out isn’t true. This isn’t all on you.”

“I feel like it is,” Blake says.

“It’s not,” Jenna says. “And I know that you care about this girl, so you need to find a way to make her listen to you.”

“I should have told her about you earlier,” Blake says.

“I mean, yeah, probably,” Jenna says, “but you can’t change that now. Now, you just need to try your best to fix whatever you need to.”

Blake sighs, but she’s scared. She doesn’t want to hurt Amory more, and she wonders if this is the universe’s way of telling her that she doesn’t deserve a relationship, not after what she’s done. Blake feels tears threatening her eyes. Losing Amory hurts so much.

Amory deserves so much more than this.

What have I done?

9

AMORY

Amory paces around outside the cabin, not sure what to do. She doesn’t want to go back inside and see Blake. Her heart is a sea of hurt right now and she’s not sure what to do about it. Mostly she just feels stupid. She knew who Blake was, yet she let herself trust her, believe that she was a different person. But she now knows that’s not true. Once a cheater, always a cheater.

She wants to cry, but she also wants to be strong. She doesn’t want Blake to know that she cared, that she could see the two of them being something more. Now that dream has been shattered. She can’t believe that Blake had someone else all along.

She thinks of Natalie, the betrayal that she felt when finding Blake in her bed. This time it isn’t as intense, she didn’t lose a partner of years to cheating, but it’s still the same pain even if it’s lesser. But it is compounded onto all of her other pain from the past. She doesn’t know what to do with herself, so she keeps walking.

She makes another lap around the cabin and wonders what is wrong with Blake for her to be okay with doing things like this. She could maybe understand the last time with Natalie. She didn’t know, and she was young and dumb, but now? Now Amory wonders if Blake was even telling the truth about Natalie. Did she really not know that Natalie was her girlfriend at the time? Or was she targeting Amory? Amory can’t help but question everything Blake’s ever said to her.

Amory wonders if Blake ever cared about her like Amory was starting to think she did, or was Amory just a convenient way for Blake to get laid?

In a way, this justifies the fear that Amory had about needing to talk to Blake about where their relationship stood. She never did get around to that conversation and now Amory thinks that’s for the best, before she could get hurt any more.

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