“I can’t imagine how,” I mumble.
He uses the back of his hand to wipe the sweat from his brow. It takes all my inner strength not to stare at his big, muscled form. Mostly to avoid remembering how good it felt to be tucked into his arms, how secure and safe he could make me feel. He just had that way. He made me feel like nothing in the world could ever touch me when I was in his arms. And then he took that all away in one moment. The only feeling of safety I had left was gone in an instant.
“Is Noah in?” I smile to the young girl sitting at the front desk of the firehouse.
“Yeah, he’s in his office.”
“Mind if I go through?”
“No, go for it.”
I walk down the hall, heading toward Noah’s office. I thought I’d bring him lunch, spend some time with him. Things have been rough in the last few months, and he’s been by my side through it all. He’s seen me at my worst and picked me up when I fell. After Nan died, I have felt like nothing is enough, like I’m not enough. I feel like I’m not being the girlfriend he deserves. He deserves me to try, so that’s what I’m doing. I’m trying.
I open the door and step in, opening my mouth to greet him when I see her. She’s on his lap, long blond hair flowing around her back, pretty as can be. The kind of woman that looks like his perfect fit. She’s kissing him. Their mouths, connected, touching—it’s all I see before my vision blurs, tears clouding it. I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. I stumble back, gasping for air.
How could he do this to me?
I already know how. Because I’m an emotional, broken woman who got her nanna killed because she couldn’t control her loud mouth. Then I became this weak, pathetic mess who spends most days crying and trying to figure out who I should be and who I am now. Of course he’s with another woman. Why the hell wouldn’t he be? This is exactly what I deserve.
I turn and leave, but not before I hear Noah call out my name.
I run, tears flowing down my cheeks.
“Lara!” he calls. “Lara, wait!”
He catches me at the door, hand curling around my upper arm. He spins me around but I shove at his chest, causing him to stumble backward.
“Don’t touch me!” I scream. “Don’t touch me.”
“Lara, it isn’t—”
“Get away from me.”
I turn and keep going, darting straight across the road. I reach the park and drop to my knees, sobbing with agony, and pain, and regret. Maybe this is my karma. Maybe this is the universe’s way of punishing me for what happened with my nanna. Or maybe, just maybe, Noah is better off without me.
Of course he is.
I’m worth nothing.
“Lara, fuck, how could you throw it all away? We were together over two years.”
His question brings me back to the present. “Seriously?” I ask, eyes wide with shock. “You think I’m the one who threw it away?”
God, if only he knew how much it meant to me. I wanted to marry this man, to have kids with him, to be with him for the rest of my life. Walking in and seeing him with another woman ripped my heart out. It sent my whole world crashing down. Leaving him was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to endure in my life. How he could think it meant nothing is beyond me. He was the one who hurt me.
He grunts. “Yet you won’t talk to me, you just broke it off and ran.”
I flinch. “It was what I had to do.”
He shakes his head, jaw tight. “God, you’re a pain in the ass.”
That hurts. He’s acting as if all this is my fault, when it was he who cheated on me.
“I don’t need to listen to this, Noah. I don’t deserve it.”
“That’s just the thing,” he yells. “You’re not listening. You’re refusing to listen.”
The familiar sting of anger bubbles in my chest, but I push it down. Be calm. Don’t react. It isn’t worth getting upset over. “I don’t want to hear your excuses.”
He makes a frustrated noise in his throat.
I shake my head. I can’t listen to any more of this. I can’t take any more of this. “I have to go.” I turn my back to him and start walking away.
“Fuck, Lara,” he barks. “Let me talk to you.”
I pick up into a jog and disappear out the other side of the trees, but not before I hear his angry curse. I run until I’m out of breath, but I could swear he’s still behind me. I stop and turn every now and then, glancing into the trees, but nobody is there. Yet it feels as though someone is. He’s probably following me—he’s protective like that, always wanting to know I’m safe. He doesn’t need to worry anymore—I’m no longer his burden.
THREE
I avoid jogging down my usual path for the next week, hoping to avoid running into Noah again at all costs. He’s tried to call a few times, but I figure he’s learned by now it doesn’t matter how much he calls because I won’t answer. I have nothing to say. I’m trying to move on with my life.
“Ma’am, the line has moved forward.”
I jerk out of my thoughts and shuffle ahead in the Starbucks line I’ve been waiting in for the last ten minutes. It’s my job to get coffee for my work colleagues every day. So I spend close to half an hour in here every day because I am forced to come at peak time. I don’t mind, though; it lets me drift off into my own little world where no one bothers me.
“Sorry,” I mumble to the man behind me.
I reach the front of the line after another five minutes.
“What can I get for you?” the sour young man says, clearly bored with his day already. Is it so much to ask for good customer service these days?
“Two grande cappuccinos, two grande lattes, one venti iced coffee.”
He nods and scribbles it onto the cups with my name and I move to the group waiting for the drinks to be made. The girls behind the counter are in no hurry either, chatting happily about their weekends and the men they’re dating, taking their sweet time to make the drinks that everyone is waiting for.
“Morning.”
The voice comes from behind me, and I turn and see a middle-aged man sitting at a table just to my left. I glance around, not sure if he’s talking to me, but realize that he’s looking directly at me. Maybe he’s confused, or maybe he’s just friendly. That would be a nice change. “Ah, morning.” I smile shyly.
“Long wait, isn’t it?”
I nod. “It is.”
“You doing the morning run for your workplace?”
I laugh softly. “Is it that obvious?”
He smiles. He’s good looking. Blond hair, blue eyes, all-American-boy smile. He seems like the type of man Rachel would swoon over.
“It’s always the quiet ones,” he says, almost to himself.
I give him another smile and turn back to the line.
“Do you work around here?”
Why is he talking to me? People don’t usually make the effort to talk to me, because I tend to keep my head down. “Just up the road at the Morgan and Francis law firm,” I mumble.
He nods. “I’ve heard good things about them.”