Page 11 of Tricked by my Ex

EVE

What in thehell was that?

I sped away, definitely breaking all California speed limit laws before I took a breath and decided to slow the heck down. My mind was spinning. My heart was racing.

Fake Anakin was Tyson?

I couldn’t believe it.

From the second he had approached me in the backyard, he’d known it was me he was walking toward. He knew exactly who he was talking to. With every twist and turn of the conversation, he knew where it was headed. But I didn’t know any of it. I’d had no freaking idea that I was having such a personal interaction with my ex-boyfriend.

I felt sick at the things I’d admitted to him. Stupid for being so easily deceived. And I was mad at him for manipulating me.

It was a mean trick.

My head continued replaying that part of the night over and over again. First, it kept repeating the things I’d told him without meaning to. Then, it moved on to his confessions.

He’d said he’d only come to the party tonight to see his ex-girlfriend.

He was talking about me.

And when he had said that his ex was the one who’d gotten away, again, he’d meant me.

It was almost too much to process. That, after all this time, he was still as hung up on me as I was on him. The idea seemed impossible.

I’d thought Tyson had moved on and never looked back. It’d certainly felt that way. How could I have been so wrong? And why now? Why was he suddenly showing up after seven years? I didn’t understand, and I was awash with so many conflicting emotions.

I had more questions than answers, and I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to know the truth or not. I felt like a walking contradiction. Just a few hours ago, I had been jealous that my best friend’s ex-boyfriend couldn’t seem to let her go. And now, here I was, getting what I’d always thought I wanted, but feeling unsure about it instead.

When I pulled into my garage and shut off the engine, I reached for my bag. Tyson’s shouts against my driver’s window, telling me to unblock him from my phone, reverberated in my ears. I had forgotten that I’d even done that.

When he’d chosen New York over me and never looked back, I’d eventually blocked him everywhere. It had taken me a while, if I was being honest.

My curiosity had seemed to get the best of me at first, and I was obsessed with watching all of his posts and stories. I checked his social media accounts constantly, hitting refresh more times than I cared to admit. I was waiting for him to message me, or reach out, or post something that I would know was a secret message meant just for me, but none of those things ever happened. And all of his posts hurt me as I overanalyzed them and stopped me from healing.

He looked so damn happy, always smiling, his arm wrapped around a gorgeous costar or two. It was an awful thing to witness and watch.

Embarrassing, to say the least.

So, I finally worked up the nerve to unfollow his accounts and block him from mine. After a few days, where I fought the instinct to unblock him the entire time, I realized that I felt healthier and more in control. Not seeing his every move was freeing on my heart instead of having the opposite effect.Out of sight, out of mindwasn’t a hundred percent accurate, but there was some truth there. I could try my best to forget about what had happened and move on even if no one else wanted me to, which it certainly seemed like they didn’t.

Everyone at our college seemed to know that we were over and that it definitely hadn’t been my doing. They whispered when I walked by, and some even had the nerve to tag me online in posts about him with other women. They watched him rise in popularity and fame, all while knowing that he’d left me behind, sad and brokenhearted. Grieving that loss in front of people who seemed to enjoy watching it was humiliating. I’d briefly considered transferring universities, but decided against it when I finally moved into the anger phase of grieving our relationship. Tyson would not make me rearrange my life just because he sucked.

I exited my car, locked the door, and walked into my condo through the garage entrance. Dropping my bag on the counter, I sat down on my couch and kicked my feet up onto the coffee table before pulling them back and tucking them underneath my body. I really wanted to call JJ and beg her to come over, but I stopped myself.

I had no idea why. I guessed I wasn’t in the mood to talk it all out yet.

Scrolling through my Contacts until I got to Tyson’s name, I noticed that it was indeed still blocked. Part of me was surprised that he never changed his phone number, but I never had either. I pressed the button to cancel the block, and my text messages started blowing up instantly. He had been texting like a madman, but I couldn’t bring myself to read them. At least, not yet.

It was all so overwhelming. And unexpected. And I was still kind of pissed off at the way he’d manipulated me tonight. He had known exactly what he was doing the whole time, and I’d been in the dark. Would I have listened to him though if I had known that it was him underneath all that makeup and costume? Probably not.

But I wasn’t sure why. I’d always longed for an apology from him, and now that it was up for grabs, I was running from it.

I was annoyed at everything, especially my own warring emotions. I’d felt off and on edge all day, like I could sense Tyson’s nearness somehow, and now, I couldn’t believe that I’d been right.

How could two people still be connected after so many years of silence?

The memories crashed into me like a rogue wave, knocking me off my feet and taking me under.

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