Page 97 of Crazy for this Girl

He shoves his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket, and I drop his card aimlessly on the counter, balling my hands into fists at my sides again.

I try not to notice how handsome he is with the way he’s staring at me. How successful he looks. How I wasn’t there when he did whatever he did and wasn’t someone who knew what his plans were.

We’re strangers.

We’re nobodies to each other.

I lost him and still held on to hope for some idiotic reason up until about two years ago.

I can’t go backward. I spent years upon years hung up on someone who just didn’t want me in their immediate life, and he can’t just keep reeling me in whenever he feels like it.

The card reader beeps, causing me to glance down at the transaction finally approved.

“You’re all set,” I deadpan, then sharply pivot, leaving him behind to grab his own card, his own receipt if he wants it, flowers, and goodbye.

I already said mine.

I stare out the window as Tom, my driver, gets me to my next meeting.

Laynee.

My Laynee.

The girl I hardcore crushed on and loved for fucking years stood in front of me like a damn lighthouse to my darkened world. One filled with business conferences, negotiations, too many phone calls, and sales meetings.

Now Laynee works at the flower shop that I get my weekly flowers from to lay on my deceased fiancé’s grave.

Fuck.

Talk about fate handing you a shitty-ass hand because I never thought I’d see her again, not now anyway. I’ve only dreamt about it. That and I didn’t believe I could ever face her again after I came and went so many fucking times I’ve lost count.

Also, not when my world somewhat just fell apart with the death of Leslie.

There are so many things I wanted to say, explain, talk about, and apologize for, but it’s water under the bridge now, isn’t it? I can’t change what happened nor was I strong enough mentally to comfort her again with my problems. I only texted Laynee from time to time, not to upset her or remind her of who I am, but because I’ve never fully been able to get her out of my head and needed to know that she was okay.

And while I got tidbits of her life here and there, learned things that she was doing and attempting to accomplish from social media, I envy not being at her side to live with her through it.

She was my best friend.

Is my best friend, because no one has been able to compare to the way I feel when I’m around Laynee.

She’s just it.

Leslie was a decent second—cue in the asshole hashtag. But I never fell head over heels in love with her because the position was already filled, and I never gave it up.

I never truly got over Laynee as a whole.

She was the only person my heart decided to give itself to and it refused to open for another human being. Meanwhile, I proposed to the wrong person for all the wrong reasons, and the flowers I ordered are my apology to Leslie for sixteen months of pure lies of hopes and dreams while proclaiming that my heart was in it during our engagement.

I led her on and fed into this lie—my lie—of a future that she was planning for us. I craved to relax and soak it all in, but I never could get out of my own head. I could never fully stop thinking about the young girl with dirty blonde hair the color of champagne, and crystal blue eyes that seized my whole soul.

The one who got away.

The one I threw away.

The one I abandoned when Dad shipped me off to the Marines and later died.

“We’re here, sir.” I meet my driver’s eyes through the rearview mirror and give him a curt nod. He opens his door to come around to my side while I compose myself for this important meeting with my new COO.

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