Sleeping with Mr. Sexy(14)
I gulp, flopping back in the chair. I take a sip of my coffee. “Mmm. I haven’t had this flavor—”
“Nice try, Ms. Distracter. Furthermore, you’ve been so far up your own ass to see what’s right in front of you all of these years.” She stands up, irritation rolling off of her. “Chase loves you… loved you, loves you. Whatever! For your information, he only had a few drinks that night. He wasn’t drunk. He knew exactly what he was doing. So, as much as you feel empowered by taking responsibility for every fucked up decision, he was very aware of what he was doing that night. So, you,” she says, pointing a finger at me accusingly, “need to accept that maybe, just maybe, he took advantage of the girl of his dreams after she pummeled four Long Island Iced Teas. He was with that blonde girl at the bar, not to get laid, but to get a reaction, and it worked like a charm. You finally let the walls down for one night and followed your heart.”
“Followed my vagina is more like it.”
“That’s beside the point,” Heather says, raising her voice and drawing some nearby patron’s attention. I look around, a little embarrassed, and give her my annoyed bitchy-face. “The world does not revolve around Lydia Nichols. Chase moved on, because you blew it. You blew it big time. You ran off to New York and hid for the last two and a half years. And, on top of that, you blew it for all of us. You let us all down, Lydia. You hurt that man. Chase was a caring friend who was always there for us, and you took him away from all of us. You broke him. He left us because of you.”
“Heather—”
“I’m not finished,” she says, walking behind the chair, putting distance between us. I sit there as she continues to tell me how messed up I am. “You need to make this right. Not for yourself but for us and, especially for Chase.”
“I can’t.”
“You can, and you will.”
“I can’t go barging in, disrupting the life he’s built with… with her.” As I say this, I feel a rush of pain fill my heart, like I have finally accepted that he’s truly someone else’s now.
“You can,” she says, lowering her voice to just above a whisper. She walks to the door a few feet away and turns to face me with the door open. “Lydia, he didn’t get married.” She takes a deep breath. “He’s in court today. Don’t waste another chance.”
My heart freezes in my chest, and my mouth drops open as I watch her leave. The bell above the door ringing remains the only indication that she just left me in a coffee shop with that bombshell of information. I sink into the chair, my whirring thoughts a mass of confusion.
He didn’t get married. Chase is not married. He didn’t go through with it.
With my emotions all over the place, my heart and mind narrow in on one monumental reality, and I bolt up from the chair.
Chase is not married!
A tidal wave of relief washes over me, and I suddenly feel the tightening in my chest release. I haven’t felt this invigorated or hopeful in years.
I turn in a circle, not knowing quite what to do with myself. Do I go home? Do I go after Heather and find out more? Do I go see Chase?
‘Make this right.’ Heather’s words echo in my head.
The feeling from our one and only night together as more than friends overtakes all my other thoughts, reminding me of what I already knew to be true. This is right on so many levels that I can’t stop the force of this if I wanted to.
I run out of the coffee shop and down a block. Looking frantically around, I’m unsure of where to go. I need to make this right, to make us right again. How do I make this right? My anxiety gets the best of me and I curse out loud. “Double damn!” My outburst draws the attention of a guy walking by, and I start running not caring about the scene I just made.
I’m dressed wrong for the distance I need to run —sneakers I’d chosen for looks over comfort, skinny jeans, and an old concert t-shirt that has a few well-earned holes. Okay, I look like shit, but it isn’t about how I look. Right now, in this moment, it’s about how I feel and not wasting the chance I’ve been given. I run three blocks up and six blocks over, stopping twice to squeeze the cramp knotting in my side. I’m sweating, and then it starts raining on me. Wearing down, I finally hail a cab and give the driver my destination.
Traffic comes to a standstill near the Civic Center and my impatience kicks in. I pay the cabby, and he points me in the right direction. By the time I cover the last two blocks, I’m drenched. The tears I develop as my heart explodes in my chest are instantly washed away, along with my make-up, in the warmer than usual late summer rain.