Beloved (2 page)

When I look back up, the smug smile on Piper’s face says it all. She wanted this to happen. She’s enjoying my humiliation. Standing here shocked and horrified, watching her with my fiancé while she grins, obviously convinced she’s won whatever game this is … I snap.

I turn, slamming the door, and run as fast as I can. Shakily, I turn the car on and speed out of the driveway. All the good times we had, beautiful memories tarnished by his act of betrayal. As I drive the memories besiege me one by one—good and bad, love and hate, happy and sad.

Our first date ice-skating in Rockefeller Center, Neil skating backward holding my hands so I wouldn’t fall. Two months later, going to the bed and breakfast on the Jersey shore and making love for the first time. He was tender and caring. The love and adoration he had in his eyes as we looked at each other during intimacy. I swipe the tears streaming down my face. It was all a lie. You can’t respect someone then turn around and deceive them.

The memories keep coming.

The ride to the city, playing stupid car games and laughing until my sides hurt and Neil trying to convince me that the Jets would win the Superbowl. When he took me to Little Italy in July and got down on one knee and proposed in the middle of the street. The tears become too much. I can’t see the road, so I pull over. In the confines of my car I lose it. I cry and sob for everything I saw and will never forget. I call Ashton hoping she can calm me.

“Hey, Biffle,” Ash answers.

At the sound of her voice, any emotion I was holding back breaks free. A choked sound rips from my chest and the tears come faster.

“Catherine? What’s wrong?” Her voice changes from singsong to concerned.

“Neil … He cheated on me! I saw it! I … I.”

“What do you mean?”

“I w-went there and he was f-fucking her on the c-couch. I-I can’t-t bre-athe,” I stutter as the phone shakes against my wet cheek and ear.

“Okay, calm down. Where are you?” she asks.

“I d-don’t know! I couldn’t s-stand there and w-watch it,” I cry, weeping on the side of some unknown road.

Ashton takes a deep breath before speaking. “I’m coming to get you. Where are you?”

“Why?” I croak, letting the pain take over.

“Catherine,” she says, authority ringing through the phone. “Listen to me. Can you drive?”

“I g-gotta go,” I say and hang up, right before I throw the phone against the dash.

I can’t talk anymore. I can’t even think. My head is a mess. I want to forget and stop seeing that moment of betrayal on replay.

I grip my hair, screaming in frustration as I try to form coherent thoughts through my agony.

Why? Why after all this time? Why?

Seconds, minutes, hours are lost to me. As the tears begin to ebb, even though the pain doesn’t, I pull myself together enough to drive.

After driving around in circles for hours, my phone has over thirty missed calls and voicemails. I have no idea who they’re from and I don’t care. There are no words of comfort anyone can give me. My life, my future, my everything— … is gone.

Somehow I find my way back to my apartment where Neil is waiting for me in the hall outside. Seeing him brings me up short. The last few hours come right back, slamming into me with the force of a thousand bricks, piling around me and threatening to bury me under their weight.

He stands there, staring at me. “Hey.”

“How long have you been here?” My voice is quiet, but there’s no mistaking the undertone of disgust.

“A while. Ashton wouldn’t let me inside.”

My eyes close of their own accord as I try to find any ounce of strength I have left to handle this. The nausea hits me full force and I hunch over, trying to keep the bile down. Looking at him, being around him again, makes me physically sick. He’s destroyed every good memory we’ve ever had. Five years of love is gone. I want to crawl into a hole and never come out. The pain of the last few hours has left me empty.

“Catherine, please.” Neil comes forward and places his hand on my back.

I snap back up, throwing his arm off me. “Do
not
touch me!”

“I didn’t want you to find out this way.” Neil runs his hands through his sandy blond hair as he huffs.

“Really? How would you have preferred? After the wedding maybe? Or maybe at Christmas?” I glare as moisture returns to my eyes, threatening to spill over.

The tension rolling off of him shifts and he snaps, “I wanted to talk to you weeks ago, but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want this.” He gestures between us, apparently indicating the “this.” Gone is the apologetic man from a few moments ago. His eyes are cold and devoid of the love that once shined brightly in them.

“You think
I
did?” I scream in his face. “I don’t deserve this!”

“I need more,” he bites out, completely uncaring that he’s ripping my heart out—again.

“More? What more do you need? I can’t believe this. You cheated on me!”

He steps back, averting his hard stare at the elevator. “It’s been over for a while. I think we both knew this was coming.”

My eyes widen in shock and disbelief. “You’re kidding me, right? Because I didn’t know anything. We were getting
married
, Neil. How is that knowing this was coming? How many months of planning and building a life together shows me you were done?”

“I’ve been unhappy for months.” He sighs, running his hands through his hair. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“I’ll tell you what you could’ve done. You could have told me! You could have not slept with my friend!” I shout, but my words don’t even penetrate. He stands there, completely apathetic. “So that’s it? You’re going to walk away after five years?”

“Why fight what we both know isn’t going to work?”

I step back, shaken by his words. And then it sinks in: he’s not here to make it right; he came here to end it. To further damage my beaten heart—the heart he bruised and battered with his infidelity.

“This is why you’re here? To tell me this. Now?” I ask with fear choking me.

His voice is empty as the words tumble out of his mouth. “What we have just isn’t enough, Catherine. It’s better this way.”

Without another word he turns and walks away, ending the last five years of what I thought was the beginning of our life together. The elevator door closes and my heart shatters into a million pieces. Broken. This can’t be happening. We were getting married. We were going to have children, a life, a future!
No!

I gasp for air, trying to fill my suffocating lungs. Ashton opens the door and pulls me inside while I lose everything I ever thought mattered.

“Shhh, it’s okay.” She holds me close to her chest. “It’s going to be okay,” she murmurs quietly in my ear.

There is nothing to hold me together as I crumble to the ground in complete devastation.

Not enough.

All over again.

~Three months later~

“Ever wonder what makes these people think they’re going to find love on these stupid reality shows?” Ashton asks as she plops on the couch next to me.

We’re watching another episode of this show where random women try to find their one true love through a series of dates with multiple people.

“No. But maybe we should sign up since the traditional route isn’t working so much.” I laugh, shoveling another spoonful of ice cream into my mouth.

It’s a three-day weekend and we’ve been lazy, drinking wine and watching trashy television and movies. After spending the first month post-breakup wallowing, Ashton put her foot down and forced me to function outside of work. I believed my life was just beginning and there was a happily ever after in sight, but I should’ve known better. This is real life: there is no prince charming, and I’m definitely not a princess. No more illusions of fairy-tale endings. He’s gone, and I’m alone.

“Could you imagine? All these girls are hot too. They’re dumb, but at least they’re pretty. Your company should represent them.”

“I don’t represent celebrities, Ash. You know that. I like being a publicist in the business world. Way less drama dealing with companies versus people.” She tries to snatch the ice cream but I move it out of her grasp. “Can we change the channel? Let’s watch something about blowing people up, or shooting people! I have no desire to watch people fall in love. I’d rather pretend everyone’s miserable like me,” I say, grabbing for the remote as my phone vibrates with a text.

Ashton slaps my hand. “Don’t change the channel. I want to see her cry and be all sad when he picks the other idiot.”

“You don’t want to watch the other girl be happy?”

“Are you crazy? This is better than watching someone get blown up!” Ashton sits up, animated and excited. “She’s going to be all ‘I thought what we had was real.’ We can change it after the first girl gets dumped.” She looks down at the phone and her jaw falls slack. “Neil’s still texting you?”

“If so many people didn’t have my number for work purposes, I’d change it.” I groan and grab the phone.

For two weeks after he chose another woman, I didn’t hear a word from him. Then I started getting periodic text messages. Initially I thought he was concerned, considering he broke my heart and ran over it a few times with an eighteen-wheeler. However, I figured out pretty quickly that he wanted something. His texts were usually about issues with cancelling wedding vendors. But lately, his texting has become more frequent and has focused on us exchanging belongings.

Neil: I have a few things I found of yours. Also, I think I left some stuff at your place.

I’m sure he did, but a few weeks after I found him and Piper together, I burned it. I took everything and anything I could find of his and set it on fire.

At first, I wanted to hold on to anything that was his. Even with how our breakup happened, I loved him. A part of me hoped we could reconnect, find a way to get past everything and move forward. But he never called. I held on to the false ideas of what our life was like—how we loved once and how wonderful he had been. All of those memories I latched on to so tight, hoping if I squeezed hard enough, they’d be enough. But they weren’t.

“You know none of this is your fault, right? He did all of this,” Ashton says while snatching the ice cream from my grasp.

“I know, I know. I want to stop thinking about him and move on, but he was my life for five years. I hate him so much, but then there’s this small piece of me that won’t let go.”

The worst part was when I was depressed. I was barely eating, forgetting things all the time, and the tears were pretty much constant. Days were lost like that. Work was the only place I could function, the only place that wasn’t tainted by memories of Neil and Piper. I could be me there, or at least some semi-normal version of me.

Now I’m in the anger stage, which is working out just fine. Every time I’ve had to explain why I cancelled the wedding, I’ve relived what he did. It’s been humiliating. I’d rather deal with a hundred rabid reporters than call my family to explain how my fiancé cheated and then broke up with me because he needed “more.” I remember the way he was so callous, so emotionless. The Neil I fell in love with wasn’t the same person at the end.

The memory floods back, barreling through my anger, which quickly morphs into sadness as I recall the pain. A tear forms, but I swipe it away before it can descend. Crying is for the weak, and I will not let him break me again.

Ashton smiles and places her hand on mine. “I’m sure there’s a part of you that will always love him. But I’ll help you hold on to the hate because that’s the only emotion that douchebag is worthy of.” Her blue eyes are blazing.

“I know, Ash. I’m …” I try to find the right words. The bottom line is I’m not really sure what I am anymore. At first I worked so hard to hide it all, putting it aside so I could continue on with my life, not wanting anyone to see how badly it hurt. No one wants to be the girl that was stood up at the altar—even though we never made it there, the context is the same.

Her jaw sets and she narrows her eyes, trying to ensure that I’m listening as she says, “I say the prick did you a favor. Guys like him are never content. He would’ve done it sooner or later.”

“I’m tired. All I want is to enjoy our weekend and not think about him anymore.” I sigh and lay my head in Ashton’s lap. “It’ll get easier, won’t it?” I ask with a touch of hope.

She stares back and shakes her head. “It’s already easier. One day you won’t be sad or angry, you’ll only feel pity for him.”

“I’d like that day to be now. And I’d like him to stop texting me.” I half laugh.

Ashton swipes the hair off my face with a sad smile. “Do you remember in high school when I swore I was going to marry Stephen? I thought he was perfect. I mean he was the captain of the football team, smart, funny, fucked like an animal.” Her arched brow rises with amusement.

I laugh. “Yes, I remember Stephen the Stallion.”

I used to laugh so hard when she would call him that. She thought she’d marry him based solely on his ability to do things to her she never knew were actually possible. He doted on her, but we later found out he had a few other girls who were also receiving the benefits of his talents.