Page 33 of Breaking Free (Guarded Hearts)
“What the hell wereyoudoing upthere?!” I get no response from him. I storm over to where he’s standing on the other side of the room. “How dare you disrespect me like that?! I actually care about you!”
“That’syourfault, sweetheart I told you from the beginning that I wasn’t interested in having a nagging girlfriend to answer to, and guess what you’ve become.”
I can smell the alcohol on his breath and hear it in his speech. I’m amazed I couldn’t hear it while he was singing. His words cut me, though. I’m standing in front of the man I love, readying myself for him to say he doesn’t want me anymore.
The door opens, and when I look to see who it is, my mouth drops open. It’s Leslie. She looks between Drew and me before deciding it’s a good idea to still come in. She sits down on the couch against the wall and pulls out her phone, tapping away at it.
“Is that what you want?” I say to him. As much as I’m trying to fight it, my voice breaks, at the same time, so does my heart. “After everything, you’re just going to throw us away?”
He laughs, and a sob breaks free from my chest. “If you’re gonna stay you gotta stop the crying.” He swipes at the tear that’s falling down my cheek and licks it off his finger. “It’sreallybringing down my mood, and I wanna have some fun.”
Before I know what I’m doing, I pull back and punch him in the face. I race away from the room, not waiting for his reaction, and not wanting him to see how pathetic I’m about to become. Luckily, since the show just got out, there are cabs everywhere and I rush over to one. He asks me if I’m okay but I can’t answer that, because I’m not. “Take me to the airport, please.”
Chapter Twelve
After I ask him to take me there, thankfully he doesn’t ask me what’s wrong again. Then the fact that I’m going to the airport with no money hits me. I look at my phone. It’s ten o’clock here, which means it’s one o’clock back home.Shit, I hope Nicole is up.Nicole’s dad has a lot of money, and even though she constantly fights him on it, he always deposits money into her account every month, but she refuses to use it. Hopefully she can lend me some for a plane ticket. I tap her name and pray that she picks up.
“Hello?” She sounds exhausted; I definitely woke her up.
“Nic, I need your help.”
“Holly? What’s wrong?” she says, trying to stifle a yawn in the process.
I take a deep breath, attempting to hold my breakdown at bay. “I need money for a plane ticket. I’ll tell you everything, I promise, but I need to get home.”
“Okay, I’ll transfer you some money now.”
“Thanks, love you.”
I hang up. We use the same bank, and have transferred each other money for different things before, so I know I don’t need to give her my info. My phone beeps I look down to find a text from her.
Nicole: I just sent you $1500, same day flights can be expensive. Please tell me you’re okay?
I text her back that I’m fine and I will let her know what time I’m landing. I’m not fine, though. Aside from my heart being shattered, I think I may have broken my hand. It’s swollen to almost three times its size and I can’t move it without an immense amount of pain.Just fucking great.
I text Nicole once I book my flight but I tell her my arrival time is a few hours later then it really is. Once I land, I head straight for the hospital—my hand is throbbing and it’s huge. After two hours of being in the emergency room, it turns out I fractured my hand just below my knuckle. The funny part is that they call it a boxer’s fracture. They put my hand in a splint and tell me that I need to keep it on for three weeks. The wedding is in a month, so thankfully it will be off before then. I text Madison, knowing that she will be the one to freak out the least when I tell her I need to get picked up from the hospital.
The only catch is that when she pulls up, Christen and Nicole are with her. It’s a damn miracle that they kept Carter away. As soon as I get in the car, I’m bombarded with questions. ‘What happened to your hand?’ ‘What happened with Drew?’ ‘Why did you need money for a plane ticket in the middle of the night?’
“Girls, can we stall this until we get home?”
Nicole turns around in the front seat. “Fine, but you aren’t escaping this, Holls. It’s time to spill.”
I nod my head. “Are the boys home?”
Christen wraps her arm around me. “No, I told Shawn to take the boys out for the day. He’s the only one who knows you’re back.”
I rest my head on her shoulder, even though the pain is still there from the contact, thanking God that I have such amazing friends. When we get to the house, I head straight for my room, of course with everyone else in tow. I sit down in the middle of the bed and that’s when it happens. Everything I’ve held in for the last few hours comes spilling out. I’m sobbing uncontrollably, letting the reality of my situation hit me.
I lost him. I lost him because I’m so fucked up in my own head.Mads rubs my back and I jump.
That’s when Nicole interrupts my pity party. “Listen, babe, we’re gonna let you cry until everything is fucking gone, but then you’re gonna talk to us.” I look up at her. “Abouteverything.”
I nod my head, not ready to be done crying yet, not ready to accept that he walked away from me. After what feels like hours, I realize I can’t cry anymore, and I know I need to start talking.
I take a deep breath. “If any of this is going to make sense, I’m going to need to start at the beginning…”
I tell them the whole story, how I can’t stand to be touched, how Drew was the only person that made me feel normal, and how my secret is the thing that pushed him away.
