“Doesn’t matter anymore,” I say as a tear falls down my cheek. I didn’t even know my eyes were leaking. I quickly wipe it away, but not before Huxley catches sight of it.
“Fuck, Lottie. I’m sorry. I’m really fucking sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said tonight.”
I move toward the gate, unable to listen to him over the roaring of my heart.
“Please, stay. We can work this out.”
“I can’t.” I shake my head. I feel so fragile in this moment. “I need some space.”
“Space?” He catches up to me as I walk through the gate and onto the sidewalk, where I wait for Kelsey. “What do you mean, you need space? Lottie, please, don’t do this. Don’t leave me.”
Kelsey’s car comes into view.
“Lottie.” Huxley reaches for my hand but I pull it away.
“Don’t.”
“Just fucking talk to me, please. We can work through this. We don’t need space.”
I turn around to face him as the tears gathered start to fall again. “I can barely look at you right now, Huxley. What makes you think I want to stay with you?”
Caught off guard by my tears, he rears back, and it’s all I need for my escape when Kelsey pulls up. I open the car door and start to get in, but Huxley says, “Please, Lottie. Babe, don’t leave.”
I don’t listen. I get in, shut the door, and buckle up.
Kelsey doesn’t say a thing, just drives away. We drive in silence all the way to her apartment.
Even when my phone blows up with texts from Huxley, she doesn’t say anything.
It isn’t until we’re in her apartment that she opens her mouth.
“God, Lottie, I’m so sorry.”
My eyes are puffy at this point.
I have no more tears left to cry.
And I’m curled in a ball on Kelsey’s floor, wrapped up in one of her blankets.
“I don’t understand,” I say quietly. “I thought . . . I thought he trusted me.”
“Sounds like he was caught off guard.”
I glance at her with a warning stare.
She holds up her hands in defense. “I’m not giving him an out, I’m just trying to understand where he’s coming from. I mean, could you imagine hearing that? He’s worked so hard, and for it all to just blow up in his face, he must be stressed.”
“He most likely is, but that doesn’t give him the right to lash out at me. He should’ve come home and asked me for help rather than accuse me. He basically threw everything we built between each other right out the window, as if . . . as if his business is more important than me.” And then it hits me. “Maybe . . . maybe his business is more important than me. Maybe I didn’t matter as much to him as I thought I did.” My lip trembles. “Maybe I liked him more than he liked me.”
“No.” Kelsey shakes her head. “That’s not the case. He likes you, Lottie. He came after you. I saw his face. He was devastated.” I wish that were the case.
“Maybe outwardly he acted as though he cared, but someone who cares about another person doesn’t treat them the way he treated me.”
Kelsey sighs and leans back on her bed. “Can I say something and you not hate me?”
“No. I have all the right to hate you for whatever comes out of your mouth.”
Kelsey grumbles something under her breath and then says, “I think you need to look at this from his perspective. He just found out his secret wasn’t a secret after all, that word is getting around that he’s a liar. He most likely blacked out and had a one-track mind. He didn’t think, he just reacted.”
I sit up from my balled-up position on the floor and look Kelsey in the eyes. “But that’s the thing you’re not getting, Kelsey. He reacted without thinking, and his reaction was to not trust me. I was about to tell him that I loved him. That he makes me so incredibly happy and every day I’m grateful to wake up in his arms.” Tears flow down my cheeks. “But to him, I’m something he’s willing to throw away over an assumption. Do you see the problem?”
Slowly, Kelsey shakes her head. “Yes, I see the problem. I wasn’t thinking about it that way.” She gets down on the floor and crawls toward me to scoop me into a hug. “I’m sorry, Lottie. I can’t imagine how much you’re hurting right now.”
“Too much,” I say with a sniff. “Way too much.” I wipe at my tears. “I wish I’d never agreed to any of this. I wish I’d called his bluff. I wish I’d never gotten involved, because now I feel more broken than ever, rather than put together.”
Kelsey brushes her hand over my head, which brings back the tears. What I said to Huxley about Angela wasn’t wrong. Her betrayal cut me deeply, even though she was simply acting according to her character. She’s a spineless, manipulative liar. But I had trusted in Huxley’s character. His determined, intense nature. Unrelenting, yet decent. Now I should be wondering how I could fall in love with someone who paid people to lie for him. Who wrote contracts to cover up his barefaced fiction, because his business meant everything to him. There’s something very wrong with me that I could look past that. That was our foundation.
And yet, my heart and soul feel destroyed.
Sniffling against her shoulder, I ask, “Why did he have to break me, Kels?”
“I don’t know,” she says quietly. “But you need to remember just how resilient you are.”
“Not this time,” I say as I wipe at my cheek. “I don’t think bouncing back from this will be easy. Not in the slightest.”
The gurgling sound of Kelsey’s coffeemaker wakes me up from my spot on the ground. Just from an attempt at opening my eyes, I know they’re puffy from all the crying I did last night. And the ache in my back is from the lovely mattress of pillows I attempted to sleep on as well.
“Did my coffee wake you?” Kelsey asks from the kitchen.
“Yeah,” I answer, my voice sounding as if I smoked an entire case of cigarettes last night. “But I should get up.”
Knock. Knock.
“Was that your door?” I ask her.
“I think so,” she replies before going to the door to answer it. When she props it open, I hear her ask, “Huxley, what are you doing here?”
Crap.
“I was hoping to talk to Lottie.” I glance behind me and make eye contact with him. When he takes in my appearance, concern quickly washes over his face. “Baby, please, can I talk to you?”
“Uh, you know, I really need to get in the shower,” Kelsey says. “And I don’t know how to handle awkward situations. I want to be a good sister, but I also can’t handle it when guys do that whole puppy-dog-eye thing, and he looks so pathetic, so basically, I’m just going to bolt.”
And she does just that.
She takes off running to the bathroom, shuts the door, and turns on the shower.
When I hear the door click shut, I know Huxley has stepped into the apartment, but I refuse to look up at him, not when my eyes are starting to water all over again.
I don’t want to see him, I still feel too raw, but he has other plans.
He kneels down next to me and places his hand on my cheek. When our eyes meet, his are not only bloodshot but also heavy with concern. But is he concerned about his career, his business, or is he concerned about me?
“You slept on the floor last night?”
“There are pillows underneath me.” Which happened to shift when I shifted, leaving me partially on the floor, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“Lottie, I’m sorry.” His voice is tight. “I know what I did last night was inexcusable. I should never have treated you the way I did, and I’m ashamed.” He swallows hard. “I’m just really fucking scared I fucked over my brothers. I took my fears out on you rather than leaning on you.” His thumb brushes over my cheek. “And I’m sorry.” He picks up a bag from his side and sets it closer to me. “I wasn’t sure if you had any clothes or overnight things here, but I thought I’d bring you some of your things.” That’s annoyingly thoughtful. “I have to get to the office to do some damage control, but I wanted to see you first. Can we have dinner tonight?” When I don’t say anything, he says, “Please, Lottie.”