Page 48 of It's Only Make Believe

I check my cell phone again an hour or so later and I see that having it on silent has lulled me into a false sense of security. There are over thirty messages now. I don’t have time to read all of those right now and I don’t know if I want to. I open the last one and I instantly wish I hadn’t. Justin has gone from trying to get me to come around to threatening me.

“Watch your back Tee because this isn’t over. I will do whatever it takes to get you back and if that means making your world burn to do it, trust me, I have a match,” the message says.

I block Justin’s number and put my cell phone away. I start to feel better pretty much as soon as I start working again. Justin is just blowing off steam. He can’t make my world burn because the only two people in my world who know him wouldn’t trust him as far as they can throw him.

Now, he’s blocked, and I won’t have to see any more of his bullshit messages. I can just concentrate on work and tonight, I’m going to Luke’s place for dinner. When I’m not concentrating on the lines and lines of code in front of me, I will focus on that.

Chapter

Thirty-Three

LUKE

I’m going about my afternoon when there’s a knock on my office door and when I shout come in, Mel comes in.

“Sorry to bother you,” she says. “But there’s someone here to see you. He doesn’t have an appointment, but he says he’s a personal friend and it’s important.”

I can’t think of which of my friends would drop into my place of work to tell me something, even something important, without at least calling me first.

“Did you get this person’s name?” I say.

“Justin Martin,” Mel says. “Should I send him away?”

My first instinct is to say yes, but for Justin to have made the effort to come here, I must admit he has my interest piqued. What does he possibly have to say to me at this point?

“No, I’ll see him,” I say.

“Ok,” Mel says.

She ducks out of the door, leaving it ajar and I hear her walking away. She returns a few minutes later and opens the door wider.

“Mr Martin to see you,” she says, and she gestures with her hand and Justin steps into my office.

“Thanks Mel,” I say, and she nods to me and closes the door. I turn my attention to Justin. His face is a mess and I almost wince when I think about how painful it must be, but then I remind myself he did this to himself and tried to frame me for it and any empathy I was feeling for him disappears. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I would have called, but I didn’t think you’d answer,” he says.

“You’re probably right,” I concede. I nod at the chair opposite mine. “Why don’t you take a seat and tell me why you’re here.”

Justin walks over and sits down. He clenches his hands together on my desk in front of himself. He smiles at me, an awkward smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“I’m not sure where to start or even if I should be here,” he says.

I shrug one shoulder. I don’t particularly want him here and I don’t want him to feel encouraged to keep dropping in, but I do want to know why he’s here.

“Start at the beginning,” I say.

“Her. She was the beginning. I fell in love with her the moment I saw her. I know that sounds crazy, but I did. I couldn’t believe it when I asked her out and she said yes. I thought we were good together, but she had other ideas, and I see now that she manipulated me into loving her and then she dumped me like trash but kept me on her hook. She’s toxic Luke. That’s what I’m saying. I see it now. I wish I had seen it earlier, and I wish that someone she had destroyed before me had warned me. So here I am warning you,” he says.

I feel myself starting to get angry. This pathetic little man has lost Louisa, and this is his last resort. To try to ruin things for us so she feels as empty as he does. Maybe he even thinks that she will go back to him eventually if I’m out of the picture.

“That’s enough, Justin,” I say.

“No, it’s not, because you don’t believe me,” he says.

“Does it matter?” I reply. “You’ve done your bit by telling me. Your conscience is clear.”

“She’s lying to you, you know. About everything,” he says.

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