So when I stepped into my empty apartment and closed the door behind me, I was taken aback by the overwhelming pain that squeezed my chest like a vise, forcing out the first sob.
My ass hit the floor and I cried like I’d never cried before in my life. Big-hiccupping, can’t-breathe-properly, might-throw-up-all-over-my-deep-pile-carpet crying.
When the tears eventually stopped, I was left with the horrific unease in my gut and tightness in my chest. Panic. Panic and loneliness.
“No,” I whispered to myself, shaking my head, seeing images of him everywhere. Lounging on my armchair, staring at me with that distinctive, brooding intensity. Leaning on my kitchen counter drinking a cup of coffee and smirking at me like he thought I was funny and cute.
My head rolled to the side and I looked through the doorway to my bedroom.
I closed my eyes against the memories I found in there.
Loss.
The feeling … that terrifying, incapacitating feeling that was creeping over my body like a phantom pain that couldn’t be explained … it was loss.
The next morning I dragged my butt out of bed and got ready for work. I prepared myself for the day like it was any other day, faltering only when I looked at the jewelry on my nightstand. The watch I put on, the earrings too. But the diamond tennis bracelet I’d loved so much only yesterday was a beautiful dagger to the heart today. I clutched it tight in my hand, feeling its sharp edges bite into my skin, and I promptly found an old shoe box buried at the back of my wardrobe. I stuffed it in there, where I wouldn’t have to look at it.
Where Nick’s bracelet had chafed with the memories, Caleb’s wounded me too deep to pretend otherwise. It would stay in the box, image be damned.
The rest of my preparation went as well as could be expected. Makeup was a wonderful thing. I didn’t know what I would have done without it, because the puffy dark circles under my eyes from all the crying and lack of sleep were no longer visible under my magic makeup.
I still looked a little tired, but that could be explained away by traveling, and not the result of a broken heart. I didn’t want Stella to know about Caleb. I didn’t want anyone to know.
But that was not to be, because as I walked to work that morning I got a call from my uncle David. We’d kept in touch during his travels. However, my gut instinct told me somehow he’d found out. Not somehow, actually. My gut told me Harper had called him.
“Hey, you,” I greeted, trying to sound like I wasn’t dreading him asking me how I was.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said, and I flinched at the underlying sympathy and concern in just those two words.
“I’m fine,” I said, wincing at how agitated I sounded.
“Hmm. Harper called.”
“Yeah, I guessed that.” I was going to kill her.
“She’s worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine.”
“I’m hurrying to work, that’s why.”
“Sure.”
“Uncle David.” I blew out an exasperated sigh. “How are you?”
“I’m good. We’re good. How are you since some asshole broke your heart?”
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Fearne and I were thinking about coming home a little early and—”
“Nope,” I said immediately, attempting not to feel anger but only gratitude that he cared that much. “Do not come home early because of me. I am a grown woman and a nonrelationship relationship I was in, unsurprisingly, did not work out. I am not going to wallow. And having my uncle, whom I love dearly for thinking so much of me, cut his travel plans short to come home and hold my hand is the equivalent of wallowing.”
He was quiet a moment and then he sighed heavily. “No wallowing.”
“No wallowing.”
“It’s just … Harper was worried that something this man said may have caused serious emotional harm.”
Harper’s concerns for me were similar to my concerns about how she would recover from Vince’s assault. I didn’t want him to change her. And she didn’t want Caleb to change me. Yet that was inevitable. However, as I stood frozen on the corner of Walnut Street and Beacon, I was hit with powerful determination.
“No.” I shook my head, staring dazedly around me. “I’m not going to let what he said undo all the good he did. He … my time with him … it woke me up, Uncle David. Nick made me afraid to trust people—he made me afraid to think about settling down with someone worthy and starting a family. But I want those things. As scary as it is to try to reach for them, as frightened as I am of someone hurting me again, I have to believe that there’s someone out there who will love me. I’ve seen it. I see it in you and Fearne, Jason and Gillian, Patrice and Michael, Stella and Iain—hell, even in Mom and Dad in their own weird way.”
“I’m glad to hear this,” my uncle said softly. “I worry about you being alone.”
I didn’t want to be alone anymore.
It hurt that the person I wanted to be with didn’t want me, and I could feel my throat tightening painfully with the emotion, but I breathed through it, searching for calm.
“Ava?”
“I’m okay,” I croaked out. “Or I will be. Eventually.”
He was quiet so long I thought we’d disconnected, but then he told me, “We’re all afraid of something, sweetheart. It’s up to us whether we stay and fight that fear … or whether we run and hide from it. I’m glad you’re not going to hide anymore. You have to promise not to hide anymore.”
“I promise.” I swiped at a tear that escaped, ducking my head, embarrassed I was getting emotional on a street corner.
He cleared his throat, as though uncomfortable with all the emotion. “Well, good. I know … I know I’m gone a lot, but you know I’m still here, don’t you?”
In all honesty, I’d let myself forget.
But I wouldn’t again. “I know. I love you.”
“I love you too. Fearne and I will be home in three weeks. We’ll arrange a dinner.”
“I’d like that.”
We hung up and I continued on to work, shaking a little with my epiphany. It was too much not to share with Harper, so I called her while she was in the middle of bossing a junior chef around at Canterbury. As I stepped into our building on Beacon Street, Harper left the kitchen to hear me.
“You’re mad I called David?” she asked, sounding confused.
“No, but a little heads-up would have been nice.”
“I just wanted to remind you that you had more than me who loves you. Like you reminded me that I have more than you.”
“I know and I get that. Actually, it was a good conversation.” I waved to Stella as I passed her office and headed for my own. “I realized something. I’m not giving up.”
Harper went silent. And then I could hear the glower in her tone, “On Caleb?”
“No.” I flinched at his name. “That’s over. You were right. Even if he does care about me, I couldn’t be with someone who would choose to inflict that kind of pain on me just to protect himself. No … I’m not giving up on love.” I paused, wrinkling my nose. “That sounded less cheesy in my head.”
Harper chuckled. “What does that mean exactly?”
“It means I don’t want to be alone for the rest of my life. I want a family. It’s time to get back out there, no matter how frightening it is to make myself vulnerable to someone again. It’s time to start fighting for what I really want.”
My friend went quiet.
“Harper?”
“When … you get all that—and I know you will because you’re amazing and there are plenty of guys out there who will see that—so when you get him and you start popping out little mini versions of yourself … you won’t forget me, right?” She laughed, like it was a joke, but I heard the pain underlying the question.
“Of course I won’t. But you know you’ll be too busy with your own guy and little mini versions of yourself too.”
“I’m not there, Ava. I don’t know if I’ll ever be.”
I thought of the therapist, a Dr. Ren, Harper got an appointment with at the end of the week. It was during my lunch hour so I could go with her as a silent support in the waiting room. “We’ll see.”
I could practically feel her rolling her eyes. “I don’t know how I feel about this optimistic version of you.”