“I never meant to hurt him. Never meant for those words to come out like that,” she whispered. Because Dex was everything. She didn’t want him to think she’d been using him. Didn’t want him to think she couldn’t take care of herself. Dex valued strength, and her father had tried to take that from her. In front of the one man who made her feel like more.
“I messed up,” she said to Natalie. In trying to stand tall, she’d cut off Dex at the knees.
Thankfully her parents had left the other night, and Michelle had stayed in town. She wouldn’t run home. Not yet. She was clinging to the last bit of strength she had…even though she knew it wouldn’t be enough.
She didn’t have Dex anymore. And soon she wouldn’t even have her business.
Maybe she did have to walk away. But she’d walk away with her head held high. However it played out, it would be her choice to make. Her failure or success. But Dex? She needed him. For so many reasons in so many ways.
She took another bit of the cupcake, and Natalie reached over the counter and patted her hand.
“Dex is an idiot,” she said. “You tried calling. Left a ton of messages trying to explain. So if he doesn’t want to hear your side of things, then it’s his loss.”
But Michelle couldn’t agree. Not this time. Because she’d seen the look on his face when her father had insulted him. When she had insulted him. When instead of defending Dex, Michelle had undercut him. She hadn’t meant to. She’d been nervous and scared and hadn’t known what to do. The walls were closing in, and it felt like she was being told what to do, how to live, because she was a failure. All Dex tried to do was show support. But at the same moment she’d realized just how deep that caring went, she’d been staring down her parents as they told her all the ways she was failing.
It had been too much.
It was still no excuse. She’d hurt Dex. Any apology she attempted would come too late. He was done with her anyway. Maybe he had wanted to be done with her from the beginning.
“Men and their pride are stupid,” Natalie tried again.
Michelle was grateful her friend was so gracious when it came to her feelings, but Dex’s pride wasn’t the only thing wounded. Michelle was pretty sure she’d cut to the heart of him. And that broke her own heart right back.
Michelle looked at her friend. “I told him I wanted more. Told him I was sorry…but it wasn’t enough.” It would never be enough. And no matter how many messages she’d left saying all of this, she got nothing back from him. “Maybe I built up our relationship in my mind. Made it more than it was?”
“Love is tricky,” Natalie said.
“Whoa, who said anything about love?” Michelle asked. Yes, her heart was torn in two. But love?
Natalie crossed her arms. “You’re eating your weight in chocolate, you look like hell, and if you glance at your cell phone one more time in hopes that you may have missed a silent call from him, the poor phone is going to get whiplash.”
Oh crap.
She thought about what Dex had said in front of her father. The one word she’d never heard from a man. The one word Brad had never used…
We.
He’d wanted to help. Tackle life and her shop and everything as a team.
She did love Dex. That brutish man with a wicked smile and even more wicked mind totally had her swooning.
“Love or not, we don’t belong together,” Michelle said.
“Says who?” Natalie asked.
“Uh, everyone. His mom hates me. My parents hate him. And I messed up, Nat. Bad. I should have stood up for him, for us.”
“So, isn’t your daddy hating the bad boy you’re dating part of the thrill?”
Yeah it was, but that was just it. Dex wasn’t a bad-boy cliché. He was…more. He was special and kind and funny. But that’s how he was seen. The bad boy. The party guy. The fun time. And that’s what she’d used him for.
“I messed up,” Michelle said again. “I can’t ask him to forgive me for what I did.”
And he was done with her now, anyway. This wasn’t some sappy love story. There would be no grand gesture to fix this.
“I think he messed up, too,” Natalie said. “But the great thing about messing up is that you get messy.”
Michelle frowned. Getting messy was fun. It was something she and Dex did really well.
Natalie held her friend’s hand. “It’s up to you how you want to go about this, but no matter what, you have to realize what you want. And the kind of woman you want to be. If Dex doesn’t bring out that woman, then it’s best he’s gone. But if he does bring out that woman… If he helps you be the woman you want to be…” Natalie swiped a finger of frosting off the cupcake. “Then that sounds like something worth fighting for.”
Michelle let out a heavy exhale. There wasn’t much she could do beyond scarf down more chocolate and wallow. Not when he was gone. Not when she’d all but told him he wasn’t good enough for her and never would be.
Except that wasn’t true. Not at all.
He wasn’t just good for her. He was the best thing that had ever happened to her.
She loved him.