Page 28 of Heart of Stone

But then, like all great friends do, she listened while I cried. I cried over a lost job opportunity and I cried over my stupidity. And the worst part of it all, I cried overhim. I knew that my tears were misguided. After all, I barely knew the guy. But the simple fact was, Alexander Stone stirred up emotions that I managed to keep buried for so long. He had made me feelaliveagain and put a little crack in the walls that I had so carefully built around myself.

And I hated him for it.

After my ordeal with Trevor, I had vowed to myself that I would never again show that kind of weakness, and I had since mastered the ability to ignore the opposite sex as much as humanly possible.

How could I have been so dumb?

My thoughts drifted back to the time with my ex-boyfriend and I couldn’t stop the bitterness from creeping up inside me. I had met Trevor Hamilton my freshman year of college. We were the stereotypical couple that you read about in books. He was the wealthy, popular boy on campus and I was the new girl, struggling to find my place in the vast city of New York. I had fallen for him practically overnight.

However, unlike the storybooks, we didn’t have a fairytale ending. Trevor was a different man behind closed doors. He was controlling to the point of obsession. He told me what to wear, how to style my hair, and where to shop. He even went so far as to write down a schedule for me, planning my time and activities down to the minute. He took charge of every aspect of my life, slowly forcing me away from my friends and family. Sometimes it felt like I couldn’t even breathe without his approval.

When I looked back, I knew that I was partly to blame. I allowed Trevor to do it. I ignored the warnings from my friends. I assured my troubled conscience that he was a perfectionist, and that was why he was so controlling. I told myself that he loved me and only wanted what was best for me. I became a victim to the old adage – the one that talks about love making people lose their sight, oblivious to the realities surrounding them.

I had been as blind as a bat.

At least I was until that fateful spring day, when he had called me to cancel our plans for that evening. He had said that he was sick. I figured that he must have been feeling pretty bad to cancel out on me, especially since Trevor never allowed any deviation of my schedule. I thought that it would be nice to surprise him with homemade chicken soup.

As it turned out, Trevor wasn’t really that sick at all. I ended up walking in on him doing the horizontal tango with some scrawny-assed blond.

In an instant, my whole world shattered. As hard as I tried to forget that day and the terrible weeks that followed, I could remember it like it was only yesterday. The yelling, the screaming, and the violence would forever be burned into the deep recesses of my brain. It had altered my opinion of the world and all the people in it, and ultimately ended up changing who I was.

It was the day that made my heart turn to stone.

Allyson, the only friend that I had left, was there to pick up the pieces. She came home to find me a crumpled up mess on the floor and worked tirelessly for months to make me see things for what they really were. It took me a while to come around, but eventually I was able to see that I didn’t really love Trevor and that what had happened wasn’t my fault.

I knew now that I was just in love with the idea that society jams down everyone’s throat – that companionship wrapped in a white picket fence was the key to happiness. I couldn’t think of a bigger lie.

All men are bastards. I don’t need that headache.

I went to the sink to dump my now mushy cereal into the garbage disposal. I was dwelling too much on my disastrous history and had lost my appetite. I needed to remember my restraint and not give into a small moment of weakness. I had given up on fairytales and pipedreams for a good reason. I’d be damned before I would let history repeat its self.

I just needed to get rid of one little problem – Alexander Stone. He was consuming my every waking thought. I fought to extinguish all thoughts of that extraordinary and complex man from my mind, but Allyson’s words at Murphy’s rang in my head.

Every guy isn’t like Trevor.

But my hardened heart said that Allyson was wrong. They were all like Trevor, every last one of them.

Assholes.

Alexander had only proved himself to be the same as the rest. I never should have let him get to me. It was time to toughen my resolve. I did it once before, I could certainly do it again. I just needed to find a distraction.

I glanced over at the pile of bills on the kitchen counter, my first student loan payment sitting amongst them. A review of my finances and a job search would certainly be enough of a distraction, and it was long overdue.

I went over to the counter and began sorting through the overwhelming pile, trying to figure out how I would make ends meet with my salary at Wally’s.

After an hour of crunching numbers, panic began to set in as I stared at the homemade spreadsheet in front of me.

I was severely in the red.

I reworked the math three more times just to make sure that my figures were correct, but the result was the same. I was going to have to make some major cut backs if I didn’t find a better paying job soon, and I knew that selling my car was inevitable.

It doesn’t matter – I hardly use the beat up old Ford anyway.

Parking in this city was so damned expensive and difficult to come by, that public transportation had just ended up being easier. However, a prickle of tears began to sting my eyes, as a wave of nostalgia came over me at the thought of giving up my first car.

I’m being stupid – it’s just a car.I’ll sell it if I have to.

A knock on the door disrupted my thoughts. I went to the door, opened it and found a FedEx package at my feet. I figured Allyson must have ordered something online, but then I saw that it was addressed to me.

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