Unbreak Me (Second Chances #1) (16 page)

“Don’t wait on me,” he whispered. “I want you to be happy.”

“But I love you,” she sobbed.

“I know you do. I love you too, but don’t wait on me. You deserve to be happy, and if you find someone that can make you as happy as you make me, I want you to move on,” he rubbed her back.

She lifted her head and nodded to him. She grabbed his I Pod off the table and put it in her pocket. “I’ll download the song to this and give it to my mom to give you when she checks in later,” she dropped her head. She stood from the bed with tears continuing to fall, “Good luck with everything, Zach. I won’t forget you,” she began backing away toward the door.

“Goodbye Katie,” he whispered.

“Goodbye,” she choked out as she turned and walked out the door.

Once in the hallway, she sank to her knees and cried into her arms. This was the hardest thing she’d ever done up to this point in her life. She’d never lost someone that she felt this connected to. This was a completely different feeling than the loss she felt from her father. Zach had a piece of her heart and no matter what anyone said getting it back seemed impossible.

When she’d finally gotten herself together, she went back to Melanie’s office to fix Zach’s I Pod. She left it on her desk with a note asking her mother to give it to him, then she texted her mom letting her know she was going home.

ooooooooooo

As she walked out of the hospital and headed for the subway, she paused and looked up at the sky.
I know you’re up there somewhere Daddy. Please watch over him for me. I love him.
She shook her head and sighed.
I’ll never forget you Zach. Good luck with wherever you end up.

She trudged to the subway steps and headed home.

Chapter 14

December 2012

It had been two months since Zach had moved to Colorado. He’d been sending Katie emails and called her to say “hi” several times. He was trying to keep in touch like he had promised, but he could tell by the way Katie sounded that she was having a hard time. The more time passed, the more he tried to distance himself from her. He knew in his heart that she was hurting and he wanted her to move on, but she kept begging him to keep in touch. He knew this was a bad idea. He wasn’t planning on coming back, and she still had three years left before she would go away to college. It was a no win situation, and he knew it. He just wished that she would come to terms with it.

Katie had spent the last several weeks sulking. She’d go to school and come home only to lock herself in her room. She had no interest in going out, or hanging out with Hannah. Melanie was beginning to reach the end of her rope. She knew Katie’s behavior wasn’t healthy and she was ready to use force if necessary to get her back in the land of the living.

“
Katie,” she called as she knocked on the door to the bedroom.

“What?” Katie grumbled.

“Can you come out for a minute?” Melanie walked back out into the living room and sat down on the couch.

Katie dragged herself up off her bed and glanced in the mirror. She groaned when she saw her reflection. Her eyes were puffy from the “all night” cry fest she’d had on the phone with Hannah the night before. She was still wearing her clothes from the previous day, which were now wrinkled and her hair was a wild mass of knots. It was a Saturday and she was planning on spending it like she had the past seven - lying in bed in her pjs, rereading the latest email from Zach. She had a dull ache in her chest every time she thought of him. She wanted to move forward and past the pain, but she couldn’t seem to stop torturing herself. Any morsel of information about him pulled her right back there with him.
Don’t wait for
me he’d said.
I want you to move on and be happy.
How could she do that with him contacting her all the time? She walked into the living room and stood with her arms crossed over her chest, frowning at Melanie.

“What!” she rolled her eyes.

“I don’t know what’s going on with you, but you have to snap out of this.
He’s not coming back.
You need to get on with your life, Katie. This isn’t healthy,” Melanie pleaded. “I’ve tried to be sympathetic, but it’s been long enough.”

“I don’t want to get on with my life,” Katie whined. “We still write each other, Mom. I want to be with him, not somebody else.”

“Katie, you can’t keep doing this to yourself. Hannah misses hanging out with you. Your friends miss you. You’re closing yourself off from meeting anybody. Zach would not want you doing this,” she sighed.

“Are we done now?” Katie flipped her hand in the air.

“No,” Melanie shook her head. “You’re not laying in bed all day. I want you to get dressed and go shovel off the steps,” she pointed out the window by the front door. “It snowed quite a bit last night and I don’t want them to ice over.”

“Why can’t you do that?” Katie whined even louder.

“Because I’m asking you to,” Melanie glared. “I’ve had enough of this behavior from you. If I have to find things for you to do, then I will. Now go bundle up, it’s cold out.”

Katie turned and walked, grumbling, toward her room, “I don’t know why I have to do this. Why can’t she call Austin, he’d be here in a matter of minutes. She doesn’t understand me. I hate this.” It just kept pouring out of her.

Just as she was dragging out her heavy snow clothes, her email pinged, alerting her of a new message. Her heart sped up as she flopped down across the bed and smiled. It was from Zach. Hannah had assured her last night that he would write and that she was being foolish worrying about it. This was the first time they’d gone more that a week without talking. “It’s the holidays,” Hannah had explained. “He’s probably just really busy with school.” She opened the email and her face dropped when she saw what it contained.

Dear Katie,

We had a Christmas dance last night here at school. I really wish you could have come with me to celebrate. I was finally able to put weight on my leg. The doctors say I can take the boot off next week. I wanted to say hi, and let you know I mailed a Christmas gift out this morning for you. It should arrive before the holidays. I miss you. I hope you are well. I sent a picture from the dance below.

See you, Zach

Katie scanned down the email as anger began to burn in her gut. There was Zach in dress slacks and a button down shirt with his arm around a girl! She began seeing red as tears came to her eyes. She slammed the laptop closed and shoved it off the bed as she stood and began pacing in her room. She was so angry and hurt, she thought she might explode. Her heart thundered in her chest and her fingers trembled when she picked up her cell and began dialing. She wanted to know who the girl was, and why Zach felt the need to rub her face in it. The phone rang a few times before Zach sleepily answered.

“Hello?” he mumbled.

“Who’s the girl?” she blurted out.

“Katie? Do you know what time it is?” he sounded disoriented.

“Eleven o’clock,” she grumbled.

“Yeah, in Boston maybe. Not here,” he sighed. “It’s Saturday.”

“Who’s the girl?” she repeated a little more calmly as the anger began to slip away only to be replaced by sadness and heartbreak.

“A friend,” he groaned. “Her name is Eden. We’ve been hanging out.”

“Why? Why did you feel the need to send me that?” she begged.

“I was happy that I could start walking again. I wanted you to see that I’m going to be ok. Katie, I told you not to wait on me. I’m not coming back,” he sighed and she could here him shifting in his bed.

“But, I love you!” she pleaded with him.

“I know. I know you do, but this is not going to work the way you want it to. I’m trying to do the right thing here. You need to move on, away from me. Meet someone else. I will always love you, and I’ll always be your friend. You were the first girl to see the real me. You didn’t run away or believe the rumors. I’ll always treasure that and be grateful. Right now, friends are all we can be. It’s only fair that way. I need you to understand this,” he sighed and rolled onto his back.

She responded in silence as she tried to hold back the sob that was rising in her throat. She didn’t like the way this was going. This was it. This was really the end. She’d seen it coming weeks ago as the letters had dwindled and the phone calls had become friendlier. She’d been fooling herself into believing that this would work out.

“Can we?” he finally broke the silence.

“Can we what?” she sobbed as a strangled cry escaped from her lips.

“Be friends?” he begged.

“I can’t be anything with you right now, Zach. I can’t get past this with you in my life. If you truly want me to move on, then we have to stop the calls and emails. Every time I get a letter or email from you, it cuts the wound right back open. I can’t heal this way,” she choked out her response. “I can’t be your friend right now, it hurts too much.”

“I understand,” he sighed. “I’ll always be here if you change your mind. I really do want to be your friend, but I understand where you‘re coming from.”

“Goodbye Zach. Good luck with Eden. I know you like her just by the smile on your face in the picture.” Katie hung up the phone before he could respond and flung it across the room. She rolled onto her stomach and buried her face in her arms. Violent sobs wracked her body as she let all possibility of a future with Zach leave her thoughts. This was not how she wanted to spend the holidays.

After a few minutes, she rose to a sitting position as swiped at her eyes just in time to her Melanie shout down the hall, “Katie! Front step!”

“Coming Mom,” Katie called as picked up the laptop from the floor and placed it back on her desk.

She pulled on her snow hat and grabbed her gloves before storming out into the family room.

“I don’t know why you just don’t call Mr. Montgomery,” she huffed.

“Because Austin has his own things to do,” Melanie shook her head. “Now, outside.”

Katie walked over to the front door only to swing it open and slam it shut behind her, causing the glass in it to rattle. Melanie shook her head from side to side and rolled her eyes at Katie‘s dramatic act. She was growing tired of the teenage meltdowns and wasn‘t sure how much more she could take before she had a meltdown of her own. As much as she loved her daughter and didn’t want her to grow up any faster than necessary, she was ready to get past this phase in her life.

Katie grabbed the snow shovel that was leaning against the side of the porch. She moved over to the top step and began pushing the snow off the edge and letting it fall to the bushes below. It was a busy Saturday for winter, with lots of people bustling around on the streets. She assumed that with Christmas just around the corner, most people were trying to get their shopping finished.

Katie looked up from the steps just in time to see a giant U-Haul truck trying to parallel park in front of her mom’s BMW. She shook her head and watched for a few minutes before going back to her shoveling. Making a tsking sound as she shoveled, she chuckled as she thought about the truck bumping into the car. She wondered who in their right mind would want to move to Boston in the middle of winter. It was bad enough trying to go in and out and not track snow everywhere, but to be moving furniture and boxes in this mess? Who did that?

Just then, the doors to the truck swung open and two figures jumped out. Katie couldn’t tell if they were men or women due to the fact that they were bundled up. A car pulled up past the truck and parked. A figure climbed out of the car and lifted out what looked like a baby from the backseat.
They must be a new family moving in
Katie thought. The brownstone next to Melanie had been vacant since she and Katie had moved in. She was happy, because it had meant that it would be quiet. Katie groaned as she went back to shoveling. She knew that this new development meant noise and neighbors.

After looking a little closer, she could tell that the figure driving the car was a woman. She had removed her hat and brown hair had cascaded down her back as she carried the baby inside the brownstone. The other two figures had moved to the back of the moving truck and thrown the door up. Katie was down to the third step now with only two more to go. She had her back to the moving truck, but turned when she heard a crash. One of the figures, the larger of the two, was struggling to not drop a dresser.

“Patrick, come grab this,” he yelled.

Just then, the smaller of the two came rushing around the truck to grab the other end of the dresser. Steam puffed out of their mouths as they struggled to right the large piece of furniture. Patrick, as she now knew him, pulled his snow hat off and tossed it in the direction of the truck. A mop of sandy blond hair appeared as he wiped his forehead. The two figures, which Katie now figured were a father and son, carried the dresser in through the front door of the brownstone.

Katie moved down to the next step and paused as Patrick reemerged and was ambling over to the truck. He looked up just in time to see her staring. She blushed at being caught and turned away quickly just as he hit a small patch of ice. He began flailing around trying to regain his balance. Katie snickered as she watched him. When he finally righted himself, he looked up at her and took a big bow. Katie released a huge laugh and shook her head. She turned back around and moved to the last step.

Patrick stood watching for a minute and then decided to come over and introduce himself.

“Hi!” he shouted as he waved and made his way in her direction.

“Hi,” she shook her head. “Salt will help with that you know.”

He looked back at the icy spot, “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I’m usually a little better than that.”

Katie cocked her head to the side as she gave him the once over. He had that All-American look - tall, lean, and blond. His hazel eyes danced in amusement as he watched her scan his form. He looked to be slightly over six feet tall and she assumed he had a muscular build based on the lifting she’d just observed.

“I play hockey,” he shrugged as he brought her back to the present. “I‘m not used to falling on the ice.” He put his hand out in front of her, “My name’s Patrick.”

“Katie,” Katie answered in a clipped tone, not reaching for his hand. Confidence was pouring off of him and she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction that she was curious about him.

“Well alrighty then,” Patrick backed away. “We’re moving in next door. That’s my dad, Jason, and my mom, Suzanne. I have a little brother too, Max,” he pointed toward a woman who was holding open the door for the man trying to carry a box through it.

“Patrick! Boxes first, then socializing,” Jason pointed to the truck.

“I gotta go,” he backed up a little farther and hit the ice again. As he slipped he glanced back at Katie and winked, “It was nice meeting you.”

Katie shook head and laughed, “Watch your step.”

When she finished with the last step, she made her way back up to her own front door. She tossed the shovel over to the side and kicked the snow off her boots. Once inside, she peeled off the heavy clothes and tossed them to the side, and made her way into the kitchen only to be met by Melanie.