Page 28 of Reconnected Hearts
Then I feel a warm touch on my shoulder. I smell vanilla perfume.
I look up and Lucy is really there. She’s sitting next to me on the bed, rubbing soothing circles on the skin of my arm and murmuring quiet reassurances that are just barely making it through the static in my brain.
Looking up at her, all I see is her fingers clawing into my back. Her jaw clenched in euphoric agony. Her body hot against mine. I can feel the pure, unbridled delight that coursed through my veins every second my fingers were on her. I crave to have it again.
In one swift motion, I sit up and press my lips to hers. She melts into the contact and for the sweetest second, I think maybe she finally wants me. But then she crushes every hope by pushing me away. She closes her eyes and chews anxiously at her bottom lip, silent for entirely too long.
I can feel my heartbeat pounding throughout my entire body. My skin burns, almost painfully so, and I want nothing more than comfort. But it doesn’t come. Not now, not ever.
Lucy climbs off the bed and starts to wordlessly leave, but pauses just before she reaches the door and turns around, her voice thick with emotion.
“I don’t owe you any explanation, and I’m not going to fight you anymore. If you need a reason why, I’ll give you a reason why, Noah, but this is it. No more staring at the back of my head, no more reminiscing about college, no more trying to pretend this is something that it isn’t.” She stares at me with the kind of pure agony that no one should feel. Then, she smiles with tears filling up over her lash line and glazing over her eyes. And, somehow, it’s even more painful than the stare.
“I was…betrayed. By the person I loved most. And, I just…I don’t think I am capable of ever loving again.” Her lip quivers and the blood begins coursing around my veins.
I lower my voice, keeping it steady. “Who did this to you?”
She takes a deep breath in and hesitates. She stares into nothing.
“I met this boy in high school. Jace. All of the girls said he wasso cute.He was so popular, though. I never even thought he would look at me. But then my best friend, Amy, called me one night and said that Stephen A. heard from his girlfriend, who heard from her brother, who heard from Jace’s best friend, that he liked me.” She laughs wetly. “It was all so ridiculous, but it was fun.Hewas fun. He talked a lot, which I liked. I didn’t notice until it was too late that he spent so much time talking that he didn’t spend any time listening. I loved him, though. More than I ever thought possible. It was all so very cliché. He was the first thing I thought about when I woke up and the last thing I thought about before I went to sleep. Everyone told me it wouldn’t last, but time kept ticking by and I began to plan a future with him. He didn’t have the grades to get into the college we’d always talked about, so I attended my freshman year at the community college down the street from his house so we wouldn’t be separated.” She pauses. “That was the first time he cheated on me. I forgave him almost immediately because I thought for sure that he could change. Then it happened again. And again. And soon, we’re twenty-four-years-old, and I come home to find him and Amy, together in our bed. After everything, they chose to give it all up for one selfish moment of pleasure, and I couldn’t even be mad because Iknewhe’d do it. I knew he’d turn that boyish charm on to get anything he wanted because that’s how he gotme.That’s how he kept me. He’d smile, and everything would be alright. Until it wasn’t.” She smiles, and a tear slips down her cheek, leaving a heartbreaking trail of moisture along her skin that she is quick to wipe away. “Do you get it, Noah? I can’t do it again.” The crack in her voice makes my fists clench and my stomach roil. I want to hunt down the asshole who treated her like this. “I’m not falling for a sweet smile because smileslie.How could I possibly trust you when I don’t have any trust left to give?”
I try to find the words to say, but my brain fails me. All I can do is gape at her.
She watches me and I can see the desperation fade from her eyes as more time passes without me saying anything. The sharp tension in her body seeps away and her shoulders slump down.
I don't have any excuses left this time. Not confusion, not anger, not fear. Nothing I say can fix it. I've tried again and again to patch it all back together, but with every failed attempt, all I've done is make it worse. I've pressured her and idealized her until she snapped under it all.
I am the biggest jackass in the world.
I don't think I've done a single thing right since I saw Lucy on that plane. But now, as I sit here in the silence of the hotel room, a realization dawns on me. Lucy needs more than what I can give her right now. She needs stability, reliability, someone who can be her rock through the ups and downs of life.
And as much as it pains me to admit it, I'm not that person. Not yet, anyway. I'm still trying to figure out my own life, still stumbling through the challenges of adulthood. How can I be the steady presence she needs when I'm barely keeping my own head above water?
It's time for me to make a decision, not for myself, but for her. I have to let her go, to give her the chance to find someone who can be everything she deserves. Even if it means breaking my own heart in the process.
I stand up, checking my pockets to make sure I have my wallet and phone on me. I take a deep breath, steeling myself for what I'm about to do.
"You know what? Yeah—" I say, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears. "You're right. Last night was a huge mistake."
I walk past her, keeping my gaze fixed straight ahead. I can't bear to see the look on her face, to witness the pain I know I'm causing her.
But this is the right thing to do. It's my turn to make the difficult choices, to be the bad guy, even if it means sacrificing my own happiness.
Because in the end, all that matters is that Lucy finds the love and support she deserves. Even if it's not with me.
CHAPTER15
LUCY
Ipace. Pace and pace and pace. I can see my footsteps being forever eroded into the carpet. My mind is racing. I’m angry and sad and worried and downrightexhausted.
I’m so sick of being the bad guy. I’m sick of being the uptight girl. The prude. The man-hater. I’m sick of beinghurt.
More pacing.
I wasn’t always like this. There was a time that I would jump at a guy like Noah with his cute smile and his big muscles and his picture-perfect hazel eyes. But that was the old me. The old me was naïve and sweet and young. She didn’t know any better.
I do.
