After All(93)

I wish what she was saying wasn't flying into my chest like shrapnel, but it is. It fucking is.

"No," I tell her, but fuck it's hard to speak. This can't be happening. "No. You have to understand. Everything I said is true."

"But the pictures say otherwise."

"The pictures lie!" I yell. "It's all a lie. You have to believe me." I press my hand into my chest. "Me, Alyssa. We've been together in this crazy world of real and fake for so long now, I get that it's confusing, I get that you don't know what to believe, I get that you might think it's an act. I'm not blaming you for thinking the worst."

"What? Thinking the worst?!" she cries, throwing out her arms. "Again, Emmett, the pictures. Your words. You kissed her. You were drunk and thought it was me. That doesn't make it okay. Not even a bit."

I put my head in my hands, pinch my eyes shut, hoping to drown out the world. "I know. I know it's not okay. I fucked up." I breathe in deep but everything hurts. "I fucked up."

"Yeah," she says quietly. "You did. And I'm sure I should just give you the benefit of the doubt but … I can't. I just can't. These pictures they're … I'll never stop seeing them. Never stop picturing you with her."

I stare at her, imploring her with my eyes but I already see the wall between us. "This can't just end. It was just beginning."

"It was a role to you Emmett, that's all it was."

"It was never a role. It was always real. Alyssa … I love you. More than I can even say. Please, don't leave it like this, leave me like this. How I feel about you is the only true thing I have."

God, please, let these words get through to her!

She breathes in deep through her nose, shaking. "I need to go."

She heads to the door.

I need to run after her.

I need to stop her.

I need to cry and plead and beg.

But I don't.

My heart hurts too much to even move.





Chapter 19





Alyssa





Broken.

There's no other word for it.

There are other words for how I'm feeling. Humiliated. Embarrassed. Ashamed. Angry. Sad. Depressed.

But the word that says it all right now is … broken.

I'm no longer a whole human but one that's splintered and fragmented and made up only of jagged parts.

On Saturday morning I got the email that was addressed to both me and Emmett. The email that ruined us and everything we shared together. It ruined the future I thought we had. It ruined a love I thought we had.

It broke me into a million pieces before I even heard the truth from Emmett's mouth.

Him with her. Autumn, who represents everything I'm not. Tanned, tall, skinny, effortlessly beautiful. Successful. She's the polar opposite of me in every way.

And she's Emmett's type. Not just in the fact that he dated and screwed so many actresses and models that looked just like her before I came around. It's the fact that he specifically slept with her before. He says it only happened once … I believe him. But I also believe that's why when she kissed him, he let it happen.

The thing is … I know that Emmett was probably telling the truth. He's an honest guy, especially about his misdeeds and shortcomings but …


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Fuckity fuck fuck.

He just broke my fucking heart.

Is he that easy to take advantage of when drunk? How many times has this happened before?

And … what if I never showed up at his door, if we never got that email … would he have told me what happened?

That's what I have a hard time wrestling with. Because as honest as he is, I can't forget his type, the person he was before he met me. I believed him when he says he loved me, I really did but … I just think maybe his idea of love is skewed. I couldn't even blame him for that, not with his upbringing and losing his mom, not with his job and essentially lying for a living. After all, how can loving me really change a person? How can I make him stop being the person he was and become someone else?

I'm just Alyssa Martin.

And I don't think I have that kind of power over him, over anyone.

How can a relationship built on a lie ever feel like the truth?

And how the fuck am I ever going to get over him when it feels like I don't even possess my heart anymore. I left it at his house, where it lays shattered on his floor. Now I'm just scooped out inside, hollow, a space that only darkness can fill.

It's killing me.

Honestly, I don't know if I've ever really loved, ever really hurt before.

Not like this, never like this.

I walked straight off that cliff.