Page 110 of One Last Time
My God,I can’t take any more. He can keep his fucking money and my heart because neither of them is worth a damn. I walk to the front door, my hand resting on the cold metal, and I turn back around, trying to memorize thisspace.
“Goodbye, Noah,” I croak as a tear slides down mycheek.
I make my way outside with a hole where my heart used to be and walk the four blocks to the closest person who will believeme.
“Hello?”Erica answers the phone with a sleep-filledvoice.
“You need to get that article off the fucking internet. I didn’t write that!” I sniff into thephone.
“What do you mean?” sheasks.
I don’t have the time or the energy to discuss this. I need my friend and I need answers. “Just get the article down,Erica.”
“Okay, okay.” I hear shuffling around through the line. “I’m taking it down now, but you need to explain why I am. This article wasamazing.”
The tears fall nonstop as I get closer to my destination. “It wasn’t. It was all lies and I never sent it. I don’t know what is going on, but take it off, it’s done enoughdamage.”
I disconnect the call and head up the stairs. When I reach the door, I ring the doorbell, now almost hyperventilating from crying sohard.
She doesn’t answer so I knock loudly, hoping to wakeher.
“What the fuck—” Nicole’s eyes open wide, and I fall into her arms. “Whathappened?”
I start to sob, completely unabashed as I cling to my best friend. “He’s gone. He leftme.”
“Who’s gone? Are the kids okay?” I shake my head as she rubs my back. “Kristin, talk to me! What the hell is goingon?”
Nicole pulls my shoulders back with her concern etched on her face. I didn’t cry like this when Scott and I ended things. It didn’t hurt half as much as this does. I see the look in Noah’s eyes when he saw the email I never wrote, never sent. The way his voice was full of disappointment thinking I did this to us. His anger as he told me he was leavinganyway.
The stabbing pain in my chest is welcomed. The agony reminds me this is real, and I won’t wake up in a fewminutes.
“Noah—” I pull in a shaky breath. “The article and . . . oh, Nic, it’s so bad. I don’t know how this happened, but he’s done with me. I’m so stupid for thinking this would work.” My voicetrembles.
She leads us to the couch and wraps me in a blanket. I curl into a ball with my head in her lap like I did when we were little girls. Nicole looks at me with a sad smile as she plays with myhair.
“Complete sentences,Kris.”
“I feel like I’m dyinginside.”
“I want to understand, honey, but you’re not making sense. What happened with thearticle?”
Nicole listens without saying a word as I explain the events of this morning. I flip between crying and anger when I tell her how I begged him to believe me. Yes, the evidence is damning, but he should’ve known. Instead, he left me there with a twenty and a note to further break myheart.
When there are no more tears left to cry, I just stare at the ceiling, completelynumb.
After I’m silent for a while, Nicole speaks softly. “Would you have believedhim?”
“What?”
“If the roles were reversed, would you believe he didn’t do it even after seeing itall?”
“Yes.” There isn’t a pause or a second thought in my answer. I push myself to sit up and wait for what made her askthat.
She sighs, and her gaze shifts to the floor. “I’m saying that it doesn’t make sense. How did you send your boss an email that you didn’t really send about all the stuff he told you? I know you would never do that, but I’ve known you since I was twelve. You’re not built that way, but even knowing you, I’m sitting here trying to make sense of it. I’m not a celebrity who has basically learned to distrust everyone or believe that people are just using me, but he is. You guys haven’t been together all that long,and. . .”
I start to shift, not wanting to hear this, but she grabs my wrist and pulls me back to the couch. “Let mego.”
“Not how this works. Iknowyou didn’t do it, but you’ve got to see the wholepicture.”
