“It’s lame, I know,” Hayden chuckled. “But my mother forces me here. I kind of hoped to trick you into coming so I wouldn’t suffer alone.”
I turned to him and studied his soft expression. Then I blurted out, “Who hurt you?”
He stilled and his brown eyes shot to mine. I could feel him already starting to shut down. He scratched at his clean shaven jaw and didn’t answer me.
“She hurt you badly, didn’t she?” I asked him.
He nodded stiffly. “Yeah. It wasn’t her fault.”
“Whose fault was it?”
“Both of ours.”
“Why?”
He tapped the arm of his chair thoughtfully. “We let ourselves grow apart. We didn’t fight hard enough.”
I frowned, considering his words carefully. “I thought you were obsessed with her.”
“I was. I…am.”
“But how could you grow apart if you wanted her so much?”
“I don’t know, Elise. Sometimes it happens and you don’t realize it until it’s done and the other person is a stranger to you. Like I said, we didn’t fight hard enough for what we wanted, and in the end it was easier to leave than work it out.” He turned his gaze to me and studied me. “You’re hurting over that guy that came to see you, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Has he hurt you again?”
“No, he…he’s fighting for us.”
Hayden’s eyes brightened. “Isn’t that a good thing?”
I avoided looking at him as I muttered, “It’s a scary thing. He might hurt me again.”
“Of course he’ll hurt you again, and again, and again. That’s what relationships are all about. You hurt and forgive and fight to make it easier when it happens again in the future. A relationship is only strong when you’re facing obstacles. Coming out of it together, even if you’re not in one piece, is everything.”
I nodded, fighting back the emotion behind my eyes. “Are you still in love with her?”
“Yeah,” he answered straightaway.
“Even though she hurt you?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that really love?”
He leaned into me, until his mouth was to my ear, and whispered, “That’s life.”
Aston
Where did Elise find this fucking cat?
He was laying on his back in my lap and sucking at the sleeve of my shirt. What in the holy fuck? I stared down at him, not wanting to kick him off in fear of losing his respect, but also wanting my fucking body back.
I rested my head against the wall. I was sitting on the bottom staircase facing the door, waiting for her to come back. She’d been gone two hours, and I was losing my shit. What was she doing? Had the doctor wooed her? He probably had, the sleazy good looking bastard.
I’d returned too late after enduring months of misery and darkness. She deserved to move on. Who the hell was I to come back and fuck with her head again?
Chances are, she’d come back and tell me to fuck off and I wouldn’t. I’d keep fighting for another chance because, fuck, I’d never blow it. I learned the hard way: pushing what you loved away out of fear cost you everything. And I wasn’t a coward anymore. Numbers were just numbers at the end of the day. Elise, on the other hand…Elise was everything to me.
When I heard a car pass by, I flicked Tuck off my lap. He landed on his head – great, I was a cat abuser – and I quickly bent down to check on him, but he sprang up to his feet and galloped away like nothing happened. Chill cat.
I moved to the front door and opened it, peering out into the cold streets. A car door shut and I followed the sound to the neighbour’s driveway. Becky caught my eye, and she narrowed hers as she hurried into her house, cell phone already pressed to her ear. “He’s back,” I heard her hiss as she disappeared inside her house.
Disappointed, I stepped out and walked down the driveway. I stood on the sidewalk, staring from one end to the other, waiting. Elise wasn’t coming back. She was with some guy by the name of Hayden, and she’d probably spend the night with him hoping I’d be gone when she returned come morning.
I ran my hand through my hair and clenched my teeth. Pain rocked me to the core and I had to stop and take a few deep breaths to calm myself. I closed my eyes and tried to accept it. I had failed her, but god, what a journey we’d led, and it pained me because I felt like we truly hadn’t even started yet.
Knock. Knock.
My eyes whipped open. I spun around, searching for the sound.
Knock. Knock.
I stopped mid-step and stared at my car and at the tall, slender figure leaning against it. My gaze slowly travelled up those black fluffy boots, snowflake leggings, plaid jacket, long blonde hair, and stopped when it reached those ocean blue eyes. I took a step closer to her, a lump caught in my throat as she smiled at me with glistening eyes.