Page 60 of Guarded Hearts
I cringed at how I used to live my life. So unstable. So volatile. Our relationship had gone off and on like a light switch. One day crazy in love, the next absolutely hating each other. The memories were there, but the feelings attached to them were gone.
I stared at the back of the couch, my bag still in my hand. Truthfully, I hadn’t been sure until this moment that I was really finished with the never-ending uncertainty. Taking in Ricky’s relaxed, couldn’t-give-two-shits posture on the couch cured me of any lingering doubts. There was nothing about this situation, this man, that appealed to me anymore.
“I’m going to a hotel,” I said.
“The fuck you are.” Ricky sprang off the couch. “I did what you asked. You told Liv your debt needed to be paid, and you wanted your shit back. Do you know how hard it was to get some of this stuff back? I pawned some of this. I had to go door-to-door.”
I took a deep breath and examined the room. I didn’t understand how one relationship with one person could change your whole outlook on life. But it had. As I looked around the room at all the things I used to own, the pieces and people attached to them who’d returned to me, the emotions I’d expected to have weren’t there. None of it mattered anymore. My heart was still on the island, curled up beside Pasha, longing for him to love me in return.
“Where did you go when you left?” The question had plagued me. I’d called everyone I could think of.
“Doesn’t fucking matter.”
“It does to me.” Did it? Curiosity more than anything. I had a hunch that I never followed through with, couldn’t bring myself to check out.
He glanced at me from the couch before returning his focus to the TV. “Moved in with Cindy. She gave me an ultimatum. You or her. She was done with me going back and forth. You’re always leaving to go somewhere, so I figured she was the best bet. Turned out she was a fucking psycho. Always up in my business. Constant, constant talking”—he mimed yapping with his fingers near his ear—“about things I didn’t give a shit about. So I left.”
I bet he fed the same story to Cindy.Alyssa’s a psycho. In my mind, I saw the conversation with such clarity that I didn’t know how I hadn’t seen him and his attitude before.
“I don’t care about any of this anymore,” I said.
“Hey, hey.” Ricky clicked off the TV, rounded the couch, and dropped the remote on a side table. “Don’t say that. Cindy just made me realize that whatwehave is special.” He cupped my face. “This is what we do, Lyss. We fight and we fuck. I’m back, baby. No need to throw in the fucking towel for no reason.”
I tossed my head away so his hand fell, anger rising in me like a tide. “No reason? You took all of my things. You charged thousands of dollars to a joint credit card. I thought I was going to lose my house. If Mia Malone hadn’t hired me, I would have gone bankrupt. I couldn’t afford to live. This wasn’t—” I broke off, my anger muddying the water of my thoughts. “You didn’t cheat on me or come home too late or lie to me. I had to stand in a grocery store and decide between paying my mortgage and eating.”
“Come on, Lyss. We love each other. Relationships take work, right? We’ve both made mistakes, but we always come back to each other.”
We had. For years. Cheating, lying, a drunken slap across the face. We’d thrived on the emotional highs that came from damaging each other, and then we’d fucked out our frustrations.
But I didn’t want to disintegrate from anger anymore. I didn’t want to rage and cry and scream. I wanted to be cradled in someone’s arms, to look deep into their eyes, and to thrive on happiness, on joy, instead of on sorrow and heartache. I didn’t want to self-destruct—I wanted to grow.
Ricky wasn’t someone to grow with.
“What we had doesn’t work for me anymore,” I said.
“That’s bullshit.” He threw out his hands. “You know what? You gotta do it this way? Fine. Go to a hotel. We can do this push-pull thing where you pretend you don’t want me. You can be mad.” He snatched up the remote and collapsed on the couch again, hitting the power button for the TV. “One way or another, we’ll get back together.”
Most of me didn’t care what he thought about me or about my feelings. I was done with him. On Monday, when my lawyer was back in the office, I’d call about my options to get Ricky removed from the house. I couldn’t stay there if he was here.
Ricky was sneaky, and I’d wake up in the middle of the night with his hand slithering up my nightgown, trying to coax me into forgiving him, falling back into our pattern. I’d never said “no” to him, no matter how vicious our fights. I wasn’t sure he’d accept being turned down when he was already hard and ready. Wasn’t worth the risk. When he was cornered, his temper flared. Instead of staying to argue, I turned on my heel, walked out the door, and closed it behind me.
With a sigh, I searched the street. No taxis wandered my residential neighborhood, so I headed for the bus stop. On my way, my phone pinged in my pocket.
Hope you loved your surprise at home!
Sadness and anger warred in me. My sister was so out of touch with reality, and she had no understanding of what my life had been like in the last few weeks and months. She’d rarely asked, and even when she did, Olivia often skimmed over my triumphs or problems.
I rubbed my face. Maybe Ricky and I had once had the same pattern as Olivia and Kevin—fight, make up, fight some more, make up harder—but I wasn’t the same person who’d left on tour.
My phone pinged again.
You left without saying goodbye.
My stomach dropped, and as I stared at the message, three dots appeared. What else did he have to say?
I wish you’d said goodbye.
Tears sprung to my eyes, and an ache bloomed across my chest. I wanted to tell him about the letter, but if he read it now, he’d feel like he needed to respond, and I didn’t want him giving me kind words. I wanted to know he meant them, felt them, that, like me, he thought a future was possible.
