“So, what are you gonna do?” Melissa’s expression challenged me.
“First, I’m going to get that marriage annulled. Then I’m going to hop on a plane to New York and get my girl back,” I said with newfound determination.
“How?” she asked.
I ran my hand through my hair and let out a huff. “I don’t know yet.”
Uncertainty lingered in the air, awkward in its silence. Pressure gnawed at me, insisting that this time I get it right. If I was going after this girl and begging her for another chance, I’d better make sure it counted. Because if I messed this up, we’d be over for good. I knew at least that much.
“Can I use the bathroom?” I asked before standing, needing an excuse to go into Cassie’s room, longing to be surrounded by any parts of her that she left.
“Of course.”
“Can I use hers?” I don’t know why I was asking if I could use Cassie’s bathroom. What the hell was Melissa going to tell me—no? Like I’d listen to her even if she did.
“Uh, yeah,” she said, with an eye roll she knew would annoy me.
I stepped into Cassie’s bedroom and scanned the walls, my insides aching at the emptiness. All her photos were gone; there wasn’t much left aside from her furniture. But then my eyes caught a glimpse of it, and my heart pounded out a ragged beat. I inched toward her bed, sitting down on the edge before reaching for her nightstand. The Mason jar filled with quarters sat there mocking me, almost filled to the top. The same one I’d given her, the quarters intended to “pay” her for every time I touched her. I flashed back to grabbing her arm the first time I saw her at the fraternity party that night. She ripped herself from my grip and practically shouted, “It costs fifty cents every time you touch me. Don’t do it again.” I wanted that sassy little mouth back in my life.
My eyes refocused on the Mason jar; the handwritten note that read “Kitten’s Quarters” was still attached. She didn’t take it with her. Why the fuck didn’t she take it? This was a bad sign. She moved all the way across the freaking country and left a piece of us here. A very important piece.
The jar in my hands mocked me, boasting its fullness while my heart remained empty. I turned the glass with my fingers, running my thumb across its smooth surface. I thought about smashing it against the wall and watching it burst into a hundred pieces so it mirrored my fractured emotions, but knew I’d instantly regret it.
The roller coaster of my relationship with Cassie needed to stop. It’s not that I wanted to get off the ride. I simply wanted it to be less like the bone-rattling, headache-inducing, rickety wooden roller coasters of the past, and more like the fluid smoothness of the state-of-the-art steel coasters of modern day.
I set the jar back in its place and walked out of her room, leaving what was left of my heart somewhere between the nightstand and the bedroom floor.
“How come some of her stuff’s still here?” I stared into Melissa’s blue eyes as I reentered the living room.
“We figured it would be easier to leave it here for now. We don’t know how long she’s staying there, and I’m not moving anytime soon. Besides, finding a fully furnished apartment in New York is easy.”
“What do you mean that you don’t know how long she’s staying there?” I asked, eager for every piece of information I could gather about Cassie’s future plans.
“She might hate living there. Or the job might not work out. She just didn’t know for sure, you know?”
I nodded, averting my eyes as my mind replayed memories of being in this apartment with her. A quick vision of her in that white sundress before I brought her home to meet my family for the first time flashed in my head and I winced, squeezing my eyes shut against the sharp pain that followed.
“Are you OK?” Melissa’s voice forced my eyes to reopen.
Swallowing hard, I said, “Just fighting ghosts.”
I needed to leave.
I needed out of that apartment where Cassie’s scent and my memories of her lingered. It hurt to be there without her, and I suddenly realized what it must have been like for her when I was gone and living with someone else. How painful it must have been to live here with the knowledge of everything I’d done to us. How much she must have suffered for my actions. She was innocent in all of this, so why had she paid the highest price?
“I gotta get back to my hotel before they freak out and think I’ve gone AWOL or something.” I headed for the front door, my head throbbing with each battered beat of my heart.
“You need me to drop you off?” Dean asked, his eyebrows pinching together.