Page 60 of It Should Have Been Me

He kept his voice light, so the listeners may not have picked up on it, but I did. He’s carrying so much hurt from the past, hurt he blames me for. I need to set the record straight and make things right between us. I can’t leave here with all this bad blood and ill feelings. I just need a small gap at the wedding, just a few minutes to talk to him so we can resolve this once and for all. I know he’s mad. I’m mad too, but it’s been five years now. We need to let this go.

* * * * *

ITRY TO PUSH SCOTTout of my mind, and it works for a few hours. I go to the mall to buy a pair of rosy-pink shoes to go with my dress. Why Isa chose that as her theme color is beyond me because I found it impossible to find heels in that exact shade. I also buy some clay to keep myself busy for the next few days. But no matter how hard I try to keep my mind occupied; it keeps drifting back to Scott. Between guilt, anxiety, and sheer loathing of myself for what I said to him on Sunday, I’m on the verge of going crazy. I need to speak to him. Not at the wedding. Now.

The second I turn the key; I realize this is a mistake. Actually, I realized it was a mistake as soon as I jumped into the cab. It was a mantra I repeated to myself the whole thirty-minute drive here, and I’m still chanting it in my head when the elevator doors open in front of me.

I know I shouldn’t be here, but I need to get this off my chest. Uneasiness has been growing in the pit of my stomach for the last three days and I can’t take it anymore. I’ve tried to keep myself busy, but I’m too distracted to focus on anything. I met Connor on Monday and that was probably the most sociable I’ve been all week. The rest of the time I’ve either been trying to call JP or watching Netflix in my pajamas. Neither has helped my mental state at all. Everyone’s at work and sitting alone in bed, wallowing in depression isn’t a fun way to pass the time. But there’s one thing I can fix, and that’s this undercurrent of animosity between me and Scott, which is why I’m here now. I need to resolve this.

I don’t see him in the kitchen or the lounge, so I walk to his bedroom and find him shirtless on his bed, propped up against the headboard with his laptop on his outstretched legs. He’s lost in thought, eyes fixated on the screen as his fingers rapidly tap against the keyboard.

“So...” I say to announce my presence. “I think maybe I was a little harsh the other day.”

He looks up and the widest smile spreads across his face. He places his laptop on the nightstand beside the bed to give me his full attention. “Is that right, Savage?”

“Yep.”

His piercing blue eyes move over my body, taking in my maroon peekaboo summer dress. I think they call it a peekaboo because the small twist in the front accentuates the chest area and my cleavage just sort of peeks out of the top of it. His gaze lingers there before moving down to my thighs. He’s looking at me like he wants to devour me, and I feel incredibly self-conscious.

I start to heat up beneath his sweltering perusal of my body. This is exactly why my gut instinct was trying to tell me that coming here was a bad idea. I make a mental note to always be fully covered when I’m around him because I feel like I’m melting into a puddle. Then again, he looked at me the same way when I was dressed in his hoodie. Maybe the key takeaway message is not what I wear around him, but that I just shouldn’t be around him. Yet somehow, I’m still standing at the entrance of this bedroom.

Taking a deep breath, I ignore his penetrating stare and his very bare chest. Instead, I lean against the door frame and focus on the edge of the bed so I can forge ahead. “I wanted...I wanted to talk to you. I didn’t like how I left here on Sunday. I didn’t like what we said to each other. I can’t leave here with you...hating me.”

“I could never hate you, Catalina. I’m just...I’m just angry. I’m mad at you. I’m mad at me.” He runs a restless hand over his short hair, then down his neck, rubbing the back of it like he’s carrying all the tension there. “I’m mad at this whole goddamn situation. Did I mention that I’msofucking mad at you?”

“Uh...yeah, I picked up on that. You’re not exactly subtle about it. I was on the receiving end of it on Sunday. But that being said, I wasn’t exactly...kindon Sunday, either. I lashed out and said some things I shouldn’t have said.” I drop my head, feeling ashamed of myself. “I don’t want you to obsess about me for the next five years. I didn’t mean that. And I shouldn’t have said that all you’ll ever know after me is emotionally unavailable sex. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that either. Just like how you didn’t mean it when you said you wanted to ruin me for every other guy. We were both angry, and we said—”

“No, I meant it,” he cuts in, and my head snaps up to look at him. “Don’t speak for me. I meantallof it. You can be the bigger person, Cat. That’s great. You do you. You can wish me the best of luck,Men-In-Blackme out of your life again, and live happily ever after with your new boyfriend. Good on you for being that person. But that’s not me. I’m childish and selfish and entitled...and I’m still crazy in love with you. I want you to be happy, really I do, but I’m not going to pretend for one second that I don’t wish you were still mine. You don’t have to take your words back because they’re true. You’re it for me. It was always you...It’s still you. Fuck, it’s always ever going to beyou. See, the key difference between you and me is that when I said I wanted to be with you forever...I meant it.”

If there’s anyone who knows how to get my blood boiling, it’s this man. “Oh, you’re gonna go down that road, huh?”

“The circumstances speak for themselves, Cat. I was always sure about us. You know, the first day I kissed you, your mom told me that if I was uncertain about my feelings for you, we should just stay friends because you couldn’t take another man breaking your heart. When I got home that night, I called my financial advisor and started planning for the day when my mother would eventually cut me off. That’s how sure I was and yet you...even on the day I proposed, you were still doubting us. Oh, we’re too young, what if we break up in a year, what if we fall out of love...alwayswith the what-ifs. The fact is, I fell too hard, too fast, and you had your walls up with me. I’m the reason for those walls, so I can’t say I blame you. I made bad choices. I have to deal with the consequences...and maybe this is my karma for hurting you the way I did. I guess I have to live with that.” Even after all these years, I can still see the regret and remorse on his face, but he gives a nonchalant shrug, like it’s just one of those things. “It is what it is.”

I let out a heavy sigh, shaking my head at him. “God, you infuriate me sometimes. My what-ifs were based on insecurities, not doubt. There’s a difference. And you can’t blame karma for how things turned out. We were both unwilling to compromise, and we werebothwrong in how we handled...everything. I should’ve come home when I said I would, and you should’ve answered your damn phone, but we were both stupid and this is the situation we now find ourselves in. You’re right. It is what it is.” I sneer, trying to keep my rising anger in check. “Now, I’m going to take responsibility for my part in the way it ended, but I’ll tell you what I’m not gonna do. I’m not going to play that game of who loved who more. If we start going into the details of all the shit I had to overcome just to open up and fall for you, you know I’ll beat your ass hands down. My uphill battle was steeper, so my fall was harder. It might’ve taken me longer, but I put my all into our relationship. I held nothing back, and you know it. So, don’t play that game with me. You’ll lose. Don’t you dare turn this on me, whining like a little bitch, going on as if I didn’t love you. I loved you. With the power of a thousand suns, I fucking loved you.”

“If that’s true, how is it possible that your boyfriend doesn’t know about me? I’d even accept it if he thought I was a total asshole, but you just wrote me off...like I’m that insignificant to you.”

“That’s not what happened, Scott.” I let out another sigh of disappointment because this is another issue that I handled abominably. “When JP and I met, I had no interest in anything more than a friendship. I kept telling him that I wasn’t ready for another relationship, and he eventually figured out that I was still...heartbroken, I guess.” I take another deep breath because, for some reason, I still feel the heaviness that heartbreak left in my chest. “When I finally agreed to go on a date with him, he told me that he didn’t want to know what happened in my past because then he’d end up being my shoulder to cry on and that would land him in the friendzone, so we just agreed to never talk about my past. That’s the only reason why I haven’t told him about you. I didn’tMen-In-Blackyou out of my life. Asshole!”

He pulls his lips in to stop a smile, but slowly, very slowly, it forms on his face until he’s grinning from ear to ear. That smile confirms that whatever doubt or annoyance he’d been feeling has somehow disappeared. Ugh! He’s gorgeous. “I love you.”

“Shut up! I don’t want to hear it. All these declarations of love you keep sprouting out would’ve been really nice to know five years ago. I can do nothing with it now.”

“I do, though.” A small titter pops out of him. “And you’re so cute when you’re mad. It makes me love you even more.” The playful tenderness in his tone is already softening me. “I miss you, Cat. You left here...and my pillows still smell like you...I only had the willpower to last one more day without seeing you again.”

Ah, and there it goes. Last line of defense has dissolved into nothingness. I love that he exposes his vulnerabilities to me so easily, but I hate the effect it has on me. I’m a sitting duck now, open and susceptible to his charms.

“Did you miss me?” he asks.

“No.” Even though my reply is immediate, we both know I’m lying. It’s so blatant that he doesn’t even bother calling me out on it, and just moves along.

“Did my girls miss me?”

I roll my eyes. “They’re not your girls.”

He bites his lower lip, trying to hide the naughtiness on his face, and he uses his eyebrows to hint at my breasts. “Maybe you should tell them that.”

I look down and these treacherous nipples of mine are swollen and damn near popping out of my dress. “Oh, God,” I say under my breath, crossing my arms over my chest to cover them up.

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