“Strange, now that I talk it out, this week would have been a time of need, and not once did I sense my wolf. I didn’t dream of him, either, but I did dream of the animal I thought I saw at the attack. It if was a wolf, it was the size of a man or even bigger. I just don’t know. Where are you going?” I asked as he jumped up from the bed.
I watched with my mouth open as he grabbed for his clothes.
“I’m sorry. I know my story makes me sound like an insane woman, but you asked. I don’t trust my brain in that situation. I have no idea what I really saw,” I rambled on, a high-pitched squeal to my tone.
As he fought with his jeans and struggled to get on his shoes, I just sat there, unable to think clearly through this sudden change of events.
“Say something,” I yelled, reaching for the blanket to cover myself as he put on his shirt.
I heard a hem tear, and cowered a bit beneath the blanket.
Without looking at me, he turned and strode to the door.
“No fucking way!” I screamed this time. The realization of having neighbors and thin walls had me shrinking into myself with guilt. “Do not walk out on me! I deserve to know why you’re leaving this way.”
He looked back at me, his eyes dark, his hands in fists, and the muscles in his neck tight. I thought I saw a vein pulsing at his hairline. He shook his head and ran from my room. I heard my front door slam before my body could even think to cry. In fact, I sat there silent, clutching my blanket to my chest for some time. My thoughts, the events of the night, they swirled through my head.
Oh my god, I let him spank me. I let myself like it, want more!
I felt the heat on my cheeks and my chest. Humiliation burned over my skin from my head to my feet. I swear, I went through the stages of grief. I knew them all too well, like an unwelcome friend. The disbelief left me immobile. I waited, listened for the door to open again. I wanted an apology and then an explanation. I even imagined us making love again. Damn, but I would call it that instead of just sex. I wouldn’t have a one night stand. Not with a guy like him. The anger emerged as the time ticked by. The clock proved with each passing moment how unlikely he was to come back now.
Red hot flames burned my stomach. I swallowed down the feel of acid, like heartburn, in my chest. I berated myself, and then I belittled him. Then I went back to hating myself for both. I didn’t deserve this. As the anger left me helpless and vulnerable, I moved on to bargaining. In an attempt to gain some semblance of control, I ticked off the events of the night, looking for anything that would have made him leave. I concentrated on the final minutes. I re-examined every word I had said when I told him about my attack.
I talked to anyone out there in my empty room who might have listened to me, begged them for a second chance. I wouldn’t overreact this time to a simple noise. I wouldn’t have to reveal my story, then.
“Someone tell me what it is about sharing that horrible moment in my life upset him enough to make him walk out on me,” I pleaded to no one.
No one answered, and so finally I crumbled. Face down in a ball on the bed, I let the tears come. My soft cries soon turned to sobs, until I could barely catch my breath. When I’d cried myself dry, I laid there, a useless lump, my swollen face unmoving from the wet spot on the bed that I’d created. I fell fast asleep before I hit the final step of acceptance.
Chapter Five
Christina,
I shouldn’t have.
I’m sorry.
Forgive Me.
Lex
That was all the note said. The small sheet, a scrap torn off the back of an envelope, I’d found in the morning. It had been laid right by my door, a corner of it still held snug underneath. Lex must’ve slid it under sometime during the night while I’d slept. Or, maybe he’d left it sometime this morning, for that matter. The clock on my coffee pot did claim the time to be a quarter past ten. Although it didn’t feel that late, I guessed I had to believe it.
Standing there and staring down at the piece of paper held tightly by my hand, I pondered the words. Whatever his vague phrases meant, a note versus a knock on the door meant he held fast to the fact he didn’t want to see me again. I hoped he’d change his mind and show up here sometime today. Maybe whatever guilt had possessed him to write the note would encourage him to come back. I’d thought last night could have been the beginning of the first real relationship of my life. Instead, it now looked to have all the potential of a one night stand.