Page 73 of In Love and War
Because even if it’s not her, it’s someone else. And even if it’s not now, it’s eventually.
“Thank you for the ride.” I had the door swung open and was out of the car before he could say anything else, afraid of how easy it would be for him to talk me out of ending the whole thing. The pouring rain hit me right away, and I was semi-soaked by the time I stepped through the front doors.
The first tear escaped when I was waiting for the elevator. The second one fell when I stepped into it. I swallowed back the rest, cursing myself for feeling the way I was. For allowing myself to fall, to care, knowing from the very beginning it wouldn’t end well.
I started to peel off my damp clothes the second I stepped inside the apartment. My hair went into a bun, and I slipped into the most comfortable outfit I owned, a pair of soft light-grey sweat shorts and a fuzzy white sweater, before opening up a bottle of wine.
I meant to turn on the TV or grab a book to help take my mind off Zac. But as soon as I sunk down onto my couch, I couldn’t bring myself to do anything other than stare out the window and watch the rain fall.
I felt drained. To the point where my body was sore, aching along with my chest. The third tear fell, and some more after that. I stopped counting at around eighteen. I was too tired to keep going.
Two and a half hours passed, according to my clock, but I couldn’t move. I watched the sun set and the streetlights turn on. I was about to pour my fourth glass of wine when I spotted it. Lying on top of a few magazines on the counter was my high school journal. I’d gone back to snatch it from my bedroom after the charity event.
I willed myself to get up and grab it before flopping back down on the couch. I read through quite a few pages, highlighting stupid fights and crushes. Things that had taken up my whole world at the time and just seemed so trivial now.
I flipped over to latter part of the journal, to the entries that were written during the last summer of high school. The summer that I’d done my internship and met Zac.
His name was splattered all over the pages, the cause of my daily struggles and turbulent frustrations. He turned from my biggest crush to the bane of my existence, with the transition fully documented.
I couldn’t help but huff a laugh at my overdramatized descriptions of our encounters. He was colored as the ruthless villain of my story. But that wasn’t reality. I’d known it then, and I knew it now. It was only what I wanted to tell myself.
The truth was that I’d never met anyone like him. And it wasn’t just about his looks. He was mature, confident, smart, hardworking, and universally well liked and respected. And he wanted absolutely nothing to do with me.
I developed feelings toward him that I couldn’t describe or deal with. Ones that overwhelmed me, deprived me of my sleep and appetite. I didn’t know what they were, so I labeled them as “hate.” Because that was easy, and it was safe. And it would be the only thing that could ever be reciprocated by him.
I flipped to the last entry of the book, frowning as I read through it. I didn’t remember writing this.
He hates me. He thinks I’m selfish, spoiled, and entitled. But that’s okay, because I hate him, too.
I hate that he thinks those things of me.
I hate that he thinks I’m incompetent, that I can’t do anything right.
I hate that I keep messing things up around him, that I can’t meet his expectations.
I hate that he makes me nervous. It’s the sound of his voice and the color of his eyes. They make things worse. So I hate them, too.
I hate his smile. The dimpled one he reserves for everyone else in the office. Everyone except for me. I get the glares and the scoffs and the indifference. Never the smile.
I hate that he thinks he can take everything away from me. Like I’m nothing. Like I’m no one. Like I don’t matter. I’m a small stain on his otherwise perfect career plan. A pebble in his shoe on his climb to the top. Annoying, but easy to get rid of.
I’m nothing to him, not even a competitor. Because we’re not on the same level, him and I.
I’m not enough.
He’s right. But I will be. I’ll be enough. He’ll see. One day I’ll be back and I will be. One day it’ll be my turn.
He won’t have a choice but to notice me then.
My hands moved to rip out the pages of the entry, to crumple them up and throw them out. I stopped, my fingers gripping the top of the paper, when my phone began to vibrate beside me. I went to turn it off, entirely not in the mood to deal with other people for the rest of the evening, or week for that matter, and then I saw who was calling.
Building security? Why?
“Hello?”
“Yes, hello, Miss Bloom?”
“Speaking.”
