CHAPTER448
It’s almost dawn and I’m lying on my bed. I’ve barely slept, waiting for him to come back, with a million thoughts running through my brain, tormenting me into oblivion. His phone is here, not smashed thankfully, despite it hitting a marble floor. At some point I regained enough sense to wander over and pick his things up, like a mute zombie trying to find something to do besides stare at a closed elevator. I left them on the kitchen counter. I paced like crazy, cried myself sick with heartbreak, disappointed in myself then ended up in here hoping to try and sleep.
I’m wretched and anxious and all I keep seeing is that ragged torn look on her face, as though I had just slayed her entire family with a dirty spoon, right before her eyes. All I keep thinking about is the way he ran after her, like it was all that mattered and left me here to be alone. The excruciating pain that causes me. To ponder what is even happening anymore.
His actions told me loud and clear, I never really came close to what they have, whether I understand it or not. He chose to go after her, when the choice was thrown in his lap and his instincts took over. I can’t stop turning that over in my head. Like a torturous agony that rips my mind to shreds.
I’m empty and numb, exhausted, and cried out, and don’t have it in me to do anything else except stare into space in a semiconscious state.
A noise at the outer door has me sitting up sharply, ears tuned to the ping of the elevator that we somehow missed earlier, shuffling, and then the swish as the doors close, leaving someone clearly moving through the foyer. I hear the footsteps, of shoes on marble, slowly yet definitely walking.
I’m out of bed in a flash, running to meet him, heart rate instantly zooming and I skid to a halt outside my door as I catch sight of him, walking through to the lounge then turning at his bedroom door. Both of us seem to freeze as we come face to face, yet still feet apart. Seeing him makes my chest cave inwards, overwhelmed with the urge to run to him and throw my arms around him tight. I need the harbor for my soul he has always been.
He’s tired and disheveled, his pallor pale and eyes dark with fatigue, hair messy and clothes crumpled. I move out further to stand outside my door, taking him in with questioning glances, not caring that I’m in my skimpy semitransparent tank and lace panties. Not when just hours ago I was naked in front of him with his hands, and mouth, on this body. He skims my attire and is instantly overcome with an almost painful expression.
“Go cover up. I don’t need this right now.” His voice is hoarse and raspy, and he moves to open his own bedroom door as though dismissing me. He’s closed up, emotions hidden and even a little icy towards me, as though somehow this is my fault.
“Arry?” I call gently, tears finding a new lease of life and welling up in my throat, halting him as he goes to walk in. He stops, stiffening instantly as he sighs heavily, his body seeming to deflate.
“Go back to bed. I don’t want to do this now.” There’s something in his demeanor sending off alarm bells, panic rising inside of me, desperately and painfully. Like a sixth sense that I already know… already feel it. Hanging there between us.
“Do what?” I choke, knowing in the pit of my stomach that I’ve been laid all night waiting to hear the words I really don’t want to hear. I knew this was coming, knew all along that she always had more of him than I could ever hope for. No matter what happened between us, there’d still been a tiny little ray of hope that maybe, just maybe, he loved me enough to change things. Going after her tonight was all that I needed to see, to kill that tiny light dead. In turn, killing a part of me too.
“Sophs, please.” His voice drops and he makes to move again. He can’t seem to look at me, his distance hurting me badly and making me feel worthless and cheap. I never had him, not in that way.
“You’re going back to her, aren’t you? Despite what she saw, she loves you enough to still want you?” the tears fill my eyes before I even see the answer in his face. Accusation in my voice that comes out pathetic and childlike, and I hate that I reverted to this.
“She thinks we can get past this. I told her everything, all of it.... Even the kisses before. This … Us ... It never started, and it won’t. Not now I’ve seen how much damage it can do to someone I love. It’s not worth the pain I’m causing her.” Arrick has closed that brain, thinking through all the logical decisions to try and keep everyone happy and pushing his heart to one side. Or maybe he really does love her so much more than he could ever love me, I really was just a new shiny toy for him. A moment of ‘what if’ and ‘the grass is greener’."
