Page 75 of Still Here Without You

I’m vaguely aware of how much my words may be hurting her, and that I’m making this much bigger than it is, but a little part of me wants her to hurt. To feel an ounce of what I feel. Everything I’d buried deep down rises to the surface as I think back to the last time we spoke. “You said none of it mattered, and then you ghosted me.”

“What did you expect me to do? Play happy family with you and myex-best friend's kid? Come on, I deserve better than that.”

“What about when you found out it wasn’t mine? What then?”

“You still fucked her, Joel. The baby not being yours didn’t change that.” I cringe at her words as my driver audibly inhales. I’m pretty sure he can hear every word of our conversation. Yep, man. It looks like she wants to hurt me too.

Delilah sighs. “I’m sorry; I thought I could be your friend. That’s why I approached you that day. But I…I can’t move past it. I’m not sure I ever will.”

“You said it was fine at the time. That we weren’t together. But now you hate me for it? I guess it worked then. You got what you wanted.” Pressing my knuckles into my temple, I try to stay in control, but I know I’m seconds away from losing everything, again.

“I…I don’t even know what that means. It’s late. I can’t do this with you now. Isn’t it just better that we both move on from each other?” Her tone is pleading. Like she’s begging me to say yes without saying the words.

“In no world will that be better; that will never be what I want. But I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked of me. Why stop now? Goodbye, Del.”

I hang up before she responds, needing to get in the last word. That was brutal. Not at all how I expected things to play out. It’s not like I thought it would be smooth sailing, but I always thought I still had a chance, even if it was a small one. She gave me that idea.Guess I was wrong.

I toss and turn all night without a wink of sleep. My alarm’s due to go off any minute, so when I hear movement from the next room, I drag myself out of bed. Dylan’s looking down at his phone with a smile on his face when I walk into his room. We have an open-door policy whereby the rules say we can only enter if the door is open. Today, I broke that rule.

“Lucky I wasn’t naked in here.”

“Lucky for whom? I’ve always wanted to compare packages.”

Dylan laughs until I fall back onto his bed with a sigh. Then he rolls his eyes.

“Someone’s in a mood. Let me guess…Delilah?”

Throwing my arm over my face, I groan as he continues to go about his day. “She basically told me to fuck off and move on.”

He stops what he’s doing and turns my way. “When? You didn’t tell me that yesterday.”

I shrug. “We barely spoke about her yesterday. Anyway it was last night, or rather, early this morning.”

Dylan’s eyes almost bulge out of his head. “Please tell me you didn’t answer her call while still out with some random hookup, or worse,call herwhile out with said hookup.”

My eyebrows rise so fast it hurts. “Do you really think I’m that fucking stupid?”

He gives me a pointed look that tells me he does.

“Okay, I’ve done stupid things in the past, but I’d never do that. Itwasme who called her. Andyes, it was stupid. But I was on my way home.”

Sympathy replaces Dylan’s previously appalled expression before he sits down on the bed beside me. “Did she really tell you to move on?”

“Yep.”

Dylan winces. “Damn. What are you going to do?”

“Like always, I’m going to do what she asked.”

Does Dylan believe me? The furrowed brow and slight frown would suggest he doesn’t, but he doesn’t know… Do I believe me, though? The jury’s still out on that one.

For the next month, I try to move on. I really do. Well, not in the sense of actually dating. In fact, my hands never even touch someone else. But I’m definitely not sitting at home sulking. It would be a lot easier to avoid Delilah if I didn’t see her at every one of Dylan’s games. Turns out, she got her cheerleading gig back. Why she would want to spend time with the girls that treated her like shit is beyond me, but she’s there. And fuck, it’s hard to look away. She’s so beautiful that it makes my heart ache. With every kick, every jump, and every flick of her hair, I want to pick her up, carry her to my bedroom, and demand she forgive me. But that’s not going to happen. She made herself clear. And since that day, she hasn’t even looked my way.

I’m making breakfast one morning when Dylan walks into the room looking like hell. He’s been this way for the past week, and if I didn’t know the reason why, then I’d tell him to snap out of it. But I get it. Things with him and Summer went down hard.

“How about we go to the batting cages?” I ask after he grunts a hello in my direction.

“What?” he responds, eyes full of confusion as he raises his gaze from the floor.

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