Page 69 of Second Chance Ex
I close my eyes again, pull the covers tighter around me.
“Do you want me to call your mom, or Maddy?”
“No!” I snap, pushing up to stare at him, my eyes wide. “No! I don’t want anyone to know about this, Joey. No one. Please, promise me you won’t tell anyone?”
A deep crease burrows between his brows as he stares at me, like he can’t believe what I’m asking him. “Prue, this… this is huge.”
“Iknowit’s huge. I’m the one living through it!” I cry, covering my face because, God, I’m so sick of him.Sick of everything.
After a moment, I feel the mattress dip, sense him by my side. He reaches out and gently strokes my damp hair. “Baby, we’re going to need to talk to someone about this.”
“I don’t want anyone to know, Joey,” I repeat, my voice wavering with the emotion warring inside me, bouncing between sadness, despair and uncontainableanger. “And I swear to God, if you tell anyone, I willneverforgive you.”
Joey just looks at me for a long minute, not saying a word. And then he stands and walks out of the room, and I stare at the open door. Deep down, I know I’m being unreasonable by pushing him away, shutting him out, but right now I just don’t have the energy to care. I need to be left alone, I need to sleep, and hopefully when I wake up in the morning, I’ll be ready to talk.
Sleep didn’t help.And the following morning, I’m even more upset than I was last night, because when I went to the bathroom after I woke up, I discovered I was spotting, and although I knew it was going to happen, it was the figurative slap to the face I wasn’t quite ready for. So, while Joey was at practice, I packed my things, and I left without telling him.
My phone starts ringing before I’m even half way back to Fresno, and I sigh at Joey’s name flashing on the screen. I hit the answer button, but before I can even say anything, his voice is booming and fraught with distress.
“Where are you, baby?”he sounds frantic.
“I’m on my way back to school,” I say flatly.
“School?”
“Yes, Joey. School.”
“So, that’s it then,” he says after a pause. “You just left… just like that?”
“Yep.” I know I’m being insolent, and I fuckinghate it, but I’m hurt.
“Prue…” Joey sighs through the phone, but he says nothing else.
“I just need some time, Joey,” I finally say, my voice barely a whisper.
More silence ensues.
“I love you.” I think he’s crying, and it tears my heart in two. “More than anything, I love you.”
“I know.” Swallowing around the painful lump in my throat, I blink back my own unrelenting tears. “I love you too, J.”
Before any more can be said, I end the call. And then I turn the stereo up as loud as I can stand, allowing the music to drown out my woeful sorrows.
Ihaven’t heard from Joey since I sent him away early Sunday morning. Not that I expected any contact since I explicitly told him to get out of my life. But in the days since that horrible moment on my front porch, when I fear I may not have been thinking straight, I’ve found myself regretting it more than I could have ever expected to regret something.
I don’t regret telling him we can’t be together, because that’s just a harsh reality we both need to come to terms with; what I do regret is telling him to get out of my life, because even if we can’t be together like we used to be, I can’t imagine not having Joey Tanner in my life one way or another. But I suppose it’s for the best.
I walk into Luciano’s, a quaint Italian street kitchen in town, waving at Madison as she looks up from her phone. Her smile is sad, knowing, and as I reach the table she stands and wraps her arms around me, andI’m surprised at just how much I hadn’t realized I needed a best-friend hug.
I’ve kept myself and my mind busy with school, as well as a few odd jobs around the house, so this is the first chance I’ve had to think about everything that’s happened over the last few weeks, and sadly, telling Joey to get out of my life barely even makes the top five shitty things that have happened.
“I ordered you a glass of pinot,” Madison says with a wink as we each take our seats.
I eye her glass of sparkling water and offer a sad smile. “Thanks.”
“Hey, if I can’t drink, I need to live vicariously through you.” She laughs.
I feel a stabbing pain in my middle because man, if she only knew how much I wish I could be in her sober shoes right now.
