Page 6 of Forbidden Hearts
Wallowing.
I flop back, wishing my mother were alive because she’d know what to do. My father is the chief of our small police department and very overprotective. Not in a bad way, but he just wants to put me in a glass case where I can’t be hurt.
Really, I just want to put my past behind me and move forward. I’m not sure what that looks like because I need to find a graduate program for audiology that will accept me extremely late, take all my credits from my first year, and offer me financial aid, which won’t be easy. I was at University of Iowa, which I loved. It was a great campus, and the second-best program in the country. Everything was perfect.
Until I met him.
I hear the front door close, leaving me alone in my feelings and self-hatred.
My phone rings, and Emmeline’s face paints my screen.
“Why are you up so early?” I ask as a greeting.
“I never went to sleep. I’m studying, which I hope you’re doing as well,” her soft voice chides.
“I get to take my other final with an open book, I better pass.”
I finished one last night, which was proctored over video to ensure I couldn’t use a book.
Emmeline laughs. “Lucky bitch.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m swimming in luck.”
“You could always come back . . .”
That’s not really an option, and we both know it. I can’t return to the place that is going to shame me while the man who ruined my life walks around, playing the victim and still able to do it to another girl.
“We both know the answer to that.”
“I feel like you should’ve stayed so he would have had to look at you and know that he did nothing to help you.”
“We don’t mention him,” I warn.
Emmy sighs. “Fine, but you running away doesn’t change things. You need to learn to stand your ground . . .”
“And what would that have done? Nothing. All it would’ve accomplished was teaching me not to cry when people called me a homewrecker. A liar. I saw all the comments, Emmy. All of them saying the same thing. ‘Oh, look, another girl wanting a better grade’ or ‘Too bad I can’t get an A for having tits’ or ‘Talk about desperate, he looks appalled.’ None of that was true. I am not a slut or a homewrecker!”
Emmeline stops me. “I know you’re not. I saw how he was with you with my own eyes.”
“I know. I . . . God, I’m so stupid. Do you know how often I tell myself that? I trusted him and believed every pretty lie because he made me feel special.”
“You are special, Phoebe. You’re beautiful and smart, and he took advantage of you.”
That may be so, but it doesn’t matter. I was “that” girl. The one who sleeps with her professor. Who bought into the promises and the hopes of a future that never existed because he was already married.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m back in Sugarloaf, where life is dull and I will never have to see him again. The town that reminds me of all the mistakes I’ve made.”
“You can always come visit me at Cloverleigh Farms if you want to get away from it all.”
She’s offered it many times, and honestly, I may go. No one knows me there, and my father and all his keen police sleuthing will be at a distance.
“I might take you up on it.” I flop back onto the pillow, letting out a long sigh. “Lord knows I could really use a freaking vacation from my life.”
“What are you going to do about transferring?” she asks.
As soon as people found out about Jonathan and me, there was no other option but to leave. Someone took a photo of me with my arms around his neck, leaning in to kiss him, and posted it.
That was bad enough, but they put it right beside a photo of him holding his son and his wife. That was how I found out Jonathan was not divorced like he told me. Instead of him taking any responsibility, he told everyone that I came onto him.
