Giving In (The Sandy Cove Series Book 1) (35 page)

She’ll be ok.

She’ll be ok.

I’ll be ok.

I’ll be ok.

I’ll keep telling myself that because I have to.
I’ll pound it into my head until I’ve brainwashed myself into
thinking it for both of us.

Love is truth, truth is love.

***

4 Months Later…

It’s not like I want to come back here, ever,
but I know my friends will keep him away from me if I see him. If
he sees me.

I’m doing ok. I’m only down to three sessions a
week with Dr. Goldberg, and I’m only on the anti-depressant now. No
more anxiety pills. Yoga helps. Therapy helps. Teaching helps, and
knowing that to me, he no longer exists in my life, helps too. I’ve
worked on it… Well, on myself.

So what has happened in the last four months of
my life? Not a suicide attempt, that I’ll tell you. Locking myself
in my condo for a week, wallowing in self-pity and calling out sick
with the flu, yes, that happened. Craw, Willow and Thea bringing me
food that I didn’t eat, yes, that happened too. The girls helping
me bathe my disgusting body, yes, that happened as well. Then it
came to me. My self-worth. I don’t need anyone to love me. I have
to love myself first and take it from there.

Doing that doesn’t mend everything, obviously.
That’s why I see Dr. Goldberg three days a week.

Teaching helps. My mind is consumed with those
kids and their bright minds. It’s amazing what I can see from my
point of view when I’m teaching them. It opens my mind up to the
infinite possibilities that there’s more to life than depending on
one person to make you happy. You have to be happy with yourself
first and foremost.

A few weeks after we broke up, I started to keep
a journal. I write down every single thought I have in my head. Dr.
Goldberg said it’s a good outlet. I have to agree. I don’t hate him
for what he’s done. I have come to forgive him. He was right. I
couldn’t change him from what he was like before. A leopard doesn’t
change his spots. When I heard that person in his room, I knew that
we were done. Up until that point, I think I would have fought
harder, but cheating and saying the things he said in the process…
Well, it doesn’t fly with me. I put up with it from Chad for years.
Sneaking around behind my back, smelling like a different girl all
the time. I won’t allow myself to be made a fool of again. I’m
stronger than that now. Why should I always fight to be someone’s
first choice? I should automatically be theirs.

Willow forced me to come just for the weekend.
It is Memorial Day. The start of the summer. I’m only staying for
the night. That’s all I can handle right now.

Porter kicked Cruz out of his house as soon as
we came back that day. Drove down himself, but Cruz was already
gone. Odd, but I’m guessing he already knew that Willow would rat
him out, and I’m like another cousin to Porter, so he wouldn’t put
up with me being hurt. He hasn’t talked to him since. Max told him
he’s living in Sandy Cove somewhere, but didn’t say where exactly.
Craw is the one I was worried about. He went down to Sandy Cove
looking for him. I tried to stop him, but he didn’t find him
anyway. He wasn’t even on duty.

So here we are at The Boat Stop. The place that
opened last summer. I wanted to come here instead of Jax. I didn’t
want to go there. Too many memories. I’d probably take up ten pages
in my journal from one night at Jax.

I casually sip on a beer and sit at a table with
the girls and Porter.

“Max coming down?” Willow asks.

“He’s around here somewhere, I think. Why do you
want to know?”

“No reason.” And she goes back to drinking her
beer and avoiding any kind of eye contact with us.

“Son of a bitch. Here comes Chad.” Willow growls
and is ready to pounce. I hold her arm down as she attempts to
stand up to probably knock him out.

“Wills, it’s ok. We’ve run into each other a few
times around home and we have spoken, briefly, but we have.” She
gives me an ominous look which I can’t avoid.

“It’s just talking. Believe me, once with him
was enough.” I see Chad approach cautiously, and I muster up the
confidence to give him a friendly grin.

“Hey, Harlow.”

“Hey, Chad. How are you?”

“Good, good. You look great. Can I… Um… Buy you
a drink?”

I raise my almost full beer to him.

“No, I’m good.” He leans in slightly to me,
trying not to allow anyone to hear him.

The anyone means Willow.

“Har, do you think we can talk? Please. There’s
some stuff I need to say.”

Now do I stay, or do I go? The old me says to go
to him, the new me says to stay away, but since we’ve talked back
home, I’m not afraid. It’s not like I’m going to fall for his
charms again. Be the prey of the hunter. I’m fine on my own. Don’t
get me wrong, he is the devil, but maybe he wants to apologize for
all he’s done to me. I have learned to be a forgiving person. I
can’t forget. What happened with us, it changed my life, but I can
forgive.

“Sure.” I tell him.

“Harlow. Are you crazy?” Willow yells above the
crowd.

“It’s fine. My God. What do you think is going
to happen? He’s not going to kidnap me.” I push back my chair and
follow Chad outside to the makeshift beach area off the side of the
restaurant part of the place.

We stand here. He’s far from me which is good.
So I’ll wait to hear what he has to say.

“She’s in there. I know she is, Cruz. Go in
there and get her back.”

Max paces in front of my patrol car in his
Chucks, and he’s going to wear them out if he keeps it up.

“I’m not going in there, man. Plus I’m on duty.
I can’t do it. She hates my fucking guts.”

Max jumped in front of my patrol car at the
station as I was pulling out to go on duty. He told me Porter had
called him to tell him that Harlow, Willow and Thea were here and
for him to meet them at The Boat Stop. Two reasons why I’m not
going in.

Number one, obviously Harlow, and two, Porter.
He will kick my ass. He hates me for what I did, and we haven’t
spoken since he kicked me out of the house. Just another thing I
lost in the process of breaking the girl’s heart. I lost one of my
best friends. I tell myself it was all worth it. I know she’s ok.
She’s better off without me. Max gets updates from Porter, and Max
tells me, not that I want to hear because it kills me. It fucking
kills me to even hear the sound of her name. From what I hear, our
breakup put her back in therapy a few more days a week, and they
were all pretty worried about her once she got back that day after
I ended it. I threw up when I heard that. I knew what she went
through before and how she wound up in therapy because of Chad. It
crushes me to think about how this time I was the cause of her
going through another breakdown.

If I thought I turned into a pussy when I was
with her, ha, ha, you should see me now. Watching those old black
and white movies she loves so much, just so I can feel like I’m
still a part of her. She’d turn one on when we were snuggling on
the sofa and the look in her eyes when the movies started, damn
you’d think they just announced she won the lottery or something.
That look in her eyes made me love her even more. Seeing someone
you love so much adore something so much makes all the problems you
have seem to melt away. Temporarily.

I go to the beach sometimes and just dip my toes
in the water and imagine how it felt for her to be so scared of
it.

When I’m on duty, and I have to drive by a
school at dismissal time, I think of her, and I look at my watch,
thinking that this is the time she’d be done with her day, saying
goodbye to her students. I imagine her with her black rimmed
glasses on, her hair frazzled by the end of the day, but once she’s
home, her heels come off. The fuzzy slipper socks go on, and a cold
beer is on her mind then in her hand. I think about her mostly the
nights when I’m not on duty. The nights where I lie awake and wish
things were different. Hell, who am I kidding. I think about her
every second, of every day.

Her scent is gone from the pillow I stole. It
just smells like… Well, nothing now. The strands of her hair have
fallen off of it, and I’m left with one picture of us. The one we
took in the car, the one she had in her place that was framed. The
one she put in a frame for me and gave to me on New Year’s Eve. The
others, I burned them on our dock. I mean the dock, and let them
fall into the water. I can’t have that much to look at of her. The
one picture I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t destroy it, like I
destroyed her.

Pictures are just pieces of paper. The memories
I have of her, of us, play like a movie in my head. Constantly.

To answer all further questions, I have
callouses on my hands. Yes, I said callouses. I haven’t been with
anyone that way but my hand since I left her the day after New
Year’s. I mean I haven’t completed the job. I can’t do it. I tried…
But Morty, well, I guess he’s mad at me. I kissed a few girls, but
all I see is her face, smell her scent. The bodies don’t feel the
same. The softness of her hair, her skin, her breasts. Her taste,
no other could ever compare to her. I am always talking myself out
of her memory. I’ve even murmured her name a few times while making
out with someone. Got a kick to Morty and a few slaps to the face
for those. But I deserve it. A few more months and she’ll be out of
my head.

“You’re a dumb mother fucker, you know that?
I’ve had to deal with your miserable ass for months now, and you
know what conclusion I’ve come to?”

I roll my eyes at him. “What’s that, Max?”

“You’re a fucking pussy bitch. You’re not the
tough guy, the man-whore. You’re nothing that you want everyone to
think you are. You’re nothing but a selfish, fucking prick.”

Little bastard. Who’s he think he’s talking
to?

He steps closer to me, and I give him a warning
look.

“You had something you wanted your whole life in
your hands, right there.” His hands are cupped out in front of me,
palms up.

“Fucking love. You let it go because you think
you’re not good enough. Did you ever stop and think that maybe you
are and you never even gave Harlow the chance to base her own
decision on the facts? You never even gave her a chance to hate
you, not that I ever thought she would. I always thought she’d
understand about your family and your fucked up life. And fuck what
Granny does and says. She may be powerful in Princeton, but who’s
to say she has it anywhere else.”

Jesus, what if he’s right.

Oh, God. What the hell have I done?

I get my bearings and start to pace like Max,
and he can see the trepidation in my movements. He stops and looks
at me.

“You’re going to go get her, aren’t you?”

I take off my cap and pull at my hair.

“She’ll hate me, Max. I fucking destroyed her. I
did. What I said to her, I can’t make her see that it was to
protect her.”

“Try, Cruz. Just try.”

I spin around ‘cause I hear her name. I hear
someone call her fucking name, and I follow the voices that I hear
speaking. Max is close behind. I look around the other side of the
building.

She’s here. My Turnip is here.

With Knox.

“What was it you wanted to say, Chad? I
really don’t have a lot of time.”

Here we stand practically face to face. He looks
uncomfortable and edgy.

“I just wanted to say the thing I’ve wanted to
say for a long time, and it’s sorry.”

I smirk. “Took you long enough, Chad. It’s all
fine though. I’ve learned to forgive you and myself. We just need
to move on.” He steps closer to me, and I don’t want him to so I
step back.

He calls out my name, “Harlow, please.”

“Turnip.”

I turn around, startled by the name I just heard
and from the voice it came from.

He steps towards me, my heart races. My mouth
goes dry, and I look at him, and my heart weeps. It weeps and melts
because I love him so much still. I know it as soon as I see his
beautiful face.

However, he dismantled me and I struggle with it
every day, no matter how busy I keep myself. So now I’m stuck. Do I
run to him and tell him I still love him, or do I turn the other
way and not look back?

Be the bigger person here, Harlow.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I heard you were going to be here tonight and I
need to talk to you.” His eyes so sad as he says it. I’m not
falling for anything, no matter how my heart feels.

I turn back in the direction of Chad.

“I don’t want to hear anything you have to
say.”

Chad grabs my hand. “Come on, Har. Let’s go talk
some more. I’m not finished saying what I have to say and I need
you to listen to me, please.” He tugs me, and I step into pace with
him.

“Daddy’s boat is here. We can talk privately
there.” We go towards the dock where the boat is.

“Harlow, wait. I have some things to say too.
Just don’t go with him.” His voice pleads with me. “Please, just
stop, stop and listen to me.”

She stops, but doesn’t turn around. Her head
is bent down, then I see her slowly raise it.

“Harlow!” I demand.

She turns sharply in my direction.

“What? What do you want, Cruz? What could you
possibly want with me? Can’t go back and change stuff, remember?
One pussy is not good enough for you. Your words, not mine.”

“No, you don’t understand…”

She stops me from speaking.

“No, you don’t understand. You told me I’m too
messed up in here.” She points to her head, and I feel sick.

“You told me I was a convenience. Like a friend
with benefits. Well, I’m no one’s second choice. I won’t be, not
ever again. I told you that the day you wrecked me. I was your
experiment, wasn’t I? Your test of the sloppy seconds endurance.
Well, you succeeded in your quest for the truth.”