Page 166 of Now and Forever

He’s going to be the death of me!

Angry, I can’t get back to sleep, so I get up. Needing an outlet for all this rage, I decide to clean the whole apartment. That’ll calm me down. I get down to it, and by ten o’clock in the morning, I’ve created such chaos, I don’t know how to put the place back together.

I’m a wreck. My heart is beating like crazy, so I decide to get out of the apartment and go running. Raising my heart rate a little will do me a world of good. I’ll work out the adrenaline. I pull my hair back into a high ponytail and put on some black crop pants, running shoes, and a T-shirt.

Suddenly, the doorbell rings. Opening the door without looking first, I’m dumbfounded when I see Eric. He’s more handsome than ever, dressed in a white shirt and jeans. Surprised, I try to close the door, but he doesn’t let me. He sticks one foot over the threshold.

“Darling, please, listen to me.”

“I’m not your darling, or your baby, or your sweetheart, or anything. Get away from me.”

“God, Jude! You’re breaking my foot.”

“Pull it out and I won’t break it,” I respond while trying to close the door with all my strength.

But he doesn’t move.

“You are my love, my darling, my baby, my sweetheart, and besides that, you’re my woman, my girl, my whole life, and a thousand other things. And that’s why I want to ask you to come home with me. I miss you. I need you, and I can’t live without you.”

“Go away, Eric,” I growl while I uselessly battle with the door.

“I’ve been an idiot, darling.”

“Oh yes,” I say.

“An idiot in every sense of the word for letting the best thing that ever happened to me get away. But idiots like me recognize their mistakes and try to make things right. Give me another chance and ...”

“I can’t,” I shout.

“Darling ... I’ve tried to give you your space. To give myself space. But my life without you doesn’t make sense. I can’t sleep. You’re on my mind twenty-four hours a day. I’m not living. How am I supposed to live without you?”

“Buy yourself a monkey,” I snap.

“Look, I was wrong. I hid what I knew about your sister, and I had the audacity to get angry with you for doing the same thing.”

“It’s too late ... I don’t want to hear it now,” I insist, about to cry.

“Let me in.”

“No.”

“Please, Jude. I’m an asshole. The biggest asshole in the world, and I’ll let you tell me so every single day of my life, because I deserve it.”

My strength gives out. Listening to everything he tells me is starting to get the best of me, and when I stop pushing against the door, Eric opens it completely.

“Listen to me, baby ...” He looks around. “You started cleaning the whole apartment? Wow, you really are pissed!”

“And before you go on spouting pretty words,” I spit, furious, “I want you to know I’m never going to put my life on the line again for everything to turn out wrong. I don’t want to stop doing the things I like because you want to keep me in a glass cage. I refuse!”

“I love you, Miss Flores.”

“Sure you do.”

And, taking us both by surprise, I slam the door in his face. My chest rises and drops. Eric has done it once again. He’s told me the prettiest things a man can say to a woman, and I, like a fool, have listened to him.

I’m an idiot.

All of a sudden, I hear a voice. Is that Simona? I open the door, and, openmouthed, I see Norbert and his wife.

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