Oh well, I was more than happy to kick Toby out of Rita's life. To the readers that liked their relationship for whatever reason..... sorry [hehehe]
The name Tristan Walker still curdled in my gut. My ex-boyfriend. The man who had walked out of our life together, leaving behind a bitter residue of hurt.Yes, I had hurt him and went off with a richer man, but that had been so long ago, and he had promised me that he loved me. What was the point of loving someone if you could not forgive their wrongdoings?Not only had Tristan refused to forgive me, but he had replaced me with that stupid brat, Alex. I instinctively rubbed my face as I remembered when Darling, that bitch, had slapped me.And what had Alex done? Laughed.How dare he?!For months, I’d been trying to move back to Tristan, to show him that I loved him and I was the only person that he needed in his life, but time after time he had pushed me aside.The result of that? Pure, unbridled resentment. The feeling of resentment was a constant, heavy thrum beneath the surface.Tristan had treated me like garbage, and for that I wanted him to pay. Not with money, but with somethi
Chapter Ninety-Nine [ALEX'S POV]The events of the night before echoed in my head and I could not get it out. The sound of the door being kicked off its hinges still resounded in my ears, long after Nico had brought it down in one swoop.How had I been so careless? All those questions he would ask, the looks that he gave me. How could I not have seen this coming?My hands were shaking, a cold sweat breaking out on my forehead. Tristan’s face, contorted in pain and shock, Nico’s wild, furious eyes – it was a nightmare unfolding in slow motion. My chest felt tight.The only emotions that I could feel were a mix of fear, guilt, and a desperate, suffocating shame. I had hurt Nico with my lies and I was certain that I had ruined my friendship.Why was I such a screw up?"But you must have seen this coming? you knew that this was going to happen"The voice in my head did not sound accusatory. It just said it as it was. When Tristan and I had begun what we were doing I knew deep down that
Now I know that I really should not be so bothered about who my friend was sleeping with, but I really could not help it. Maybe it was because I needed a new thing to distract myself, and this new mystery was what my mind needed at this point.Who was this new person?The question burned, and I could not get it to stop. I couldn’t shake it. It was very unlike Alex to keep a secret from me, his best friend.Maybe Rita was right, and he did not want to seem like he was rubbing his new relationship in my face just after I had lost Hayley. I could understand that, but that did not make me any less curious.Plus, the possibility of it being Collin, or worse, Julius, made my stomach churn.I had to know.Finals had begun and were now winding down, giving me less of an excuse to bury myself in books and more time for my mind to wander.One particularly late night, I heard Alex stir. It was past midnight, and he was getting ready to slip out again. He probably thought I was asleep. I was in b
The scent of coffee and Rita's expensive weed filled the air in my dorm room. Rita was curled up on the sofa, a textbook balanced on her knees, but her gaze kept drifting to her phone. She had made it her job to be around more often, making sure I was okay. She'd noticed I wasn't comfortable being asked how I was holding up every passing moment, so she simply settled for just being present. Her presence was more than enough. I was glad our friendship had survived this far, despite everything. We were meant to be studying for finals, but my mind was stuck on Alex. The masculine perfume, the late nights, the evasiveness – it all replayed on a loop. I knew I had to say something to Rita. She was perceptive; she’d notice something too, right? Maybe she had even seen him hanging out with someone. "Hey, can I ask you something?" I started, trying to sound casual as I flipped a page in my textbook, not really seeing the words. Rita looked up, her brow furrowed slightly. "Yeah, what's up?
The group sessions were good for me. I wasn't going to voice it out to anyone, but I knew that it was doing me a lot of good. Sure, I still didn't talk much, I still cried at night for Hayley, but listening to others, seeing their raw, messy pain, made my pain feel more like a shared burden instead of a personal agony.At first, I did feel alone, and some days I still felt alone, but I wasn't lonely. The hollowness in my chest and the pain that followed was still there, but it no longer threatened to swallow me whole.If there was one common trait I picked up among those of us who attended group grief therapy, it was that we all had one major thing we used to distract ourselves from the hurt. For some, it was throwing themselves into work; for others, it was a pet; and for a few others, it was even a new child. Anything to help your mind keep from diving headfirst into a raging pool of acute depression.In my case, I tried to channel the excess energy, the restless grief, into somethi
"We have to move on. It's what Hayley would have wanted"Those were one of the last things that Ria had said to me before she left. I had tried to reach out to her but my calls always went unanswered and I understood that she needed to heal too.I also knew that healing was going to be tough if I was still in the picture. It was painful but true.The crumpled paper that she had given me felt heavy in my hand. She had said that they would help me. Grief support group. Ria's last offering before she vanished, leaving me with a new kind of emptiness. For days, it sat on my bedside table, I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't want a group. I didn't want to sit around with some people that pitied me.I just wanted Hayley back. I wanted Ria back. I wanted the God awful pain in my chest to finally end.But I knew that it was not going to end. At least, not anytime soon. Maybe I did need help. Rita and Alex seemd to share the same sentiment and pushed me to go for it."Ria was right a