Page 72 of Troubles

I’m tired. My face is red and I am shaking all over and no matter how much control I want to have, my voice is rising. I’m not surprised to see a TSA agent striding toward us.

“Is there a problem here? Ma’am, do you need us to escort this man away? Is he threatening you?” He’s got a hand on his baton and one on his walkie, ready to call for backup.

“No, I’m fine. Thank you.” Thank Christ.

“About fucking time you start telling the truth.” I grumble it low. The last thing I need is to be detained in the airport.

“I’m sorry, Aidan. I’m so sorry.”

I’m done with her. Done. But I’m not a complete asshole. I grab both of our cases from the conveyor and head for the exit.

It’s pissing rain and my phone pings as I move off to the side of the door.

It’s my dad.

Traffic is snarled and he’s going to be a bit.

It’s the middle of the night in Beekman Hills, but I don’t care. I send the first of what will be a million texts to Lisbeth, hoping she’ll listen—that she’ll forgive this mess.

40

Lis

My phone has been pinging with incoming texts since two o’clock in the morning. I only hung with Gracyn and Kate until about midnight. We’d had dinner and gone to a club dancing, but when they decided to go to McBride’s, I just couldn’t.

Not yet.

Instead I grabbed my bag from their apartment and drove home.

Home.

All of Aidan’s stuff was in the storage room behind the pantry. His closet empty, his drawers cleared, toiletries gone. I had a new understanding of how he must have felt when he saw the empty spaces I had left last week.

Only a week has passed. How was that possible? It feels like a lifetime.

I twist my ring in my pocket. I still can’t put it back on, but also can’t bear to not have it near. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to.

Searching for signs that that woman left some mark while she was here, I dragged my bag back to our—my room.

I hate her.

There was no way I was willing to take any chances that she’d had the decency to change the sheets before she left, so after taking care of that, I crawled into bed. I flipped and rolled until I finally got comfortable only to hear the pinging of my text notification. I had turned it off, but now—now it’s time.

There are more than twenty messages. Mostly from Aidan, telling me he loves me, needs to talk to me. They are full of excuses, claiming I don’t understand. No shit.

The last one though, is long. Desperate, almost. His tone is different, prompting me to really read it, not just scroll through it like I did with the others.

A: Please call me as soon as you get this. I’m stuck. I can’t get back to you. This is the biggest cockup ever and I need to talk to you, I need to see you and I fucking can’t. Please, Lis. Please call me.

I lay there thinking. Do I want to talk to him? Do I want to give him a chance to feed me lines and bullshit excuses?

I feel so overwhelmed between the letter yesterday and all of these messages. I don’t know what I want.

That’s not true. I know what I want, I just don’t know that I can have it, that it’s still in my reach.

The messages and calls continue, making my phone buzz and ping until I just turn it off again.

I let days pass—weeks. I’m getting ready to start my last semester of college. I can’t piss away all my hard work because of a bump in my road. Because I made a mistake. I gave too much of myself, too soon and it ended poorly.

---