ie

Matilda scrunches up her nose. “You’re kidding?”

“Nope. She doesn’t want him, but she refuses to cut contact and let him go.”

“What a psych!” she frowns. “Honestly, what the hell is wrong with some people? They think they’re entitled to everything and anything. Oh, I’ll break up with you, move on with another man, but don’t leave me.”

“I know,” I say, crossing my arms. “It’s disgusting.”

“Truthfully, with people like that, the only way is for him to just block her and move on.”

I nod. “I know, but he still loves her too much. I think he’s holding onto hope still. I guess when you love someone and they’re giving you even a tiny bit of hope, you’re going to hang on.”

She nods thoughtfully. “Yeah, you’re right. He must be a damned good guy to put up with that, though.”

“He is. He’s a really good guy. You’ll see when you meet him. It radiates off him. You know how you meet some people and you can just feel it? You can feel how genuine they are? He’s one of those. He’d take the shirt off his back for you.”

She smiles. “Then it’s a damned shame he’s wasting so much of his time on her.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “I hope one day he sees that.”

The waitress brings our food, and our conversation is put on hold as we eat.

I love these times with my sister. I love having someone to vent to.

I hope this is all a step in the right direction.

~*~*~*~

“Wait,” I say, shifting deeper into my couch. “She text you at midnight saying she’s sorry?”

“Yep,” Roman says. “Just out of the blue.”

“What did you do?”

“I asked her if she was okay and she told me she missed me, blah blah blah. So I rang her, and you’d never guess where she was.”

I shake my head. “Where?”

“In the back of a cop car.”

“What!” I cry. “Details!”

“She had gotten into a fight with her new man and went off at him. He called the cops on her.”

Um. Psycho.

“Are you serious?”

“Yep. She was drunk, too.”

Wow. So she only calls him to say she’s sorry and she misses him when she’s jammed in the back of a cop car, drunk, after having a fight with her new boyfriend? Anger bubbles in my chest. If I could meet her, I’d punch her straight in the mouth without hesitation. How these girls manage to get men like Roman, that love them so much, is far beyond me.

Is it the abusive treatment that attracts them? Is that the reason he goes back? If she was a kind, loving girl, would she have enough to make him stay?

“That’s terrible,” I mutter, crossing my legs. “Crazy. How are you feeling about it?”

“I’m not really sure, to be honest. I told her we need to talk, that we can’t keep going back and forth like this, we need to be open with each other.”

“Oh,” I say, feeling a strange tightening in my chest. “Are you going to go back then?”

He sighs. “I’m not sure. I have to talk to her, I guess.”

My heart thuds. I’m not sure why. I don’t understand how he could possibly want to take her back, after everything she’s done to him. Surely he knows she’d only do it again. There is no way she loves him if she’s able to do all the things she’s done.

“Yeah,” I say, and I know my tone of voice has changed. I hate that.

“You’re not angry at me, are you?”

I’m not.

I wish he didn’t think I was.

You're able to see that someone is making the biggest mistake of their lives and yet you can do nothing to stop it. You’re standing in front of an oncoming train next to them, trying to scream it all in their ear, trying to tug them out of the way, all before the train hits. But they’re just watching the train, still believing in it, still so sure it’s going to stop. It won’t stop. No, it won't stop because trains don't stop at such speeds. They can't stop, they're incapable of it, it's just how they're made, so they're going to do what they were designed to, they're going to run right over top of you, and they're going to keep going, now even slowing down to see the damage they've left behind.

“No, not at all,” I say, because honestly, I’m not sure what it is I feel. I am just so worried for him, but it isn’t my place to be worried, I barely know him. “As long as you’re okay.”

“Yeah, not sure how I feel about it to be honest.”

“Well, let me know how it goes when you speak with her. Otherwise, how’s work?”

“Good, long. Pays the bills.”

I laugh. “That’s good.”

“What have you been up to?”

We chat for another hour, talking about anything and everything. We laugh a lot. And I can only hope that it makes him feel a little better. Because as much as I can see so clearly how this will end for him, I also know how much it fucking hurts to have your heart broken by someone you believed in.

If she has any soul at all.

She’ll let him go.

But I can’t see her doing that anytime soon.

Because selfish people only see themselves.

 

 

CHAPTER 8

I rub my eyes and walk to my front door, pulling it open to see Michael standing there. I blink a couple of times, confused. I’ve ignored his calls for the last week, having decided I wasn’t going to let him keep ruining my life, and now he’s here, standing at my door, looking like a lost little puppy. My heart starts pounding in my chest as I stare at him. His blue eyes lock with mine.

And for the first time, I’m not entirely sure what I feel about him.

“Michael, what are you doing here?” I ask, crossing my arms.

“Can we talk?” he says, studying me.

I sigh and push the door open wider, letting him in. He walks into my house and goes straight to the kitchen table, taking a seat. I join him, staring across the suddenly not big enough space. I shuffle my chair back, but he still seems too close.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“I was wrong,” he says. “I was so wrong. I was just scared. Scared of what I felt. Scared of what was happening. I didn’t mean those things I said, I swear I didn’t. I was just having a hard time. I miss you. I love you. I know I fucked up, but I want to give it another shot.”