Let Love Heal (The Love Series) (20 page)

Sinking into my seat as the professor closes the door on Bryan’s utterly confused face, I know that I can’t avoid him forever. I just have to figure out a way to be with him without getting sick to my stomach.

I’ve managed to avoid Bryan all week. I don’t know if that’s necessarily something I’m proud of, but it’s something I’ve done nonetheless. The overwhelming need to talk to someone about all of this gets the best of me. Plopping down on my bed after a grueling test, I dial Maddy, hoping that she’s not too busy for me.

Just when I’m about ready to hang up, she answers the call. “Hey, Mel. Give me one sec.” Maddy’s all out of breath and I hear her curse as her keys and phone clunk to the ground. My heart lightens a bit when I hear Maddy say, “Shit, shit, shit.”

After a few more seconds of shuffling, I register the crinkling sounds of plastic shopping bags as Maddy’s voice comes back on the line. “Sorry, Mel. I was just carrying some groceries in. Stupid phone slipped right out of my hands. What’s up, girl?”

“Look at you being all domesticated. If you tell me that you’re cooking, I’m going to have to suggest a mental health evaluation.” I laugh softly at the image of Maddy trying to make anything more than cereal.

“Oh, just shush, would you? So how’s everything going?” I can’t tell she’s trying to tip-toe around the question she really wants to ask. I’ve been avoiding talking to her, just like I’ve been avoiding talking to Bryan.

“Ehh. They’re going. Classes are okay. Oh and get this. I got a new roomie,” I start nervously, twisting my hair around my fingers.

“No shit! What’s she like?” I hear a bag crinkle in the background as cupboards clap opened and closed.

And the distraction works for a few minutes as we get lost in meaningless conversation about biology tests and new roommates, but when a stilted silence stretches for a few seconds, I know that Maddy is just trying to carefully select her words to ask about Bryan.

In a rushed huff of words, I answer her unasked question. “I still haven’t told Bryan.” I flop back on the bed and cross my forearm over my head.

“Oh no, Mel. Why not? I thought you were going to tell him.” Maddy’s words ring through the line with concern and not an ounce of judgment.

“I know. I know. I just … ughhh. It’s so complicated. Maddy, I just don’t know what to do.” Guilty emotion coats my throat as I try to get the words out.

“So why don’t you try explaining it all to me. We didn’t really get to talk about it too much over break, but I’m here for you and I want to help you figure everything out.” She’s told me this before, but I always feel like such a burden dumping my problems on her. I know I shouldn’t, but I do.

“Maddy, we could be here for hours, though. Don’t you have dinner to make or something like that?” I can’t deny that part of me wants to talk and part of me wants to avoid this conversation for as long as I can.

Her loud almost bark-like chuckle bursts through the line and I actually have to pull the phone away from my ear. “Pfft. I can try to make dinner as much as I want. We’ll still end up getting take-out. Besides, we haven’t talked at all since you got back to school.” The pleading tone in her voice forces my will to crack and my voice to falter.

Tally up one more reminder of my failures. Shitty best friend right here.

When I still don’t say anything for a few more seconds, Maddy pushes one last time. “Please, Mel. I just want to understand and I want to help you. Please talk.”

Beyond frustrated and more than ashamed of the situation, I huff into the line. “What is there to say? I was wrong. He told me not to visit him. He didn’t call me. I got a text of him and his ex-girlfriend making out at a party and then I went and fucked up royally by cheating. That about sums it up,” I snap at her even though none of this is her fault.

Maddy softly gasps. “I didn’t know about any texts. Did you ask him about them?” Surprise laces through her words, but she also sounds a bit hurt that I never shared that with her.

I sigh as if it will release some of the shame I’m feeling. “No, I just figured I didn’t have a right to ask him about them after what I did.”

“Is that why you started hanging around with Lindsey and those girls over break?”

My stomach twists in knots as I recall just how un-Melanie-like I behaved over vacation. “I guess so. I’m not proud of that, though. You know I don’t drink, but I was trying to dull everything, trying to make it all go away.”

“How’d that work for you?” she quips, but it’s not meant to hurt or jab at me.

“Fan-fucking-tastic, obviously!” I retort with a feigned snippiness. “Okay, fine. It was a shitty way of coping, but I was just so angry and upset. And then
it
happened and I felt so guilty. Feeling nothing but a drunken stupor was better than feeling all of that.” I can’t bring myself to share my biggest source of guilt, though. The fact that I was too drunk to remember who I was with or what I did with him is something that I’ll conceal from everyone. Except I guess Bryan at some point.

“Mel, I wish I could make it better, but you know the only way to make the guilt go away is to talk to Bryan. I mean, could there have been a mix up with the text?” Her casual question causes anxiety to bloom in my chest.

“A mix up? What do you mean?” I wrap my arm around my stomach as I feel a sickening feeling start to grow.

“Did you get the text from him or from her?” Oh crap. There’s no stopping Maddy once she goes into her Nancy Drew mode.

“It was from her.” Timid words slip past my lips. I can see where she’s going with this. Of course, when I initially got the text, I didn’t even pay attention to the number that it came from. I saw the picture and reacted. I know there’s a lesson here about hindsight being 20/20 and all that, but all I feel right now is overwhelming dread.

“And did he happen to mention why he didn’t want you to come visit?” Maddy’s fitting together the pieces of the puzzle.

“Yes, he did.” I choose not to tell her the reasons just yet. My conscience can only handle so much right now.

“Then you have to talk to him about it. I seriously doubt he even knows about the text. You know what a bitch Courtney was to you last semester. And if he had legitimate reasons for being distant, then you have to give him the benefit of the doubt.” Damn her and her level-headedness.

I shift and straighten my back up against the wall next to my bed. “I hate when you’re right.” I can just picture the smirk creep across her face at my admission.

“I know, but really, sweetie, I just want you to be happy. I don’t care about who is right or wrong.” My belly flips again just thinking about Maddy’s kind, green eyes crinkling with concern as she speaks those words.

I release a shuddery breath and try, in vain, to dismiss the heavy conversation. “Okay, okay. Enough about me. Tell me how things are going with you guys? How’s the baby doing? What’s Reid’s job like? How is it living with a boy?” Teasingly, I stretch out the word “boy” and she giggles at me in return. I ask all of that because I do genuinely want to know, but I also want to feel happy for a bit. And the only way I can think of being happy is by not dealing with my world of crap right now.

The rest of the conversation is filled with Maddy gushing over her pregnancy, glowing over Reid, and stressing about fitting classes in around her work schedule. Even though I hear the anxiety in her voice from time to time, I can tell that she’s just fine. Everything worked out for them. I just hope it will work out for me.

Maddy hangs up with me when Reid gets in from work and I feel better having talked to her. Now, I just have to work up the courage to talk to Bryan.

After I get off the phone with Maddy, I take a shower in the hope that the hot water will scald away some of the guilt I’m feeling. As the rising steam curls through the air, I run through an imaginary conversation with Bryan. I try to envision how the conversation will go, and as I work my crimson hair into a furious lather, Bryan tells me he forgives and loves me. But then, as I rinse the soapy bubbles from my curvy body, he’s cursing me out and telling me that he hates me.

Where’s that damn crystal ball when you need it?

As I step out of the shower, I wrap a fluffy purple towel around my body. Swiping my hand across the mirror, I catch a glimpse of my contorted face. I’ve never been able to say that I’m confident or that I truly love who I am, but staring at the guilt-ridden image reflected back to me, I’m utterly disgusted. And it’s not just about what I have to tell Bryan. It’s about who I’ve become over the past month. This self-loathing, indecisive, evasive version of me is hideous. Desperately in search of the girl I want to be, I take a deep breath to cleanse my lungs and hopefully my soul.

After getting dressed, I pull my hair into a loose knot. I sit in my desk chair, feeling undeserving of the comfort that my bed affords me, and pull out my cell phone once again. But, just as I’m about to dial Bryan, Peyton comes in. And oh boy, she is pissed.

Chucking her canvas bag into the corner, she yells, “That fucker!”

“What the hell, Peyton?” I screech as I dodge the book that she just tosses haphazardly across the room.

Collecting the book from the foot of my bed, she huffs and says, “Nothing. It’s not important. Just some asshole I met at the writing lab.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask timidly because honestly, right now, she seems like she’s ready for murder or something.

“No, I most certainly do
not
want to talk about it! Right now, I want to drink about it! What are you doing tonight?” The hopeful lilt to her voice makes her seem a bit more human through this very Incredible Hulk-like blow out that she’s having.

I glance down at my phone in my hand and debate whether or not to chicken out on my call. Knowing that I can’t keep dealing with my guilt, I make a decision that I think will help benefit me greatly. I walk over to Peyton’s side of the room, you know, the one that’s seething in anger, and wrap my arm around her shoulders. Pulling her close to my side, I say, “Give me five minutes to make a call and then I’m all yours.”

I can feel her body relax against mine and I realize that in the last few weeks, I’ve probably been a shitty roommate and friend. She rests her head on my shoulder and sighs, letting go of the stress. “Thanks, Melanie. I could use some girl time.” I can hear the homesickness in her words as they reach my ears and feel the loneliness in her body as it slumps against mine.

“Well, then, that’s what you’ll get.” I say as I hold her at arm’s length. “Just give me a few minutes to let Bryan know what’s going on and I’ll be right out.”

“You’re awesome, you know that?” She winks at me from the door and for the first time since she stormed in the room and threw a book at me, she looks a little happier.

When the door clicks behind her, I don’t hesitate one minute in calling Bryan. I know that if I do, I’ll end up finding some reason to postpone the inevitable. Quickly dialing his number, I hold my breath and wait for him to pick up.

But he doesn’t.

So, I dial again. But, shockingly, he doesn’t pick up again.

Not-so-old feelings of inadequacy start to creep into my chest. Those feelings begin constricting my heart like the vines of a weed strangle a beautiful flower. I’m thrown back to just a few months ago. Calling him non-stop. Waiting for him to answer. Questioning myself when he doesn’t.

Resolve sets in and I decide to call him once more. If he doesn’t pick up, then I’ll just deal with him in the morning.

I dial and this time he answers. “Hey, Melanie. Sorry about that. I was on the phone with Emmie.” His voice is flustered and I feel like an ass for letting my insecurities get the best of me when all he has ever done is make me feel worthy.

Worthy of his time, because he’s always given it to me.

Worthy of his body, because he’s always worshipped mine.

Worthy of his kindness, because he’s never been anything but caring and sweet to me.

“It’s okay. Is everything alright?” I ask.

“No. Not really.” The naked reality of his words shocks me more than a little bit.