Page 157 of A Love That Broke Us
I know you don’t want to. But you have to. It’s time.
You can love Jensen, and still leave him.
Let Jensen fight his own battles.
No more questioning. No more what ifs. No more.
You promised. Do it for your future self. Your future children. Your future happiness…. For Mom.
Because sometimes, we have to lose the things we love the most in order to find ourselves again in the chaos.
It’s time to move on. Time to be happy. Time to remember who you were before all of this, and who you still are.
I gasp for air, the tears coming so hard and fast they blur and soak the words on the page.
“God,” I sob—loud, guttural, wrecked. “I can’t do this.” I drag in a sharp breath, my chest aching, my lungs desperate for air. “I can’t do this.”
I hang my head in my hands.
And I cry…
One last time…
For us.
I wake to darkness,my sleeping mask still in place. I don’t feel rested—not even a little.
Pushing the mask to my forehead, I force my eyes open, letting the brightness blind me.
Jensen’s side of the bed is empty.
Guess he had to get his morning fix.
He probably doesn’t even remember last night.
I wait for the emotion to hit—the sadness, the panic, the guilt. But it doesn’t come.
I grab my phone, open the Delta app, and book a flight to Chicago for this afternoon.It’s now or never.I need to see my dad anyway.
Silently, numbly, I move through the house, packing whatever I can fit into a large suitcase and a carry-on. Clothes, toiletries, just the essentials. Only the things I need for now.
I keep waiting to cry—to feel something. But it’s like the well of tears has gone dry, emptied out by everything that came before.
Zipping my suitcase closed, I roll it to the front door, pausing for a moment to take one last glance around the apartment.
Our apartment.
My eyes land on the couch—the first place weever made out. The corner of my mouth tugs up, just a little, at the memory of him trying to focus on a work call while he stripped my shirt off.
My gaze shifts to the dining table, where I took a chunk of skin out of my hip bumping into it so hard. Jensen wanted to kiss it better—and then it led to more. The kitchen counter, where he ate me out after a Sunday football day full of drinking and laughing.
My eyes squeeze shut.God. Football.
There it is. The emotion. The sadness. The overwhelming feeling that I might actually die right now from a broken heart.
He’s everywhere.
I fell in love with him here. In this place. In this life we built. This apartment is us. It’s full of our love, our history… our dreams.
