Page 132 of Trying Sophie

“You took some pretty bad hits early on,” he remarked, observing me in that eerily quiet way he had. “I want you to take it easy this week. If you start having headaches, let the doc look at you. Stay on top of that.”

I clenched my jaw and bit back a response. He wasn’t off the mark. I did need to get my head examined, just not for the reasons he thought.

* * *

I couldn’t stop thinkingabout Sophie, even though she’d gutted me with her accusations. And I still couldn’t believe she hadn’t let me explain. Instead she’d shut me down. Shut me out. And I wasn’t handling it well. At all. I was pretty sure I’d started having panic attacks every time I thought about my future and how Sophie wouldn’t be a part of it.

I cringed as my head pounded, reminding me I’d drunk half a bottle of whiskey the night before, blacking out some time after midnight. I’d woken up on the bathroom floor, laying in a puddle of vomit. And at some point during the night, I’d shattered the screen on my phone. Thankfully—or not, depending on how you looked at it—I was able to make out that I’d gone on a texting binge. I scrolled through those messages now that I was sober, worried I’d said or done something I couldn’t take back.

I stopped when I came across a text I’d sent to Eoin, warning him to stay the hell away from Aoife. At first I didn’t remember why I’d gone off on him, but then I recalled watching him crawl into the passenger seat of her car when we’d returned from Liverpool. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about, the guy who was the likely heir to my throne of one night stands was probably fucking my baby sister.

Then I saw it: a two-word text I’d sent Sophie.

I’m sorry.

What I was sorry for I hadn’t said, and right now I couldn’t remember what had been going through my mind when I’d sent it. And Since Sophie hadn’t responded, I had no idea what was in her head either.

It’d been almost two weeks since our fight, a week and a half since I’d stopped contacting her, trying to get her to see reason. A week since I’d told myself I was done. Three days since I’d tried convincing myself to stop loving her. And about one minute since I decided this was not going to be the end of us.

But I didn’t want her for just a few more weeks. I wanted forever. Sophie wasn’t someone I could move on from because I’d gone and fallen in love with the girl.

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