Page 122 of When We Were Reckless
“You never cared about what I wanted or where I wanted to live or what I wanted to do. I hated Temecula, but I lived in that boring town because that’s whereyouneeded to be to train. The only people you hung out with were moto heads and their stupid wives and girlfriends who trailed after their man. Those women had no lives of their own. No ambitions. Nothing. But I lived in that stupid town instead of L.A. even though you weren’t there half the time. I did it for you. I sacrificedeverythingfor you.”
Holy shit. She truly believed that she’d sacrificed so much for me. This whole argument would be laughable if it wasn’t so fucking sad.
When Alessia met me, she had nothing. No ambitions. No career to speak of. She worked at a coffee shop, picked up the odd modeling jobs, and couldn’t even pay her rent. She was so deep in debt she’d maxed out her credit cards.
I’d bailed her out. Me. Like a fucking idiot, I paid off her debts because mystupid raceshad earned me millions, and my genius brother, Gideon, managed my portfolio and made smart investments for me. When I paid off Alessia’s debts, Gideon was furious. “Don’t be an idiot. She’s using you for your money.”
“You’re heartless,” I teased. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand the first thing about love.”
“You’re a fucking bleeding heart. Don’t come crying to me when she buries a knife in it.”
Should have listened to him. Gideon wasn’t heartless. But he didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve like I used to.
“If it had all been such a huge sacrifice and you hated everything about my life, why were you even with me?” I asked Alessia.
“Because I loved you. I just… I thought it would be different. I thought it would be more exciting to be with a motocross racer. But it got so boring, and I got so lonely….”
A thought occurred to me then, and I was shocked that it had taken me this long. I didn’t think Nate was the only guy she’d cheated on me with, but it was the only time she’d been caught. “Right. So it all worked out the way it should. I made you miserable. You fucked my teammate, and God knows who else. Because you were bored, and you were lonely, and I wasneverthere for you. You did me a favor, Alessia. So I should be thanking you. If I’d asked you to marry me, and God forbid you’d said yes, we would have made each other miserable. So why the fuck would you ever think you want me back?”
“I just… I know it can be different this time. In the beginning, everything was so good….” Her tears had dried, and now she licked her lips and gave me that seductive smile she used to give me before we ripped each other’s clothes off. Her gaze dipped, playing coy, and she looked up at me from beneath her lashes as she moved closer, running her tongue over her red lips. Alessia had missed her calling. She would have been a great actress.
Her scent, so familiar—vanilla and spice—washed over me as she smoothed her hands over the lapels of my suit jacket.
“We can have that again. We can find our way back.” She slid her hands up my chest and looped her arms around my neck. “Remember how good it used to be?” She pressed her tits against my chest, and muscle memory had me wrapping my arms around her.
What the fuck was I doing?
Coming to my senses, I clasped her wrists and unhooked her arms from around me, pushing her hands down by her sides. “We were a mistake. I don’t love you anymore, Alessia. Whatever good we might have had was destroyed. There’s no going back.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but I was done. I didn’t want to hear another word from her lying lips, and none of this was appropriate at her mother’s funeral.
Alessia didn’t love me. She just loved the idea of me. The comfort of something familiar.
One time I’d asked her why she kept going back to the ex who had abused her. She’d said, “Because it was familiar, and I didn’t think I deserved anything better. Until you came along. And now I know there is something better.”
And so did I. There was something better out there for me. And it sure as hell wasn’t her.
So, for the very last time, I walked away from my ex-girlfriend.
“Jesse.” I didn’t turn around when she called my name, and she didn’t chase after me, but I heard her words. “I have nobody left. Everyone leaves.”
She was playing the woe is me card now. An attempt to get me to feel sorry for her and change my mind. She’d done this to herself, and knowing Alessia, she’d keep doing it. It was what she did. I’d bailed her out of so many bad situations in the past. But Alessia wasn’t my problem anymore.
On the flight home, I tried to untangle my mixed-up emotions. Why had I fallen for Alessia? Had I been so superficial that I’d fallen for her because of the way she looked? Was it because of the way she’d always needed me to fix her problems? In all the time I’d been with Alessia, I’d never stopped to analyzewhyI was with her or what had made me think I loved her. When we met, I was twenty-three, and she was twenty-one. I’d been with plenty of girls before Alessia, but I’d never fallen for any of them.
We met on social media. She claimed she was a big fan—I’d later find out that was a blatant lie. She hated motocross or, at least, she grew to hate it. She messaged me on Instagram. After that first message, we messaged for weeks before we met in person at a coffee shop in Venice Beach. Coffee turned into lunch and then dinner, and we spent the night together.
She was different back then. Or maybe it was an act, I don’t know. But she seemed so real and down to earth. In the beginning, everything was so damn good that I ignored the red flags. The resentment that grew every time I had to leave for a race. The way she’d accuse me of sleeping with other girls whenever I was away. She used to check my phone. Rifle through my bag, searching for evidence of my infidelity. And every time we argued, she would start crying and tell me that she had never loved anyone the way she loved me.
She’d make me feel guilty for shit I hadn’t even done, and I’d always try to make it up to her. As if it was my duty to keep her happy.
Looking back, my reasons for being with her, forstayingwith her, were fucked up.
Quinn’s words came back to me.
“Maybe I never really knew you at all. Maybe I was just in love with the idea of you. A fantasy I’d conjured up in my own mind, an ideal version of you that had never really existed.”
The words had been aimed at me, but they applied to my relationship with Alessia too. I loved the idea of her. I’d fallen in love with someone who had played the part, had fulfilled my every fantasy, and had pretended to be something she wasn’t.
