Page 55 of Forbidden

“It wasn’t just you. It killed me to say that, but I thought you would be better off without me. I thought you needed to get away from here so you could make a better life for yourself. And you did. You went to school, you became a teacher--“

“And I met someone else.”

His cell phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket. For a moment, he stared at the screen with a confused expression before he answered.

“Isabel? Is everything alright?” he asked.

Does that bitch have perfect timing or what?

“No, I’m not at my mother’s. I’m at the Hyatt,” he said.

Shane faced me as he spoke to Isabel. Each second he was on the phone with her hurt me even more. But why was he looking at me like that? It was his old expression, the one that used to make me feel naked, but this time it was squeezing every bit of my heart and I couldn’t breathe.

“Yes, that’s right,” he said. “I told you how I feel. It’s not right. Don’t make me say it again. Fine, if it’ll make you feel better. I love--"

I couldn’t take it anymore. I wasn’t going to sit there and listen to the man I loved tell his girlfriend he loved her. I grabbed my shoes and ran out of the room and down the hall to the elevator.

As I pushed the down button, I saw Shane coming towards me. I pressed the button over and over, willing the doors to open so I could get away.

“You can’t just leave like that,” he said.

“Yes, I can. I just did it, didn’t I? What? You think you’re such hot shit that I’m going to sit there while you tell your girlfriend you love her?”

“That’s not what I told her, and she is not my girlfriend.”

“So now you’re lying to me? I heard you.”

“You’re the one who lied, remember? Let’s go.”

He grabbed my arm and started to pull me back towards the room. I didn’t have any traction in my socks, so I did the only thing I could do. I threw one of my shoes at him. It hit the back of his head.

Spinning around with his mouth open with surprise, he laughed.

“You threw your shoe at me. Who throws a shoe?” he said. “That’s it, you’re in trouble now.”

He picked me up and lifted me onto his shoulder, then kicked my shoe ahead to our room. I repeatedly hit him with my other shoe despite the fact that it did nothing. It still felt good to whack him a few times.

He dropped me on the bed and yanked my shoe out of my hand. I wasn’t fighting or trying to get away, but he sat over me and held my hands down.

“Let me talk,” he said. “It is not fair for you to act like this. You’re acting crazy and jealous. You broke up with me, remember?”

“I know. And I know I’m acting crazy, but I can’t help it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Then let me tell you what’s wrong with me. Do you have any idea how long it took me to get over you? How long it took me to move on?”

“I don’t know, but you obviously did.”

“I didn’t. Not a day went by that I didn’t think about you. Shit, let me tell you about Isabel. Isabel is you. She has your last name, she looks similar to you, she’s even a writer too. I am so fucking crazy about you that I found the next best thing, but she was never enough. She was never you.”

“But you’re going to marry her.”

“No, I said I proposed to her, but I told you that more out of anger than anything. I was pissed I wasted so many years without you. Yes, I proposed to her, but I never said she accepted and I never said how long ago that was. She turned me down because she knew I was still in love with you. And despite how much I wanted to convince myself it wasn’t true, at the airport last night, I realized she was right.”

“That’s bullshit!” I said angrily. “What about before on the phone?”

He sighed. “Isabel didn’t take it that well. I didn’t want to break up with her over the phone, but I needed to be honest with her and I didn’t want to waste any more time away from you. If you hadn’t come by, I was going to make damned sure you and I got to talk later.”

“But I heard you! I heard you tell her you loved her on the phone.”

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