Page 34 of The Girl I Once Loved

The Skylar he knew was a fabrication I made up. One that was strong and independent, uncaring of anyone’s opinion but her own. A woman who was so focused on succeeding in her professional life that her emotional one took a back seat to everything else. I made her up, and for years I deceived myself into believing that was who I really was, and I was just fine living someone else’s life.

Gael had been right when he accused me of being a ghost.

I was a ghost.

I’ve been one for years now, just going through the motions, and never letting myself truly suck in the marrow that a full life has to offer.

Oh, I pretended to.

I did a bang-up job of pretending to be wild and free in college, going to parties and hooking up with total strangers just for the hell of it. I went through fuckboys faster than most people go through Kleenex reading ugly-cry books. And when that got tedious, I flipped the switch and became the perfect girlfriend to the most wonderful man anyone could ever encounter.

But even then, I was still just playing a part.

None of it was real to me.

For it to be real, it would mean I’d have to open myself up and be vulnerable. Truly vulnerable. Let someone else in and entrust them with my heart. I’d have to cut myself open and show all the ugly dark parts of my soul, trusting they would accept me for who I was, warts and all.

But I had made that reckless mistake once before and vowed never to make it again.

And because of that decision, Gael ended up being punished for it.

He doesn’t deserve half a life.

He’s good, and kind, and so damn in tune with his feelings, that he puts my unwilling attempts to shame. He’s one of the most incredible, decent men I have ever met.

He deserves more.

More than I’ll ever be able to give him.

And because I know this, I vacillate texting Gael back with an ‘I miss you too’, preferring to stick to callous ways of leaving him on read instead. Whether we are on a break, or we’re officially no longer together, he doesn’t deserve to have his feelings played with. Even if I miss him, it wouldn’t be fair of me to say so.

And I do miss him.

But selfishly, for all the wrong reasons.

I miss how he calmed me. How his influence steadied me. He was able to tame the violent storm that lived and breathed within me, giving it a safe port to seek refuge in. It took me returning to Thatcher’s Bay to see how I took that calming influence for granted.

Maybe there is a lesson here.

A lesson on how it feels to have someone love you so unconditionally when your heart is incapable of loving them back. But if that’s the case, then it’s a pretty fucked up way to go about it.

Besides if anyone has a karmic teaching coming to them, it sure as hell shouldn’t be me. Noah isthe one who karma should pay a visit to. That bitch should be banging on his door nonstop instead of wasting her time with me.

But then again, life is never fair.

Sometimes the bad guys win in the end.

And the good ones never measure up.

“Nope,” I say out loud into my empty room. “This is not how I’m going to start my morning.”

My stepbrother doesn’t get to ruin my day when it’s barely started.

Determined to ignore the chaotic whirlwind that is Noah Fontaine, I lift off the bed and cross my legs, placing myself in a meditative pose. I close my eyes and pull in a deep breath and then exhale, forcibly pushing every wayward thought out of my head, focusing only on my breathing.

Ten minutes later, it’s in this meditative state that my sister finds me.

“Well, this is new,” Daisy singsongs, pulling me away from the only moments of peace I’ve had since I came back to this godforsaken island.

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