Footsteps slowly approached, and April eased up behind me and slid her arms around my waist, her concern wrapping me whole. “Are you okay?”
No.
I wasn’t okay.
As much as I tried to act like I was, I was not okay.
The realization hit me hard. Tears that felt as if they’d spent an entire lifetime being held back broke free. They streaked down my cheeks as a sob burst from that festering well, and I buckled at the middle, pressing my hand to my mouth as if I could push it all back inside.
Eight days had passed since Sebastian had left me. Eight days of sleepless nights. Eight days of pretending to Kallie and April that everything was all right when inside I was completely coming apart. Eight days of skirting Tamar’s questions and dodging Charlie’s worry. Eight days of quietly succumbing to this broken heart.
Eight days.
Eight days.
Eight days.
Now there was nothing I could do to hide it, no longer anything I could do to avoid it.
He had scarred me. I’d always known he would, but like a fool I’d embraced it, just a simple, silly girl who’d somehow romanticized it, thinking those marks would somehow become a balm. I had foolishly thought the memories would be seared so deep they would last, eradicating my loneliness, those stolen moments enough to preserve and endure and verify.
But no.
Those scars were nothing but a hole, one threatening to cave in and bury me alive.
Chest shaking, I heaved over a sob, and April held me tighter. Her voice was rough. Low. Urgent. “I hate this, Shea. Hate him for doing this to you.”
Her words were like fuel to the fire, and I shuddered with the grief that swelled and crested. Rushing over me. Wave after wave after wave. “He’s such a coward,” I gasped through the tears, angry, hurt, and confused. “Why couldn’t he just love me?”
All those insecurities came flooding in, and my head was suddenly full of the pictures I’d binged on behind locked doors every single night, my desperate eyes feeding from them as I frantically searched page after page on the Internet.
His face.
His face.
His face.
All those girls.
He’d told me he was no good, and it was evidenced time and time again—the life he led, the one he’d warned me of, paraded in front of me like insult. Like a quick succession of slaps to the face.
“He is a complete fool, Shea,” April whispered harshly, as if she could break through to me, make me see. “He will never find a better girl. Anywhere,” she emphasized. “I don’t care who he is or who he knows. He is the one who’s missing out.”
But that was part of the problem, because I already knew what he was missing. Knew the way Sebastian had looked at me as if he were memorizing, too, like he’d needed me just as desperately as I’d needed him, both of us having no idea what we were lacking, what we needed, until his intensity had called me home.
I was angry that he’d left, that he’d been a coward. But now I was hurting for him, too. I knew I had filled a hole, if only briefly, for him. I knew he’d used me to hide from his pain, and I’d been willing to hold him, keep him, love him. Especially if it helped him heal.
Even if it broke me.
Slowly I shook my head, whimpering through the words. “He didn’t make me any promises he didn’t keep, April. I was the one who let myself go. I was the one who fell in love with him, knowing he was never going to love me back. Knowing he couldn’t stay.”
I just didn’t know what it was he was returning to.
I hated that he’d been so bluntly brutal when he’d again pointed it out, when he’d glared down at me with the intent to crush all those simple, simple dreams that had blossomed too full.
Becoming too bright and vocal and vibrant to ignore.
Until those dreams went spilling over to him.
Hated he’d fucked me like it meant nothing then turned around and walked out.
It made me feel cheap, just a foolish country girl who’d taken up his time while he was hiding away.
April slid around to my front, pushing back the hair matted to my face, her head tipped to the side in understanding. “You’re too good, Shea. And it’s my job as your best friend to hate him for you if you can’t do it yourself. Someone needs to just because he made you feel this way.”
Sympathy filled up the weight of her smile, and I choked over a stuttered laugh. “I hate him a little bit, too.”
Hated the decision he’d made, the one that had caused him to walk away.
“You won’t feel like this forever,” she promised. “You will find someone who’s going to love you back. Someone who loves you the way you deserve to be loved. Someone who loves Kallie the way she deserves to be loved.”