Roxanne
031.
I was relieved when I got home that afternoon to find that my aunt was also home. If I didn't have someone to vent to about my afternoon to, I was afraid that I would explode.
Before my aunt had even managed to greet me, I launched into the details of what had happened to me that afternoon. I explained to my aunt how she had been wrong and that the fear of running into Bryan hadn’t been half as insane as she had told me it was. I told her about how we still ordered the same drink and how disgustingly handsome he looked. I told my aunt about how he had admitted that he missed me and about how he wanted to go on a date with me later that week.
I did not tell my aunt about how I had realized that I was madly in love with Billie.
“What do I do?” I finally whimpered once I had finished ranting. I sighed heavily in defeat and slumped into the armchair that was next to the couch my aunt had been sitting on.
“Well,” my aunt finally murmured with a dazed look in her eyes. She seemed to be genuinely weighing my options. “You’re in quite the predicament. What do you want to do?” She asked.
I groaned involuntarily. That was the problem--I had absolutely no idea as to what I wanted to do. I had absolutely no interest in going on a date with my ex-boyfriend, but there was still a part of me, although rather small, that still wanted to see Bryan again. Not necessarily because I still wanted him altogether, but rather because I needed something more than just an awkward encounter in a Starbucks. The last time I had seen Bryan prior to that afternoon had been when he had dumped me earlier that summer.
“The only thing I can say is,” my aunt began after a few moments of silence, “is that you came here for a reason, hun. You came to California in the first place to get over Bryan. You can’t really get over someone by going out on a date with them.”
I knew my aunt was right, but the problem was that I didn’t want to go out on a date with Bryan. What I had really wanted was to see him one last time before I possibly never saw him again. While I knew that between semesters I would more than likely seeing Bryan around town seeing as how small it was, I also knew that I probably wouldn’t interact with him. By December, I assumed that the two of would have moved on.
I wanted to go to dinner with Bryan because if anything, I wanted to say goodbye. Bryan and I had been together since we had been eleven. Our relationship deserved to have a better ending than him dumping me on the sidewalk outside of my house with me screaming at him. I wanted the closure that our relationship deserved.
If Bryan hadn’t called, I would be okay without going to dinner with him. But if he had, and seeing as how much I knew Bryan, I knew he would, I would accept his invitation. And when we were out, I would tell him that there were no hard feelings between us. I would tell him that I was okay and that I wanted to be friends rather than nothing at all. I knew being friends would never actually happen, but I wanted him to know how much I didn’t actually hate him anymore.
Perhaps I also wanted him to know that I also wasn’t hung up on him anymore. I wasn’t sure if I would tell him that I had moved on, but I would make sure that he knew that I was perfectly fine without him.
For a moment I became afraid that Billie would be angry at the fact that I was going out to dinner with Bryan if he had ever found out, however I quickly shrugged it off. Billie and I were currently broken up, therefore I was able to do whatever I wanted. If he hadn’t wanted me to go out on a date with my ex-boyfriend, then maybe he shouldn’t have lied to his best friends about me.
I had received another phone call from Billie later that evening. Despite my most recent revelation, it still went unanswered. Although I had realized that I was wildly in love with the man, I wasn’t sure that I was able to face him yet. Realizing that you were in love with someone was one thing, but realizing that you were in love with someone and facing them while also feeling betrayed by them them was a whole nother.
I knew I loved Billie, but considering what had happened the other day, I wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about me. He had told me that he had loved me, but his actions earlier that day hadn’t exactly proved it.
Sure enough, exactly as I had expected him to do, Bryan called the next day and asked to take me out to dinner. After hesitating for a moment, quickly questioning myself if it was really what I wanted, I accepted. The next evening we would go out to dinner at a restaurant in LA. I decided that I would meet Bryan at the restaurant rather than allow him to pick me up because quite honestly, I wanted to make the evening feel nothing like a date if possible. Because it wasn’t a date. Bryan missed me and I was sure that he would tell me so again, but I had no intention to return it.
At 6:30 the next evening I pulled my aunt’s car into a parking space outside of the restaurant that Bryan had raved to me about. I sighed heavily once I had killed the engine and ran a hand through my hair. I still had enough time to leave and call Bryan telling him that something came up. I knew that Billie would be hurt if he found out that I was currently on a “not-date” with Bryan, and while some of me felt compelled to leave because of that, the other part of me felt even more compelled to stay. Billie had hurt me, so perhaps it was time I hurt him back.
If he ever found out, that was. Which he wouldn’t, because there was no way in hell I would let him know what I was doing.
I groaned and whispered to myself that it was okay and that I was going to be okay. It was Bryan. Since I was eleven he had quite literally been my other half. If there was anyone I shouldn’t have been nervous to see at the moment, it should have been him. Being with Bryan was familiar. For the first night since he had dumped me, perhaps my life could feel in order again.
A knocking at my window snapped me out of my thoughts. I stared out the window in terror, but sighed in relief when I saw a pair of familiar beautiful blue eyes staring back in at me. I smiled briefly to Bryan, grabbed my purse and pushed the door to the car open.
“Good evening,” Bryan greeted once the door was open. He held it open for me and then shut it once I had stood up. Before I could respond, Bryan wrapped his free arm around me and pulled me into a hug. Rather than fighting it, I allowed his much larger frame to envelope mine. Truth be told, it felt good to be in anyone’s arms at the moment.
Bryan grinned at me when we separated. “You look gorgeous, Roxy,” he complimented.
He did too. Bryan was wearing a button down light blue shirt with white shorts and boating shoes. The entire outfit had been one that I had bought him not long before we had broken up. For a moment I was angry at the fact that he would wear something that I had bought for him, something he knew I liked him in, but I also knew that there were many things that he had bought for me that I hadn’t bothered to throw away.
I don’t think that Bryan could have looked any different than Billie if he had actually tried. My taste in men absolutely blew my mind.
Bryan looked amazing but the last thing I was going to do was fuel his ego by letting him know. “Thank you,” I murmured with a small smile. I looked down at my black dress and bright red heels. Perhaps I had also purposely worn Bryan’s favorite outfit, but I only wore it because I wanted him to eat his heart out.
“This place is fantastic,” Bryan stated. He attempted to take my hand into his own, however I managed to escape it by wrapping my arm around his own instead. I wasn’t sure if it had been on purpose or sheerly from memory, but either way I had wanted no part of it. “I come here all the time.”
“On other dates?” I quipped. I wasn’t sure if I had actually meant to say it. As much as I didn’t want to currently be on a date with Bryan, I couldn’t help also feeling a hint of jealousy.
Bryan chuckled. “No, actually,” he said, followed by his charming grin. I involuntarily melted at the sight of it. “That is, unless you count a few of my teammates as dates.”
I felt my cheeks burn a bit in embarrassment at myself. I was quite the hypocrite considering I had spent the last month and a half in the arms of another man that I was currently head over heels for. Bryan laughed at my expression while opening the door for us to enter.
Once we entered the restaurant, a waitress lead us to a table towards the back. Bryan pulled out my chair for me to sit, then sat himself. Once I had decided that I had absolutely no clue as how to start conversation between the two of us, I picked up my menu and pretended to be exceedingly interested in it.
“So how have you been?” Bryan asked after I had been reading for quite some time. I grinded my teeth in pain at the thought of conversation. Remain cool, I reminded myself. He was just being polite.
“Actually really well,” I admitted once laying my menu down on the table. I smiled a surprisingly convincing smile at Bryan considering how I had been feeling lately. “I’ve been here for a month and I’ve met some really great people.” It was really just one person, but Bryan didn’t need to know that.
Bryan grinned at me. “Is Sadie here with you?” He asked. “I can’t imagine the two of you spending the summer apart.”
I smiled back at him before looking back to my menu. “Surprisingly not. My parents thought it would be a good idea to get me out of the house, so they sent me here to live with Aunt Jen for a couple weeks.”
“But you’ve been here for a month?” He questioned.
I shrugged. “I didn’t want to go home yet. I’ve been having a good time.” That was perhaps the biggest understatement of my life.
“So when do you go home?” Bryan asked.
“Probably the end of the summer,” I answered with another shrug, “I don’t know. Whenever I feel like it.”
“Well I hope not too soon,” Bryan said through a smile. I groaned inwardly. I had the worst feeling that the conversation was going to start heading in the exact opposite direction that I had wanted it to. “It’s really nice to have you here.”
I forced a smile. “Well, I’ll be returning to the bay area soon, so I won’t necessarily be here.”
“I can drive up to see you,” Bryan offered. My eyes widened at his offer. There was no way that he was serious, was there? Bryan Bates had dumped me because of the distance between us at the beginning of the summer. “It’s much closer than Connecticut.”
I didn’t say anything, only stared down at my menu while internally screaming in panic. We had literally just sat down and he was already going to attempt to bring up our relationship? I had assumed that he had missed me, but I honestly had never expected him to jump into it so fast. The least he could have done was take me out to dinner first, and then brought up getting back together.
"I’m going to cut right to the chase, Roxanne,” Bryan started. I considered pleading with him not to. “I've missed you," he admitted to me quietly after a few minutes of what I was sure was awkward silence. I fought back a heavy sigh of disappointment. "I thought that breaking up would be a good idea because I didn't want to hold you back while I was gone. You're so beautiful and it's your senior year, I know you're going to want to go out and experience things that I can't be there for." I knew that a rather large part of it was that Bryan also hadn't wanted to hold himself back either, however I didn't say a word. "But you're all I've been able to think about," Bryan continued. "I've fought the urge to call you every single day since I've left. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but if you're willing to work on a long distance relationship for your senior year, then I am, too."
My eyes widened at the words that had just poured out of Bryan’s mouth like vomit. The worst part of them was that they had been everything I had ever wanted to hear. We could have gotten back together, stayed together through my senior year and then I could go to UCLA with him next fall and we could think about actually getting married. It had been our plan since freshman year in high school when we realized just how serious we actually were.
I had spent almost my entire life picturing the family that Bryan and I would create some day. We both had known since we were freshmen that we would be going to NYU or UCLA together, even though he was a year older than me. What killed me was the fact that we had already discussed the fact that Bryan would be graduating earlier than me, but we both agreed that when you're together for seven years of the eighteen that you've been alive, a couple semesters apart wasn't a big deal. And that was why Bryan's break up had blind sided me so much--there had never been even a trace of doubt in our plan as long as I had known.
I had the chance right then to go back to my perfect boyfriend that all of my friends and family knew and loved. We could pretend that our month apart had never happened.
The only issue was that it wasn't what I wanted anymore. At all.
"That sounds wonderful, Bry," I agreed while avoiding eye contact. I could feel his gaze burning into me. "It really does." I considered not saying anything else, just because I didn't want to face the backlash that was inevitably coming. When I saw the relieved smile upon his face, however, I knew that I couldn’t let it go on. "But as much as I’d love to...I can't."
Bryan's smile slowly began to droop while he cocked an eyebrow. "I'm sorry?" He questioned as if he hasn't heard me correct. He seemed genuinely confused.
"I'm sorry," I apologized. I wasn't even slightly sorry for what I had done, considering the fact that other than the predicament that we were in at the moment I loved everything about being in love with Billie, but rather the fact that I was forced to tell him about it at that exact moment. "Oh god,” I sighed while running a hand through my hair, “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to tell you this...I sort of…met someone, Bry," I finished quietly.
Bryan didn't say anything for a moment, only stared at me with a somewhat bewildered look upon his face. I wasn't sure if he couldn't process what I had just said or that he didn't want to.
"What do you mean you met someone, Roxanne?" Bryan finally asked after we sat in silence for what felt like forever. His tone was so much harsher than before. I winced.
"I mean exactly what it sounds like," I responded, though much more curt now. He had absolutely no right to be angry at me. He had dumped me. I calmed myself down immediately so that we didn't draw in any unwanted attention from the tables around us. "I've met someone since we broke up and we're seeing each other," I admitted. I wasn't sure exactly what Billie and I were at the moment, but I silently prayed that I would find out soon and that stating that we were together wouldn't be incorrect.
Bryan stared at me for a minute. I expected him to yell at me, however what I did not expect was for him to throw his head back and release perhaps the most arrogant laugh I had ever heard. I cringed. “This is a joke, right?” Bryan asked once he had calmed down a bit. A small bubble of laughter still interrupted each word. When I didn’t respond, the large grin on Bryan’s face slowly began to melt into a frown. “Right?” He echoed.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized without looking at him.
“You’re sorry?” He snapped at me. I winced as if he had slapped me. "What--how the fuck did you meet someone, Roxanne?" Bryan growled. His mood has changed faster than that of a pregnant woman. "We've been broken up for two months and you’ve been here the entire time."
"I met him on the plane, on the way here," I admitted with a shrug. I had absolutely nothing to hide from Bryan at this point. I owed him nothing. "He was incredibly nice to me and when we landed we bumped into each other around town. He took me out on a few dates the first week I was here and we've been dating ever since." I neglected to tell him about how Billie and I currently were, but that was really none of his business.
“You’re dating someone that lives in California?” He hissed. “How is that going to work?!”
“The same way we would have if you hadn’t dumped me, Bryan,” I snapped back. His tone was starting to aggravate me. He was acting as if I had cheated on him rather than started moving on.
“And I told you that I regret that, Roxanne.”
I rolled my eyes. Did he want a fucking award? Perhaps Bryan had regretted breaking up with me, but it didn’t make it happening any less real. Bryan and I were broken up so that the two of us could move on and enjoy our time apart. Perhaps he had assumed we would get back together when he came home, but I had absolutely no desire to do so. In fact, if the two of us hadn’t bumped into each other in Starbucks the other day I knew that I wouldn’t have heard from the asshole until he was home in the winter. It wasn’t my fault that I had moved on a lot sooner than he had.
“So what do you want from me, Bry?” I sighed.
“Another chance!” He cried out. He accidentally slammed his hand down on the table between us, causing a few people around us to look over. I sunk in my seat, dreading the unwanted attention. Everything about the situation I was currently in was borderline torture. “I love you, Roxanne!”
“Well I’m sorry, but I can’t give you that,” I whispered while avoiding eye contact. Instead, I looked down at my lap. I sighed heavily at the information I was about to share, already regretting it. "I'm in love with him, Bry.”
Bryan choked loudly on the water he had been drinking. I watched silently as he coughed loudly and his face became bright red. He seemed as if he was going to actually explode, however he surprised the both of us by starting to laugh again. I frowned, knowing the difference between Bryan’s genuine laughter and the sharp, humorless one I was hearing now. “God, Roxanne...do you know how stupid you sound right now?”
My eyes widened and I felt as if I had had the air knocked out of me. Despite all of the fights and all of the harsh words Bryan and I had shared over the past seven years, he had never been so nasty. I found myself not necessarily hurt, but becoming incredibly angry. How dare he? How dare he call me stupid because I fell in love with another man?
When I wasn’t quick to respond, Bryan was more than happy to fill the silence.
“You’ve been here for almost two months and you’ve found someone that you’re in love with? What a fucking joke. Do you actually think that he loves you back?!”
I genuinely hoped so. I know that Billie had already told me it, but there was still a part of me that was convinced that he had only said it as a last resort. More than anything, though, did I want Billie to love me back.
“Contrary to popular belief, this is not a joke,” I spat back at my ex-boyfriend. “I’m sorry that you dumped me and I moved on, but other than an apology, I don’t know what you want from me. I’m not your bitch. I’m sorry you expected me to sit around and wait for you but I didn’t.”
“I didn’t expect you to wait for me,” Bryan snarled back, “But I also didn’t expect you to go and jump into bed with someone else so fast.”
“I haven’t slept with him,” I sneered, “and even if I had, that would be none of your business. I can sleep with whoever the hell I want, for your information. We broke up, Bryan.”
“I get that,” Bryan spat, “trust me, I fucking understand. I know we broke up, but I guess I just didn’t expect you to become such a whore.”
My mind hadn’t even processed Bryan’s words when the tears began to fill my eyes. The second I noticed that they were there, however, I forced myself to blink them away. I would not give him the satisfaction of making me cry.
This wasn’t Bryan. Bryan had never been anything other than respectful to me. He had never called me anything nasty no matter how bad things had gotten. Bryan had been a stupid boy, but there had been a reason that I was so in love with him. I refused to accept that the man sitting in front of me was the same person that I had grown up with.
Just because I was in love with Billie didn’t mean that I didn’t still love Bryan. There had been a few nights where I had ached for him, or that I had woken up and thought that the entire summer had been a dream. And because that part of me unfortunately still existed, my ex-boyfriends words managed to cut me like a knife.
"Well," I squeaked. I tried so desperately to choke back the tears that were threatening to spill, but it was nearly impossible when trying to also speak. I refused to let him see me cry. "I guess we're done here."
"I guess so," he spat back while waving his hand dismissively at me.
"I'm glad we could catch up," I choked out, "I hope you have an amazing semester, Bryan." Without another word, I threw a couple dollar bills down onto the table for the waitress considering she had been polite even if we hadn't ordered anything, grabbed my purse and for the second time within the past week or so, I left a restaurant trying my absolute best to not cry. The feeling of fleeing felt all too familiar and I hated every single thing about it.
I had managed to make it down the sidewalk and into the parking lot where my aunts car was before any tears actually spilled down my cheeks. I had done a good job at blinking them back, but once I had actually gotten into the car, I allowed myself to let cry. Not only did I allow the tears to leak down my cheeks, I allowed myself to bawl. I pulled my legs up to my chest as I sat in the drivers seat of the car, buried my face into them and let out a long, shrill sob that shook my body.
I knew that I shouldn’t have cared about Bryan’s opinion of me seeing as he was nothing but a thing of my past, but as I sat curled up in the drivers seat of the car, sobbing to the point where I was nearly hyperventilating, I found it hard to convince myself. Even if I never saw Bryan again, he had still been such a large part of my life and at one time had meant the world to me. As much as I didn’t want to care about him, I genuinely couldn’t help it.
I regretted everything about going out with Bryan that night. Why, for the life of me, had I accepted? Clearly it wasn’t going to have gone well! I was madly in love with a man that wasn’t him, and clearly Bryan hadn’t just wanted to catch up.
I groaned angrily at myself as my tears continued to pour down my cheeks. I had been so stupid. Rather than ignoring Billie for the past week, I should have just gotten over myself and answered one of his phone calls. The man had been trying so desperately to get in touch with me and rather than answering him, I went out on a date with my ex-boyfriend who was a bastard. At that moment, I wanted literally nothing else than to be wrapped up in Billie’s arms on his balcony, talking about nothing in particular. I had wasted far too much time being angry at him.
I had sat in the drivers seat of my aunts car bawling for what felt like eternity before my sobs had started to subside. When they had finally stopped pouring down my cheeks, I wiped the remains of them from my face and forced myself to inhale deeply.
Truth was, as miserable as I currently was, I knew that things would get better simply because they had to. Once you hit rock bottom, you can only go up.
I sighed heavily while running a hand through my hair. Once I was sure that I was okay enough at least to drive back, I stuck my keys into the ignition. Once the time popped up onto the radio, however, I paused. 6:55 it read. Every night Billie almost always called around 7 o’clock. 6:55 meant that I should have been getting my evening phone call from Billie any minute.
I stared at the clock until it turned to 6:58 and then killed the ignition, deciding that I didn’t want to go home yet. Rather than going home, I wanted to sit and wait the phone call I had been prepared to avoid yet again. If I had gone home, my aunt would have asked me about my dinner with Bryan, considering I had barely been out for an hour and I would have missed his call. Truth was, I was tired of ignoring Billie. I was tired of hating him. While it didn’t mean that I was any less angry at him, it did mean that I was finally ready to have him back in my life. I took my phone from my purse and placed it on my lap, staring down at the screen and forcing myself not to panic as each minute passed.
When 7:05 rolled around, I continued to stare down at the screen of my phone, now silently praying that this hadn't been the night that Billie had finally decided to give up on me. If he had finally decided that he didn't want me anymore I wasn't sure what I would do. I needed him so desperately and more than anything, I needed him to need me back. I missed him so much and even though I was still so angry at him, I needed Billie back in my life. I was starting to actually crash and burn without him.
Sure enough, I didn't have to worry for too much longer because like clockwork, at 7:08 my phone began to vibrate. The screen lit up with Billie's name and Matthew Bellamy began to serenade me. I hadn't even let it ring twice before I had selected the accept button.
For a moment or two there was nothing but silence coming through the phone. I instantly panicked, afraid that I had missed Billie’s call or that he had decided to hang up and finally give up on me once and for all, resulting in me calling out a hesitant “hello?”
“Hello?” Came through the phone. At just one simple word I felt my world begin to crumble around me. The tears that had finally dried came back in full force followed by a few sobs that I managed to keep Billie from hearing. I had missed Billie so much more than I had allowed myself to realize and now that I was realizing it, just the sound of his voice was enough to throw me over the edge. I needed him, I realized. I needed his arms around me and his lips upon my own. I needed to not be six hours away from him, but rather six inches.
He betrayed you, I reminded myself as I slowly came back down to earth. He had lied to his best friends about me. He was ashamed of me and the fact that he had been dating me. He didn’t actually want me. My overwhelming desire for him suddenly wasn’t so overwhelming anymore.
I sighed heavily to myself at my mess of emotions. One moment I was ready to kiss Billie again, the next I still wanted him as far away as possible from me.
“Roxanne?” Billie called cautiously into the phone. “Roxanne, a-are you there?”
“I’m here,” I answered. I tried my best to sound cold, however the quiver in my voice spoiled it. I hoped that he couldn’t tell that I was bawling.
“Shit,” Billie gasped into the phone, “oh, shit, Roxy, I can’t believe you answered!” He sighed heavily. I imagined him hastily running his hands through his hair. I wanted to replace his hands with my own. “I got so used to calling you every night and just listening to your voicemail. God, I love your voice,” he cooed. The butterflies in my stomach fluttered around. “I gave up on you ever answering. Oh Roxy, Roxy, baby, how are you? How have you been?”
Horrible. I had finally hit rock bottom. At that moment, while sitting in my aunt’s car, I could have honestly said that I had never been at a lower point in my life. When Bryan had dumped me I had been so sure that I wouldn’t have hit such a low point in my life again, however where I was had greatly surpassed that. The pain that I had felt when Bryan had dumped me felt like a walk in the park compared to this.
“I’m okay,” I answered, “I’ve been better, but I’ve also been worse.” I wasn’t going to let him know what he had done to me. Guys seemed to have a sick fascination with ripping girls apart and I wasn’t going to allow the stupid rock star to have me to brag about. I was better than him. “How are you?” I asked, only because it was polite.
“Awful,” Billie answered honestly. Truth be told, it had caught me off guard. I remembered what his friend had told me in the grocery store, but that had been a few days. Surely, Billie had moved onto the next girl that he could fuck with by now. There was no way that he was still upset about us. “I’m a little drunk right now,” he admitted. I frowned at the thought of him sitting in his home, drunk and alone. “I really miss you,” he added quietly.
My heart tugged painfully at his words. I missed him so much more than he would ever know. I searched my mind for ways to answer Billie, however ended up saying nothing. He wasn’t going to break me, or at least find out that he had.
“I’m so sorry,” Billie apologized sadly. My heart melted at the genuine sorrow and sadness his voice held. Despite my anger, I wanted so desperately to wrap my arms around him. “I’m so sorry, Roxanne. I never meant to hurt you--I promise. God, Roxy, I’m so fucking stupid.”
“You’re not stupid,” I argued lamely. I hated hearing him insult himself. I was beginning to believe what Mike had said in the supermarket the other day about Billie being the angriest at himself about the situation. I had comforted the man many times when he had been beating himself up over numerous things and knowing that I wasn’t able to do the same for him now, even though I was the one that he had hurt, was surprisingly unsettling. “Please don’t say that about yourself.”
“I am,” he insisted. I went to protest, but he cut me off. “Where are you, Roxy?” Billie whined. “I, um--I, uh, I went to your aunt’s house yesterday. No one was there.”
“You went to her house?” I asked in bewilderment. I wasn’t sure if I was devastated or elated that I hadn’t been there.
“I was desperate,” he whimpered. My heart skipped a beat when his voice cracked. I couldn’t handle a drunk Billie. When Billie was drunk he wore his heart on his sleeve and I wasn’t sure that I was prepared for it. “I needed to talk to you. I didn’t think that you’d ever answer your phone. I’m a--a mess, Roxy. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. I can’t remember being sober. I can’t do this, Roxy. I know you’re mad at me and I know I’m a fuck up but I can’t handle this Roxy. I miss you so much, you have no fucking clue.” Billie was quiet for a few moments, but I could hear his ragged breathing. “God, Roxy, where are you? Did--oh god, did you--did you go home?”
I was quiet for a moment as I contemplated what to tell the mess of a man. On one hand, I knew that I could easily tell him that I had gone back to Connecticut. I could tell him that I had gone home and that I had only answered in order to tell him to stop calling me. I could then move forward and start with a clean slate. I could hopefully meet someone and have a much easier relationship.
But I didn’t want an easier relationship. Unfortunately for myself, I wanted whatever it was that I had with Billie.
“I’m still in California,” I told Billie quietly.
“Where?” Billie snapped. My eyes widened in surprise. “California is fucking huge, Roxanne, don’t give me that vague shit.”
I smiled to myself at his frustration. For whatever reason, his snapping was much more adorable than Bryan’s. I decided against stringing him along anymore. “Los Angeles,” I admitted, “I’ve been here for a few days. I came with my aunt.”
“What?” Billie asked quietly. He seemed genuinely confused. “LA?” He murmured, however it seemed to be more to himself. “I thought you didn’t want to go to LA?” I loved how he remembered such minuscule things about me. Bryan and I had been dating for seven years and I still wasn’t sure if he knew my favorite color.
“I needed to get away from the bay area.”
“Away from the bay area?” Billie questioned quietly, as if he was trying to understand what I had meant. “Shit, Roxy, why didn’t you tell me that?” I cocked an eyebrow in confusion. Surely he knew that he was included in what I needed time away from? The city of San Francisco hadn’t lied to its friends about me. “If you wanted to get away I could have taken you,” he stated. “I would have taken you anywhere you wanted--Rome, France, fucking, oh, I don’t know--Singapore if you had asked me. Why didn’t you ask?”
My heart skipped a beat at his offers. For a moment I began to imagine Billie and I walking down the streets of Paris together. “I didn’t want to come, but My aunt convinced me to,” I stated once I had composed myself, “she’s got an apartment down here. We’ve been spending a lot of time at the beaches. They’re beautiful.”
“Not as beautiful as you,” Billie cooed. I felt my cheeks burn. “I could have taken you down there, Roxy. I have a house in Newport--,” Billie gasped loudly, “Oh shit, Roxy, I have a house in Newport.” I didn’t respond, but instead waited for the slightly drunk man to continue his train of thought. “Roxy, Newport is right next to LA. I’m going to come down right now--let me. Let me come down and see you.”
My eyes widened at Billie’s words. I was barely able to hold a conversation with him on the phone; I couldn’t imagine him actually coming to see me. “Billie, we’re six hours away, that’s silly.”
“Six hours isn’t shit, Roxanne. I’ve been in a van with two sweaty assholes for at least three times that. I can even catch a flight; I could be there in just a few hours.”
“Who says there’s any flights?” I challenged because truth be told, I wasn’t sure what else to say. I knew that there was no way that Billie was actually going to come down to LA to see me, therefore I wasn’t going to fool myself into getting excited.
“Oh for fucks sake, if there’s no flights then I’ll fuckin’ drive.”
“Absolutely not,” I hissed into the phone, “you’re drunk. You’re not going to get into a car and drive for six hours.”
“So I’ll go to sleep right now and sleep it off. Oh, Roxy, Roxy baby--let me come see you. Please. I can pick you up. Let me come down and take you to my house in Newport. We can stay for a few days, or, or I don't know, however long you want.” Billie hesitated. “I won’t--I won’t try anything with you. I’ll be good. I just want to talk to you. I want to see you and talk to you and make this up to you. If I explain everything to you and you still hate me after, I’ll fly you back up to your aunt so you won’t have to sit in the car with me and then I’ll leave you alone for good. Just please, please give me this.”
I had to admit that his offer sounded quite good. I knew that there was no way that I could go home to Connecticut without hearing what Billie had to say for himself, therefore I would have to face him someday and quite honestly, I wanted it to be sooner than later. I just wasn’t sure if this was too soon. In less than five minutes I had gone from wondering if and when I would see the man again, to possibly seeing him within a few hours.
“I don’t know,” I finally spluttered. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t know other than feeling overwhelmed. I loved the man more than words could describe, but I was also still hurt by him. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to look at him again.
“Why not?” Billie whimpered. My heart skipped a beat at his defeated tone. He sounded like a child that had actually just received coal on christmas.
I sighed heavily. “Billie, you probably won’t even remember this in the morning. This is silly to be doing right now.”
“I’m not fucking plastered, Roxanne,” Billie argued, “I’m just drunk. I’m drunk all the fucking time. This is probably the least drunk I’ve been all fucking week. You’re literally all I’ve been thinking about, of course I’ll remember this in the morning.” I frowned at how insulted he sounded but fought the urge to apologize.
“Let me talk to my aunt,” I compromised. Even if I had made the decision to see Billie and go to his house in Newport with him, I wasn’t sure if my aunt would even let me. I couldn’t blame her if she didn’t. My aunt had always been against the relationship and now that Billie had actually fucked up and hurt me, she was more than ready to keep me as far as possible away from him . “She did bring me here; she does get final say.”
“Okay,” Billie agreed, much calmer now. He still sounded disappointed. “Okay, fine.” He sighed heavily. “Will you call me as soon as you find out?”
“Only if you promise me you’ll go to sleep right now.”
“I can try,” he murmured. I smiled sadly at how defeated he sounded.
“Go to sleep,” I encouraged, “I promise you I’ll go and talk to my aunt and then I’ll immediately call you. But if you come down here, I want you coming down here sober.”
“I’ll be sober for you,” Billie promised quietly, “just let me see you, baby.”
Despite how upset I still was with him, I loved when he called me affectionate names. I groaned inwardly as I felt the walls that I had built to keep Billie out start to crumble. The effect he had on me was so dangerous.
I managed to get Billie to agree to go to sleep and after a few more minutes of him pleading me to let him see me, he promised me he was going to finally go to sleep. As soon as I had gotten him to hang up, I began my way back to my aunt’s apartment. During the drive I had managed to finally compose myself enough so that I didn’t radiate that I had had a horrible evening to my aunt the second I walked in the door.
Nevertheless, as soon as I had, my aunt had looked up at me in surprise and made a comment about how short my evening was. Despite how much I tried to do the opposite, I had ended up melting onto a stool and blubbering the entire story to her. Rather than saying anything, my aunt just wrapped her arms around me and held me in silence for a long time. Her arms weren’t the ones I wanted, but they were much better than none.
“So how does he sound?” My aunt asked once she thought I was okay to speak again.
“Awful,” I admitted. I excluded the part about him currently being intoxicated for my aunt’s sake. I knew there was almost no chance in her being okay with me seeing him if she knew that he was drunk. “I think it’s genuine.”
“Do you want to see him?” She asked quietly. I already knew the answer she was hoping for. Unfortunately, it was the opposite of the one I gave.
“So bad,” I murmured honestly into her arm. There was absolutely no point in lying to her. “I miss him so much, Aunt Jen. I just want...closure, if nothing else. I want to know why he lied and why he won’t just give up. If he’s sending me so many things and calling me every night, he’s got to have a reason to not give up, doesn’t he?”
My aunt sighed in clear disappointment at my answer. “Answer me honestly--do you feel safe going to his house with him?”
Billie had emotionally hurt me, but there had never been a time where I had ever even considered my safety with him. Despite being an asshole, I trusted my life with the man. Besides, it didn’t seem like he was having much fun after having hurt me. I knew it was a legitimate question to my aunt, but it seemed so silly to me.
“I don’t want you to go,” my aunt admitted sadly to me. I instantly felt bad for telling her anything about my evening, especially my phone call with Billie. I felt even worse for living with her that summer and bringing the shit show that was my life into hers. “Is there any way this ends without you seeing him again?”
We both knew it didn’t.
My aunt and I had stayed in her living room for another few hours, during which she forced me to promise her that if I had decided to go with Billie to his house in Newport Beach, I would constantly update her or she would call me and embarrass me in front of him.
I called Billie about an hour or two later, once my aunt and I had finally separated for the night. She genuinely hated the thought of me being alone with Billie, and I believe that she was much closer to saying no than to saying yes if it hadn’t been for the how tired she was of seeing me so miserable.
Billie had answered the phone later that evening with a sleepy “hello,” followed by a loud yawn that I had been elated to hear. I was glad to hear to the sleep in his voice. He sounded much better that evening than when he had called me earlier, which I had been thankful for. He had kept his end of the promise, therefore I would keep mine.
The two of us decided that I would go down to his house with him and stay for three nights, considering that was when my aunt would be returning to the bay area. If things went horribly, I would be able to head back with her. If they went well, then we would go from there.
Billie had decided that he would go back to sleep for a few more hours, stating that the past two hours had been the best sleep he’d gotten in a week and he actually wanted more. He decided that he would leave his home later and drive through the night. Because it was such a long drive and LA was notorious for its traffic, Billie had decided that he wanted to avoid it altogether. I felt awful that he would be driving down and had insisted on catching a flight back up to Berkeley, however he wouldn’t hear it. I had attempted to fight him a bit, nervous that he would still be intoxicated while driving down, however Billie promised me that he wouldn’t get into the car if he wasn’t positive that he was sober. ”I won’t do anything that would compromise seeing your beautiful face again,” he had told me.
I had tried desperately to sleep the night that I knew he was coming, but it was to no avail. Rather than sleeping, I had spent the entire night lying in bed with my stomach in knots. It had only been a little over a week since I had seen Billie, but in that week I had realized just how in love with him I was. While I had realized how I was in love with him, I was terrified that he may have realized that he wasn’t in love with me.
At 3 o’clock that morning I received my second text message ever from Billie. Leaving my house now. I’ll see you in the morning. Sweet dreams
It was mind boggling how the man had gone from swearing off technology for the rest of his life to texting me actual sentences. It left me swooning like mad until I managed to finally slip into a deep slumber for the rest of the night.
I was up early the next morning to the point where I wondered why I had even bothered sleeping at all. I had woken up three hours later at 6, immediately got into the shower and began to get ready. My aunt had woken up at 8 o’clock and had perched herself on a stool in the kitchen of the apartment, also waiting for Billie to show up.
“Take a deep breath, Roxanne,” my aunt reminded me once I had joined her in the kitchen. I had spent almost a solid hour working on my hair and makeup, and even with everything finally perfect I still felt like a mess. No matter what I did to my hair or my face that morning, I felt unsatisfied. I shifted on the stool and tucked the bottom of the white sundress I wore underneath me.
“I’m calm,” I responded, although I knew that my hands were shaking visibly. I wondered if he was half as nervous as I was. I wondered if he constantly felt as if he was going to vomit and/or couldn’t stop his entire body from shaking either.
“You look beautiful,” my aunt complimented through a sympathetic smile.
Despite the denial that immediately went through my mind, I smiled back to my aunt. I was about to thank her, however I had been cut off by an obnoxious buzzing noise. I got up from my stool and pressed the button on the intercom. “Billie?” I called hesitantly. I knew it was him, but a small part of me was hoping that it wasn’t because I still wasn’t sure if I was actually ready to face him yet.
“Yeah, hi,” awkwardly came back through the intercom. My heart skipped a beat at the sound of his voice and what it meant. It meant that he was in the same building at me and that I would actually be seeing him within the next few minutes. All I had to do was allow him in, and he would be at my door.
I was going to vomit.
Wordlessly, I allowed him into the apartment building. I was about to exit the kitchen to wait by the door since I knew it was only a matter of minutes until Billie knocked on it, however my aunt caught my arm. I spun around to look at her to find a slightly pained expression on her face.
“You don’t have to go, Roxanne,” my aunt reminded me, “I know he means a lot to you and I know you probably want answers, but just know that you don’t have to go with him. You don’t owe him anything.”
But she was wrong. I did owe Billie. Quite a lot, actually. Billie had fucked up massively, but before that he truly had been my knight in shining armor. The man had bent over backwards for me despite how much I had begged him not to. He wasn’t perfect by any means, but he was the closest thing to it that I had ever met.
“I appreciate that, Aunt Jen. I know I don’t--but I want to.”
My aunt kept eye contact with me for another moment, her eyes silently pleading with me to reconsider and to not go with him despite the fact that she knew there was no way that she would be able to change my mind.
My aunt sighed heavily and slowly let go of my arm. I smiled briefly at her and then turned back to the door, just as I heard a distant knocking on it. I considered just heading back to my room and locking that door rather than answering this one as I felt bile rise in my throat, however I already knew how stupid of an idea that truly was.
My feet felt like they had filled with lead as I slowly headed towards the front door. I smoothed down my dress at least five or so times simply because I wasn’t sure what else I should do with my hands while closing my eyes and forcing myself to inhale deeply. I was being silly. I would be okay. It was Billie. It wasn’t a first date. It was a man who had been my boyfriend not too long ago.
I silently thanked the apartment building for having solid doors as I reached it. I placed my hand upon the knob, forced myself to inhale deeply and exhale and then after slowly counting to three, I answered the door.
Before my aunt had even managed to greet me, I launched into the details of what had happened to me that afternoon. I explained to my aunt how she had been wrong and that the fear of running into Bryan hadn’t been half as insane as she had told me it was. I told her about how we still ordered the same drink and how disgustingly handsome he looked. I told my aunt about how he had admitted that he missed me and about how he wanted to go on a date with me later that week.
I did not tell my aunt about how I had realized that I was madly in love with Billie.
“What do I do?” I finally whimpered once I had finished ranting. I sighed heavily in defeat and slumped into the armchair that was next to the couch my aunt had been sitting on.
“Well,” my aunt finally murmured with a dazed look in her eyes. She seemed to be genuinely weighing my options. “You’re in quite the predicament. What do you want to do?” She asked.
I groaned involuntarily. That was the problem--I had absolutely no idea as to what I wanted to do. I had absolutely no interest in going on a date with my ex-boyfriend, but there was still a part of me, although rather small, that still wanted to see Bryan again. Not necessarily because I still wanted him altogether, but rather because I needed something more than just an awkward encounter in a Starbucks. The last time I had seen Bryan prior to that afternoon had been when he had dumped me earlier that summer.
“The only thing I can say is,” my aunt began after a few moments of silence, “is that you came here for a reason, hun. You came to California in the first place to get over Bryan. You can’t really get over someone by going out on a date with them.”
I knew my aunt was right, but the problem was that I didn’t want to go out on a date with Bryan. What I had really wanted was to see him one last time before I possibly never saw him again. While I knew that between semesters I would more than likely seeing Bryan around town seeing as how small it was, I also knew that I probably wouldn’t interact with him. By December, I assumed that the two of would have moved on.
I wanted to go to dinner with Bryan because if anything, I wanted to say goodbye. Bryan and I had been together since we had been eleven. Our relationship deserved to have a better ending than him dumping me on the sidewalk outside of my house with me screaming at him. I wanted the closure that our relationship deserved.
If Bryan hadn’t called, I would be okay without going to dinner with him. But if he had, and seeing as how much I knew Bryan, I knew he would, I would accept his invitation. And when we were out, I would tell him that there were no hard feelings between us. I would tell him that I was okay and that I wanted to be friends rather than nothing at all. I knew being friends would never actually happen, but I wanted him to know how much I didn’t actually hate him anymore.
Perhaps I also wanted him to know that I also wasn’t hung up on him anymore. I wasn’t sure if I would tell him that I had moved on, but I would make sure that he knew that I was perfectly fine without him.
For a moment I became afraid that Billie would be angry at the fact that I was going out to dinner with Bryan if he had ever found out, however I quickly shrugged it off. Billie and I were currently broken up, therefore I was able to do whatever I wanted. If he hadn’t wanted me to go out on a date with my ex-boyfriend, then maybe he shouldn’t have lied to his best friends about me.
I had received another phone call from Billie later that evening. Despite my most recent revelation, it still went unanswered. Although I had realized that I was wildly in love with the man, I wasn’t sure that I was able to face him yet. Realizing that you were in love with someone was one thing, but realizing that you were in love with someone and facing them while also feeling betrayed by them them was a whole nother.
I knew I loved Billie, but considering what had happened the other day, I wasn’t exactly sure how he felt about me. He had told me that he had loved me, but his actions earlier that day hadn’t exactly proved it.
Sure enough, exactly as I had expected him to do, Bryan called the next day and asked to take me out to dinner. After hesitating for a moment, quickly questioning myself if it was really what I wanted, I accepted. The next evening we would go out to dinner at a restaurant in LA. I decided that I would meet Bryan at the restaurant rather than allow him to pick me up because quite honestly, I wanted to make the evening feel nothing like a date if possible. Because it wasn’t a date. Bryan missed me and I was sure that he would tell me so again, but I had no intention to return it.
At 6:30 the next evening I pulled my aunt’s car into a parking space outside of the restaurant that Bryan had raved to me about. I sighed heavily once I had killed the engine and ran a hand through my hair. I still had enough time to leave and call Bryan telling him that something came up. I knew that Billie would be hurt if he found out that I was currently on a “not-date” with Bryan, and while some of me felt compelled to leave because of that, the other part of me felt even more compelled to stay. Billie had hurt me, so perhaps it was time I hurt him back.
If he ever found out, that was. Which he wouldn’t, because there was no way in hell I would let him know what I was doing.
I groaned and whispered to myself that it was okay and that I was going to be okay. It was Bryan. Since I was eleven he had quite literally been my other half. If there was anyone I shouldn’t have been nervous to see at the moment, it should have been him. Being with Bryan was familiar. For the first night since he had dumped me, perhaps my life could feel in order again.
A knocking at my window snapped me out of my thoughts. I stared out the window in terror, but sighed in relief when I saw a pair of familiar beautiful blue eyes staring back in at me. I smiled briefly to Bryan, grabbed my purse and pushed the door to the car open.
“Good evening,” Bryan greeted once the door was open. He held it open for me and then shut it once I had stood up. Before I could respond, Bryan wrapped his free arm around me and pulled me into a hug. Rather than fighting it, I allowed his much larger frame to envelope mine. Truth be told, it felt good to be in anyone’s arms at the moment.
Bryan grinned at me when we separated. “You look gorgeous, Roxy,” he complimented.
He did too. Bryan was wearing a button down light blue shirt with white shorts and boating shoes. The entire outfit had been one that I had bought him not long before we had broken up. For a moment I was angry at the fact that he would wear something that I had bought for him, something he knew I liked him in, but I also knew that there were many things that he had bought for me that I hadn’t bothered to throw away.
I don’t think that Bryan could have looked any different than Billie if he had actually tried. My taste in men absolutely blew my mind.
Bryan looked amazing but the last thing I was going to do was fuel his ego by letting him know. “Thank you,” I murmured with a small smile. I looked down at my black dress and bright red heels. Perhaps I had also purposely worn Bryan’s favorite outfit, but I only wore it because I wanted him to eat his heart out.
“This place is fantastic,” Bryan stated. He attempted to take my hand into his own, however I managed to escape it by wrapping my arm around his own instead. I wasn’t sure if it had been on purpose or sheerly from memory, but either way I had wanted no part of it. “I come here all the time.”
“On other dates?” I quipped. I wasn’t sure if I had actually meant to say it. As much as I didn’t want to currently be on a date with Bryan, I couldn’t help also feeling a hint of jealousy.
Bryan chuckled. “No, actually,” he said, followed by his charming grin. I involuntarily melted at the sight of it. “That is, unless you count a few of my teammates as dates.”
I felt my cheeks burn a bit in embarrassment at myself. I was quite the hypocrite considering I had spent the last month and a half in the arms of another man that I was currently head over heels for. Bryan laughed at my expression while opening the door for us to enter.
Once we entered the restaurant, a waitress lead us to a table towards the back. Bryan pulled out my chair for me to sit, then sat himself. Once I had decided that I had absolutely no clue as how to start conversation between the two of us, I picked up my menu and pretended to be exceedingly interested in it.
“So how have you been?” Bryan asked after I had been reading for quite some time. I grinded my teeth in pain at the thought of conversation. Remain cool, I reminded myself. He was just being polite.
“Actually really well,” I admitted once laying my menu down on the table. I smiled a surprisingly convincing smile at Bryan considering how I had been feeling lately. “I’ve been here for a month and I’ve met some really great people.” It was really just one person, but Bryan didn’t need to know that.
Bryan grinned at me. “Is Sadie here with you?” He asked. “I can’t imagine the two of you spending the summer apart.”
I smiled back at him before looking back to my menu. “Surprisingly not. My parents thought it would be a good idea to get me out of the house, so they sent me here to live with Aunt Jen for a couple weeks.”
“But you’ve been here for a month?” He questioned.
I shrugged. “I didn’t want to go home yet. I’ve been having a good time.” That was perhaps the biggest understatement of my life.
“So when do you go home?” Bryan asked.
“Probably the end of the summer,” I answered with another shrug, “I don’t know. Whenever I feel like it.”
“Well I hope not too soon,” Bryan said through a smile. I groaned inwardly. I had the worst feeling that the conversation was going to start heading in the exact opposite direction that I had wanted it to. “It’s really nice to have you here.”
I forced a smile. “Well, I’ll be returning to the bay area soon, so I won’t necessarily be here.”
“I can drive up to see you,” Bryan offered. My eyes widened at his offer. There was no way that he was serious, was there? Bryan Bates had dumped me because of the distance between us at the beginning of the summer. “It’s much closer than Connecticut.”
I didn’t say anything, only stared down at my menu while internally screaming in panic. We had literally just sat down and he was already going to attempt to bring up our relationship? I had assumed that he had missed me, but I honestly had never expected him to jump into it so fast. The least he could have done was take me out to dinner first, and then brought up getting back together.
"I’m going to cut right to the chase, Roxanne,” Bryan started. I considered pleading with him not to. “I've missed you," he admitted to me quietly after a few minutes of what I was sure was awkward silence. I fought back a heavy sigh of disappointment. "I thought that breaking up would be a good idea because I didn't want to hold you back while I was gone. You're so beautiful and it's your senior year, I know you're going to want to go out and experience things that I can't be there for." I knew that a rather large part of it was that Bryan also hadn't wanted to hold himself back either, however I didn't say a word. "But you're all I've been able to think about," Bryan continued. "I've fought the urge to call you every single day since I've left. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but if you're willing to work on a long distance relationship for your senior year, then I am, too."
My eyes widened at the words that had just poured out of Bryan’s mouth like vomit. The worst part of them was that they had been everything I had ever wanted to hear. We could have gotten back together, stayed together through my senior year and then I could go to UCLA with him next fall and we could think about actually getting married. It had been our plan since freshman year in high school when we realized just how serious we actually were.
I had spent almost my entire life picturing the family that Bryan and I would create some day. We both had known since we were freshmen that we would be going to NYU or UCLA together, even though he was a year older than me. What killed me was the fact that we had already discussed the fact that Bryan would be graduating earlier than me, but we both agreed that when you're together for seven years of the eighteen that you've been alive, a couple semesters apart wasn't a big deal. And that was why Bryan's break up had blind sided me so much--there had never been even a trace of doubt in our plan as long as I had known.
I had the chance right then to go back to my perfect boyfriend that all of my friends and family knew and loved. We could pretend that our month apart had never happened.
The only issue was that it wasn't what I wanted anymore. At all.
"That sounds wonderful, Bry," I agreed while avoiding eye contact. I could feel his gaze burning into me. "It really does." I considered not saying anything else, just because I didn't want to face the backlash that was inevitably coming. When I saw the relieved smile upon his face, however, I knew that I couldn’t let it go on. "But as much as I’d love to...I can't."
Bryan's smile slowly began to droop while he cocked an eyebrow. "I'm sorry?" He questioned as if he hasn't heard me correct. He seemed genuinely confused.
"I'm sorry," I apologized. I wasn't even slightly sorry for what I had done, considering the fact that other than the predicament that we were in at the moment I loved everything about being in love with Billie, but rather the fact that I was forced to tell him about it at that exact moment. "Oh god,” I sighed while running a hand through my hair, “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to tell you this...I sort of…met someone, Bry," I finished quietly.
Bryan didn't say anything for a moment, only stared at me with a somewhat bewildered look upon his face. I wasn't sure if he couldn't process what I had just said or that he didn't want to.
"What do you mean you met someone, Roxanne?" Bryan finally asked after we sat in silence for what felt like forever. His tone was so much harsher than before. I winced.
"I mean exactly what it sounds like," I responded, though much more curt now. He had absolutely no right to be angry at me. He had dumped me. I calmed myself down immediately so that we didn't draw in any unwanted attention from the tables around us. "I've met someone since we broke up and we're seeing each other," I admitted. I wasn't sure exactly what Billie and I were at the moment, but I silently prayed that I would find out soon and that stating that we were together wouldn't be incorrect.
Bryan stared at me for a minute. I expected him to yell at me, however what I did not expect was for him to throw his head back and release perhaps the most arrogant laugh I had ever heard. I cringed. “This is a joke, right?” Bryan asked once he had calmed down a bit. A small bubble of laughter still interrupted each word. When I didn’t respond, the large grin on Bryan’s face slowly began to melt into a frown. “Right?” He echoed.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized without looking at him.
“You’re sorry?” He snapped at me. I winced as if he had slapped me. "What--how the fuck did you meet someone, Roxanne?" Bryan growled. His mood has changed faster than that of a pregnant woman. "We've been broken up for two months and you’ve been here the entire time."
"I met him on the plane, on the way here," I admitted with a shrug. I had absolutely nothing to hide from Bryan at this point. I owed him nothing. "He was incredibly nice to me and when we landed we bumped into each other around town. He took me out on a few dates the first week I was here and we've been dating ever since." I neglected to tell him about how Billie and I currently were, but that was really none of his business.
“You’re dating someone that lives in California?” He hissed. “How is that going to work?!”
“The same way we would have if you hadn’t dumped me, Bryan,” I snapped back. His tone was starting to aggravate me. He was acting as if I had cheated on him rather than started moving on.
“And I told you that I regret that, Roxanne.”
I rolled my eyes. Did he want a fucking award? Perhaps Bryan had regretted breaking up with me, but it didn’t make it happening any less real. Bryan and I were broken up so that the two of us could move on and enjoy our time apart. Perhaps he had assumed we would get back together when he came home, but I had absolutely no desire to do so. In fact, if the two of us hadn’t bumped into each other in Starbucks the other day I knew that I wouldn’t have heard from the asshole until he was home in the winter. It wasn’t my fault that I had moved on a lot sooner than he had.
“So what do you want from me, Bry?” I sighed.
“Another chance!” He cried out. He accidentally slammed his hand down on the table between us, causing a few people around us to look over. I sunk in my seat, dreading the unwanted attention. Everything about the situation I was currently in was borderline torture. “I love you, Roxanne!”
“Well I’m sorry, but I can’t give you that,” I whispered while avoiding eye contact. Instead, I looked down at my lap. I sighed heavily at the information I was about to share, already regretting it. "I'm in love with him, Bry.”
Bryan choked loudly on the water he had been drinking. I watched silently as he coughed loudly and his face became bright red. He seemed as if he was going to actually explode, however he surprised the both of us by starting to laugh again. I frowned, knowing the difference between Bryan’s genuine laughter and the sharp, humorless one I was hearing now. “God, Roxanne...do you know how stupid you sound right now?”
My eyes widened and I felt as if I had had the air knocked out of me. Despite all of the fights and all of the harsh words Bryan and I had shared over the past seven years, he had never been so nasty. I found myself not necessarily hurt, but becoming incredibly angry. How dare he? How dare he call me stupid because I fell in love with another man?
When I wasn’t quick to respond, Bryan was more than happy to fill the silence.
“You’ve been here for almost two months and you’ve found someone that you’re in love with? What a fucking joke. Do you actually think that he loves you back?!”
I genuinely hoped so. I know that Billie had already told me it, but there was still a part of me that was convinced that he had only said it as a last resort. More than anything, though, did I want Billie to love me back.
“Contrary to popular belief, this is not a joke,” I spat back at my ex-boyfriend. “I’m sorry that you dumped me and I moved on, but other than an apology, I don’t know what you want from me. I’m not your bitch. I’m sorry you expected me to sit around and wait for you but I didn’t.”
“I didn’t expect you to wait for me,” Bryan snarled back, “But I also didn’t expect you to go and jump into bed with someone else so fast.”
“I haven’t slept with him,” I sneered, “and even if I had, that would be none of your business. I can sleep with whoever the hell I want, for your information. We broke up, Bryan.”
“I get that,” Bryan spat, “trust me, I fucking understand. I know we broke up, but I guess I just didn’t expect you to become such a whore.”
My mind hadn’t even processed Bryan’s words when the tears began to fill my eyes. The second I noticed that they were there, however, I forced myself to blink them away. I would not give him the satisfaction of making me cry.
This wasn’t Bryan. Bryan had never been anything other than respectful to me. He had never called me anything nasty no matter how bad things had gotten. Bryan had been a stupid boy, but there had been a reason that I was so in love with him. I refused to accept that the man sitting in front of me was the same person that I had grown up with.
Just because I was in love with Billie didn’t mean that I didn’t still love Bryan. There had been a few nights where I had ached for him, or that I had woken up and thought that the entire summer had been a dream. And because that part of me unfortunately still existed, my ex-boyfriends words managed to cut me like a knife.
"Well," I squeaked. I tried so desperately to choke back the tears that were threatening to spill, but it was nearly impossible when trying to also speak. I refused to let him see me cry. "I guess we're done here."
"I guess so," he spat back while waving his hand dismissively at me.
"I'm glad we could catch up," I choked out, "I hope you have an amazing semester, Bryan." Without another word, I threw a couple dollar bills down onto the table for the waitress considering she had been polite even if we hadn't ordered anything, grabbed my purse and for the second time within the past week or so, I left a restaurant trying my absolute best to not cry. The feeling of fleeing felt all too familiar and I hated every single thing about it.
I had managed to make it down the sidewalk and into the parking lot where my aunts car was before any tears actually spilled down my cheeks. I had done a good job at blinking them back, but once I had actually gotten into the car, I allowed myself to let cry. Not only did I allow the tears to leak down my cheeks, I allowed myself to bawl. I pulled my legs up to my chest as I sat in the drivers seat of the car, buried my face into them and let out a long, shrill sob that shook my body.
I knew that I shouldn’t have cared about Bryan’s opinion of me seeing as he was nothing but a thing of my past, but as I sat curled up in the drivers seat of the car, sobbing to the point where I was nearly hyperventilating, I found it hard to convince myself. Even if I never saw Bryan again, he had still been such a large part of my life and at one time had meant the world to me. As much as I didn’t want to care about him, I genuinely couldn’t help it.
I regretted everything about going out with Bryan that night. Why, for the life of me, had I accepted? Clearly it wasn’t going to have gone well! I was madly in love with a man that wasn’t him, and clearly Bryan hadn’t just wanted to catch up.
I groaned angrily at myself as my tears continued to pour down my cheeks. I had been so stupid. Rather than ignoring Billie for the past week, I should have just gotten over myself and answered one of his phone calls. The man had been trying so desperately to get in touch with me and rather than answering him, I went out on a date with my ex-boyfriend who was a bastard. At that moment, I wanted literally nothing else than to be wrapped up in Billie’s arms on his balcony, talking about nothing in particular. I had wasted far too much time being angry at him.
I had sat in the drivers seat of my aunts car bawling for what felt like eternity before my sobs had started to subside. When they had finally stopped pouring down my cheeks, I wiped the remains of them from my face and forced myself to inhale deeply.
Truth was, as miserable as I currently was, I knew that things would get better simply because they had to. Once you hit rock bottom, you can only go up.
I sighed heavily while running a hand through my hair. Once I was sure that I was okay enough at least to drive back, I stuck my keys into the ignition. Once the time popped up onto the radio, however, I paused. 6:55 it read. Every night Billie almost always called around 7 o’clock. 6:55 meant that I should have been getting my evening phone call from Billie any minute.
I stared at the clock until it turned to 6:58 and then killed the ignition, deciding that I didn’t want to go home yet. Rather than going home, I wanted to sit and wait the phone call I had been prepared to avoid yet again. If I had gone home, my aunt would have asked me about my dinner with Bryan, considering I had barely been out for an hour and I would have missed his call. Truth was, I was tired of ignoring Billie. I was tired of hating him. While it didn’t mean that I was any less angry at him, it did mean that I was finally ready to have him back in my life. I took my phone from my purse and placed it on my lap, staring down at the screen and forcing myself not to panic as each minute passed.
When 7:05 rolled around, I continued to stare down at the screen of my phone, now silently praying that this hadn't been the night that Billie had finally decided to give up on me. If he had finally decided that he didn't want me anymore I wasn't sure what I would do. I needed him so desperately and more than anything, I needed him to need me back. I missed him so much and even though I was still so angry at him, I needed Billie back in my life. I was starting to actually crash and burn without him.
Sure enough, I didn't have to worry for too much longer because like clockwork, at 7:08 my phone began to vibrate. The screen lit up with Billie's name and Matthew Bellamy began to serenade me. I hadn't even let it ring twice before I had selected the accept button.
For a moment or two there was nothing but silence coming through the phone. I instantly panicked, afraid that I had missed Billie’s call or that he had decided to hang up and finally give up on me once and for all, resulting in me calling out a hesitant “hello?”
“Hello?” Came through the phone. At just one simple word I felt my world begin to crumble around me. The tears that had finally dried came back in full force followed by a few sobs that I managed to keep Billie from hearing. I had missed Billie so much more than I had allowed myself to realize and now that I was realizing it, just the sound of his voice was enough to throw me over the edge. I needed him, I realized. I needed his arms around me and his lips upon my own. I needed to not be six hours away from him, but rather six inches.
He betrayed you, I reminded myself as I slowly came back down to earth. He had lied to his best friends about me. He was ashamed of me and the fact that he had been dating me. He didn’t actually want me. My overwhelming desire for him suddenly wasn’t so overwhelming anymore.
I sighed heavily to myself at my mess of emotions. One moment I was ready to kiss Billie again, the next I still wanted him as far away as possible from me.
“Roxanne?” Billie called cautiously into the phone. “Roxanne, a-are you there?”
“I’m here,” I answered. I tried my best to sound cold, however the quiver in my voice spoiled it. I hoped that he couldn’t tell that I was bawling.
“Shit,” Billie gasped into the phone, “oh, shit, Roxy, I can’t believe you answered!” He sighed heavily. I imagined him hastily running his hands through his hair. I wanted to replace his hands with my own. “I got so used to calling you every night and just listening to your voicemail. God, I love your voice,” he cooed. The butterflies in my stomach fluttered around. “I gave up on you ever answering. Oh Roxy, Roxy, baby, how are you? How have you been?”
Horrible. I had finally hit rock bottom. At that moment, while sitting in my aunt’s car, I could have honestly said that I had never been at a lower point in my life. When Bryan had dumped me I had been so sure that I wouldn’t have hit such a low point in my life again, however where I was had greatly surpassed that. The pain that I had felt when Bryan had dumped me felt like a walk in the park compared to this.
“I’m okay,” I answered, “I’ve been better, but I’ve also been worse.” I wasn’t going to let him know what he had done to me. Guys seemed to have a sick fascination with ripping girls apart and I wasn’t going to allow the stupid rock star to have me to brag about. I was better than him. “How are you?” I asked, only because it was polite.
“Awful,” Billie answered honestly. Truth be told, it had caught me off guard. I remembered what his friend had told me in the grocery store, but that had been a few days. Surely, Billie had moved onto the next girl that he could fuck with by now. There was no way that he was still upset about us. “I’m a little drunk right now,” he admitted. I frowned at the thought of him sitting in his home, drunk and alone. “I really miss you,” he added quietly.
My heart tugged painfully at his words. I missed him so much more than he would ever know. I searched my mind for ways to answer Billie, however ended up saying nothing. He wasn’t going to break me, or at least find out that he had.
“I’m so sorry,” Billie apologized sadly. My heart melted at the genuine sorrow and sadness his voice held. Despite my anger, I wanted so desperately to wrap my arms around him. “I’m so sorry, Roxanne. I never meant to hurt you--I promise. God, Roxy, I’m so fucking stupid.”
“You’re not stupid,” I argued lamely. I hated hearing him insult himself. I was beginning to believe what Mike had said in the supermarket the other day about Billie being the angriest at himself about the situation. I had comforted the man many times when he had been beating himself up over numerous things and knowing that I wasn’t able to do the same for him now, even though I was the one that he had hurt, was surprisingly unsettling. “Please don’t say that about yourself.”
“I am,” he insisted. I went to protest, but he cut me off. “Where are you, Roxy?” Billie whined. “I, um--I, uh, I went to your aunt’s house yesterday. No one was there.”
“You went to her house?” I asked in bewilderment. I wasn’t sure if I was devastated or elated that I hadn’t been there.
“I was desperate,” he whimpered. My heart skipped a beat when his voice cracked. I couldn’t handle a drunk Billie. When Billie was drunk he wore his heart on his sleeve and I wasn’t sure that I was prepared for it. “I needed to talk to you. I didn’t think that you’d ever answer your phone. I’m a--a mess, Roxy. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat. I can’t remember being sober. I can’t do this, Roxy. I know you’re mad at me and I know I’m a fuck up but I can’t handle this Roxy. I miss you so much, you have no fucking clue.” Billie was quiet for a few moments, but I could hear his ragged breathing. “God, Roxy, where are you? Did--oh god, did you--did you go home?”
I was quiet for a moment as I contemplated what to tell the mess of a man. On one hand, I knew that I could easily tell him that I had gone back to Connecticut. I could tell him that I had gone home and that I had only answered in order to tell him to stop calling me. I could then move forward and start with a clean slate. I could hopefully meet someone and have a much easier relationship.
But I didn’t want an easier relationship. Unfortunately for myself, I wanted whatever it was that I had with Billie.
“I’m still in California,” I told Billie quietly.
“Where?” Billie snapped. My eyes widened in surprise. “California is fucking huge, Roxanne, don’t give me that vague shit.”
I smiled to myself at his frustration. For whatever reason, his snapping was much more adorable than Bryan’s. I decided against stringing him along anymore. “Los Angeles,” I admitted, “I’ve been here for a few days. I came with my aunt.”
“What?” Billie asked quietly. He seemed genuinely confused. “LA?” He murmured, however it seemed to be more to himself. “I thought you didn’t want to go to LA?” I loved how he remembered such minuscule things about me. Bryan and I had been dating for seven years and I still wasn’t sure if he knew my favorite color.
“I needed to get away from the bay area.”
“Away from the bay area?” Billie questioned quietly, as if he was trying to understand what I had meant. “Shit, Roxy, why didn’t you tell me that?” I cocked an eyebrow in confusion. Surely he knew that he was included in what I needed time away from? The city of San Francisco hadn’t lied to its friends about me. “If you wanted to get away I could have taken you,” he stated. “I would have taken you anywhere you wanted--Rome, France, fucking, oh, I don’t know--Singapore if you had asked me. Why didn’t you ask?”
My heart skipped a beat at his offers. For a moment I began to imagine Billie and I walking down the streets of Paris together. “I didn’t want to come, but My aunt convinced me to,” I stated once I had composed myself, “she’s got an apartment down here. We’ve been spending a lot of time at the beaches. They’re beautiful.”
“Not as beautiful as you,” Billie cooed. I felt my cheeks burn. “I could have taken you down there, Roxy. I have a house in Newport--,” Billie gasped loudly, “Oh shit, Roxy, I have a house in Newport.” I didn’t respond, but instead waited for the slightly drunk man to continue his train of thought. “Roxy, Newport is right next to LA. I’m going to come down right now--let me. Let me come down and see you.”
My eyes widened at Billie’s words. I was barely able to hold a conversation with him on the phone; I couldn’t imagine him actually coming to see me. “Billie, we’re six hours away, that’s silly.”
“Six hours isn’t shit, Roxanne. I’ve been in a van with two sweaty assholes for at least three times that. I can even catch a flight; I could be there in just a few hours.”
“Who says there’s any flights?” I challenged because truth be told, I wasn’t sure what else to say. I knew that there was no way that Billie was actually going to come down to LA to see me, therefore I wasn’t going to fool myself into getting excited.
“Oh for fucks sake, if there’s no flights then I’ll fuckin’ drive.”
“Absolutely not,” I hissed into the phone, “you’re drunk. You’re not going to get into a car and drive for six hours.”
“So I’ll go to sleep right now and sleep it off. Oh, Roxy, Roxy baby--let me come see you. Please. I can pick you up. Let me come down and take you to my house in Newport. We can stay for a few days, or, or I don't know, however long you want.” Billie hesitated. “I won’t--I won’t try anything with you. I’ll be good. I just want to talk to you. I want to see you and talk to you and make this up to you. If I explain everything to you and you still hate me after, I’ll fly you back up to your aunt so you won’t have to sit in the car with me and then I’ll leave you alone for good. Just please, please give me this.”
I had to admit that his offer sounded quite good. I knew that there was no way that I could go home to Connecticut without hearing what Billie had to say for himself, therefore I would have to face him someday and quite honestly, I wanted it to be sooner than later. I just wasn’t sure if this was too soon. In less than five minutes I had gone from wondering if and when I would see the man again, to possibly seeing him within a few hours.
“I don’t know,” I finally spluttered. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t know other than feeling overwhelmed. I loved the man more than words could describe, but I was also still hurt by him. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to look at him again.
“Why not?” Billie whimpered. My heart skipped a beat at his defeated tone. He sounded like a child that had actually just received coal on christmas.
I sighed heavily. “Billie, you probably won’t even remember this in the morning. This is silly to be doing right now.”
“I’m not fucking plastered, Roxanne,” Billie argued, “I’m just drunk. I’m drunk all the fucking time. This is probably the least drunk I’ve been all fucking week. You’re literally all I’ve been thinking about, of course I’ll remember this in the morning.” I frowned at how insulted he sounded but fought the urge to apologize.
“Let me talk to my aunt,” I compromised. Even if I had made the decision to see Billie and go to his house in Newport with him, I wasn’t sure if my aunt would even let me. I couldn’t blame her if she didn’t. My aunt had always been against the relationship and now that Billie had actually fucked up and hurt me, she was more than ready to keep me as far as possible away from him . “She did bring me here; she does get final say.”
“Okay,” Billie agreed, much calmer now. He still sounded disappointed. “Okay, fine.” He sighed heavily. “Will you call me as soon as you find out?”
“Only if you promise me you’ll go to sleep right now.”
“I can try,” he murmured. I smiled sadly at how defeated he sounded.
“Go to sleep,” I encouraged, “I promise you I’ll go and talk to my aunt and then I’ll immediately call you. But if you come down here, I want you coming down here sober.”
“I’ll be sober for you,” Billie promised quietly, “just let me see you, baby.”
Despite how upset I still was with him, I loved when he called me affectionate names. I groaned inwardly as I felt the walls that I had built to keep Billie out start to crumble. The effect he had on me was so dangerous.
I managed to get Billie to agree to go to sleep and after a few more minutes of him pleading me to let him see me, he promised me he was going to finally go to sleep. As soon as I had gotten him to hang up, I began my way back to my aunt’s apartment. During the drive I had managed to finally compose myself enough so that I didn’t radiate that I had had a horrible evening to my aunt the second I walked in the door.
Nevertheless, as soon as I had, my aunt had looked up at me in surprise and made a comment about how short my evening was. Despite how much I tried to do the opposite, I had ended up melting onto a stool and blubbering the entire story to her. Rather than saying anything, my aunt just wrapped her arms around me and held me in silence for a long time. Her arms weren’t the ones I wanted, but they were much better than none.
“So how does he sound?” My aunt asked once she thought I was okay to speak again.
“Awful,” I admitted. I excluded the part about him currently being intoxicated for my aunt’s sake. I knew there was almost no chance in her being okay with me seeing him if she knew that he was drunk. “I think it’s genuine.”
“Do you want to see him?” She asked quietly. I already knew the answer she was hoping for. Unfortunately, it was the opposite of the one I gave.
“So bad,” I murmured honestly into her arm. There was absolutely no point in lying to her. “I miss him so much, Aunt Jen. I just want...closure, if nothing else. I want to know why he lied and why he won’t just give up. If he’s sending me so many things and calling me every night, he’s got to have a reason to not give up, doesn’t he?”
My aunt sighed in clear disappointment at my answer. “Answer me honestly--do you feel safe going to his house with him?”
Billie had emotionally hurt me, but there had never been a time where I had ever even considered my safety with him. Despite being an asshole, I trusted my life with the man. Besides, it didn’t seem like he was having much fun after having hurt me. I knew it was a legitimate question to my aunt, but it seemed so silly to me.
“I don’t want you to go,” my aunt admitted sadly to me. I instantly felt bad for telling her anything about my evening, especially my phone call with Billie. I felt even worse for living with her that summer and bringing the shit show that was my life into hers. “Is there any way this ends without you seeing him again?”
We both knew it didn’t.
My aunt and I had stayed in her living room for another few hours, during which she forced me to promise her that if I had decided to go with Billie to his house in Newport Beach, I would constantly update her or she would call me and embarrass me in front of him.
I called Billie about an hour or two later, once my aunt and I had finally separated for the night. She genuinely hated the thought of me being alone with Billie, and I believe that she was much closer to saying no than to saying yes if it hadn’t been for the how tired she was of seeing me so miserable.
Billie had answered the phone later that evening with a sleepy “hello,” followed by a loud yawn that I had been elated to hear. I was glad to hear to the sleep in his voice. He sounded much better that evening than when he had called me earlier, which I had been thankful for. He had kept his end of the promise, therefore I would keep mine.
The two of us decided that I would go down to his house with him and stay for three nights, considering that was when my aunt would be returning to the bay area. If things went horribly, I would be able to head back with her. If they went well, then we would go from there.
Billie had decided that he would go back to sleep for a few more hours, stating that the past two hours had been the best sleep he’d gotten in a week and he actually wanted more. He decided that he would leave his home later and drive through the night. Because it was such a long drive and LA was notorious for its traffic, Billie had decided that he wanted to avoid it altogether. I felt awful that he would be driving down and had insisted on catching a flight back up to Berkeley, however he wouldn’t hear it. I had attempted to fight him a bit, nervous that he would still be intoxicated while driving down, however Billie promised me that he wouldn’t get into the car if he wasn’t positive that he was sober. ”I won’t do anything that would compromise seeing your beautiful face again,” he had told me.
I had tried desperately to sleep the night that I knew he was coming, but it was to no avail. Rather than sleeping, I had spent the entire night lying in bed with my stomach in knots. It had only been a little over a week since I had seen Billie, but in that week I had realized just how in love with him I was. While I had realized how I was in love with him, I was terrified that he may have realized that he wasn’t in love with me.
At 3 o’clock that morning I received my second text message ever from Billie. Leaving my house now. I’ll see you in the morning. Sweet dreams
It was mind boggling how the man had gone from swearing off technology for the rest of his life to texting me actual sentences. It left me swooning like mad until I managed to finally slip into a deep slumber for the rest of the night.
I was up early the next morning to the point where I wondered why I had even bothered sleeping at all. I had woken up three hours later at 6, immediately got into the shower and began to get ready. My aunt had woken up at 8 o’clock and had perched herself on a stool in the kitchen of the apartment, also waiting for Billie to show up.
“Take a deep breath, Roxanne,” my aunt reminded me once I had joined her in the kitchen. I had spent almost a solid hour working on my hair and makeup, and even with everything finally perfect I still felt like a mess. No matter what I did to my hair or my face that morning, I felt unsatisfied. I shifted on the stool and tucked the bottom of the white sundress I wore underneath me.
“I’m calm,” I responded, although I knew that my hands were shaking visibly. I wondered if he was half as nervous as I was. I wondered if he constantly felt as if he was going to vomit and/or couldn’t stop his entire body from shaking either.
“You look beautiful,” my aunt complimented through a sympathetic smile.
Despite the denial that immediately went through my mind, I smiled back to my aunt. I was about to thank her, however I had been cut off by an obnoxious buzzing noise. I got up from my stool and pressed the button on the intercom. “Billie?” I called hesitantly. I knew it was him, but a small part of me was hoping that it wasn’t because I still wasn’t sure if I was actually ready to face him yet.
“Yeah, hi,” awkwardly came back through the intercom. My heart skipped a beat at the sound of his voice and what it meant. It meant that he was in the same building at me and that I would actually be seeing him within the next few minutes. All I had to do was allow him in, and he would be at my door.
I was going to vomit.
Wordlessly, I allowed him into the apartment building. I was about to exit the kitchen to wait by the door since I knew it was only a matter of minutes until Billie knocked on it, however my aunt caught my arm. I spun around to look at her to find a slightly pained expression on her face.
“You don’t have to go, Roxanne,” my aunt reminded me, “I know he means a lot to you and I know you probably want answers, but just know that you don’t have to go with him. You don’t owe him anything.”
But she was wrong. I did owe Billie. Quite a lot, actually. Billie had fucked up massively, but before that he truly had been my knight in shining armor. The man had bent over backwards for me despite how much I had begged him not to. He wasn’t perfect by any means, but he was the closest thing to it that I had ever met.
“I appreciate that, Aunt Jen. I know I don’t--but I want to.”
My aunt kept eye contact with me for another moment, her eyes silently pleading with me to reconsider and to not go with him despite the fact that she knew there was no way that she would be able to change my mind.
My aunt sighed heavily and slowly let go of my arm. I smiled briefly at her and then turned back to the door, just as I heard a distant knocking on it. I considered just heading back to my room and locking that door rather than answering this one as I felt bile rise in my throat, however I already knew how stupid of an idea that truly was.
My feet felt like they had filled with lead as I slowly headed towards the front door. I smoothed down my dress at least five or so times simply because I wasn’t sure what else I should do with my hands while closing my eyes and forcing myself to inhale deeply. I was being silly. I would be okay. It was Billie. It wasn’t a first date. It was a man who had been my boyfriend not too long ago.
I silently thanked the apartment building for having solid doors as I reached it. I placed my hand upon the knob, forced myself to inhale deeply and exhale and then after slowly counting to three, I answered the door.
♠ ♠ ♠
I know what you guys are thinking. "What, she STILL hasn't given up?!" Haha nope, surprisingly enough, I haven't. Finals and the holidays got in my way, but I finally sat down and cranked this out. Your comments kill me guys, you have no idea. I love you all so much, thank you for still being here with me. I'm always genuinely surprised to find out you guys haven't abandoned me yet! I love you all, if you're still here thank you so much<333 Now if you don't mind me, I'm going to get back to writing so I can attempt to not take another month or so to update ;) As always, your feedback means the world!