The Love Series Complete Box Set (89 page)

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.

I slump back into my chair and let
my
worries fade away. It’s the only way that I can take on his. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I can hear the tenuous shaking of his breath as it escapes through his lips—lips I suddenly long to kiss and comfort. “It’s just that she’s having a really hard time dealing with things at home. Apparently, my dad is moving out this week and Emmie doesn’t understand it. I just spent the last hour trying to explain it to her, but it’s just too big for her to wrap her head around.”

“Oh, Bryan. I’m so sorry.” I hate that there’s pity in my words. I hate that I’m just going to cause him more pain.

I hear a hardened sigh fly out of his mouth as something crashes down in the background. “Fuck!” he yells, his emotions obviously getting the best of him.

“Calm down. It’ll be okay. I don’t know how, but it will be. You’re a good brother being there for Emmie. You know that, right?” My fingers itch to touch his face, to feel his stubble beneath them.

“I don’t feel like that right now. I feel so helpless. I just wish I could be there for her.” A throaty growl echoes down the line and my heart breaks for both him and Emmie.

“I’m getting another call, Melanie. Hold on one second, okay?”

“Sure.” The thirty seconds that he’s on the other line stretch out painstakingly. Yet in that short span of time, I decide that what I have to tell him can’t be said over the phone, especially after learning this. Breathing out a tortured breath, I wait for him to click back to me.

“Hey, I have to take the other call. It’s my mom. Rain check on tonight?” His anger has morphed into vulnerability and I just want to wrap my arms around him. He deserves so much more than what he’s being handed. Unfortunately, that includes me as well.

I hear him shuffle a few papers before he says, “I think we’re both off from the lab on Wednesday night. Can we get together then?”

Without even thinking about it, I blurt, “Yes. Of course. I’ll see you then. Bryan, I . . .” the words I want to say get stuck in my throat, so instead of telling him that I love him, I say, “I’m here for you. Call me if you need to.”

“I know. I will. I gotta go. Talk to you later, babe.” And then the line goes dead.

So does a piece of my heart.

Chapter 10

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

The freezing rain cuts through the winter air. Even though I’m wearing rain boots and a rain jacket, I feel soaked to the bone. Chills race over my body and I feel like I will never warm up.

And that may very well be true.

It almost feels like tiny razor blades slicing at my freckled face. It’s a welcome pain, though. I’ll take the physical kind of pain over the emotional torture I’ve been putting myself through. I just wish I didn’t have to put Bryan through it too. No matter how many times I wrack my brain over it, there’s just no way around not telling him the truth. I even contemplated just breaking up with him—no explanation, no reason, no justification. But I know, that despite how much this confession is going to gut me, I owe Bryan this much. I owe him at least a reason.

After a short ten minute walk, I arrive at the on-campus senior apartment suites where Bryan lives. I bring my purple-with-cold hand up to his door and knock timidly. The vibrations from knocking course through my arm and a pins and needles sensation pulses across my skin. A sinking feeling crushes in my chest and a lump of emotion rises in my throat as I hear his footsteps get closer to the door.

The knob turns and I swear my heart stops beating. Nervousness engulfs me and makes my legs almost too weak to even hold my weight. Through the grey haze of the early evening, and the crackling sound of the rain pelting against the building, I see and hear the door creak open.

“Melanie, what the hell?” Bryan reaches to pull me into his door when he sees me standing there, soaked and shivering. He grabs a throw blanket from his small couch, which is right next to the front door and wraps it around my shoulders after he peels my raincoat from me.

Bryan starts rubbing my shoulders and upper arms as he pulls me close to his solid chest. “What are you doing here? I’m supposed to pick you up in like two hours.” He takes a step back from our embrace and tips my chin up so that I can look in his face. When he stares into my eyes, I swear he can see everything. Concern knits at his brow. “Is something wrong?”

I nod my head and move past him to sit on the couch. Pulling the blanket tighter around my shoulders, I feel that sickening feeling creep up in my belly. The couch sinks as Bryan settles in next to me. I try to garner as much strength as possible from the arm that he’s just wrapped around my shoulder.

On a deep breath and a silent prayer, I steel myself for the inevitable outcome of this conversation.

“We need to talk, Bryan.” My voice shakes with both fear and a chill that just will not leave my body. My teeth start to chatter and I’m pretty sure that my lips are blue. Sliding one leg under the other, I twist to face him on the couch and he does the same.

That concerned look hasn’t left his face. “What do we need to talk about, Melanie?” he questions softly as he coaxes a strand of soaking wet hair that’s plastered to my forehead behind my ear. When he softly traces my jawline and cheekbone before placing his hand on mine, I can actually feel my heart split in two.

Here goes nothing.

“I have something to tell you,” I blurt out.

He softly chuckles at me. Tilting his head to the small window behind us, he says, “Well, I kind of figured as much since you walked here in this weather. What’s the matter?”

I’ve run over this conversation a million times in my head and I still can’t figure out where to start. What feels like hours pass between us, and I still can’t find the words.

With two fingers under my chin, Bryan angles my head up to his. “Hey, baby. Whatever it is, you can tell me. I’m here.”

My God! Could he be any more perfect?

Just as I’m about to speak, he cuts me off. “I know I’ve been distracted lately with my parents. But I don’t ever want you to think that I’m not here for you. I . . . I’ve actually wanted to tell you something for a while.” Cupping my face gently in his warm hands, the pads of his thumbs trace over my cheeks and his warm lips dance softly across mine. I melt into him knowing that it will be the last time I’ll ever feel
this.