Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 62404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 312(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 312(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
“Are you sure?”
“Day by day, it will get easier.”
I take him at his word. Harvey has never lied to me, and he has experienced heartbreak. His college sweetheart died right before he was going to ask her to marry him. That’s when he quit work and started traveling.
“He doesn’t love me anymore,” I say on a sob.
“Do you still love him?” he asks. I raise my brows at him. “Don’t shoot me, but have you seen yourself lately? Neither of you looks happy around the other. Like it’s a chore. It’s been like that for years, O, and I can’t even remember the last time I saw you two kiss on the lips instead of his usual kiss on the cheek.” I sit on the floor, releasing a heavy breath. “All I’m saying is you gave up so much for that man. It’s time to start living for you for a change. Don’t fall victim to loving someone so much you change who you are meant to be.”
“I don’t know who that person is anymore.” I turn my tear-filled eyes to him.
“Maybe not today, but you will.” He kisses the top of my head and walks to his room, climbing over the boxes as he goes.
My phone rings again, and this time I take a breath and answer it.
“Come back. I wasn’t thinking right,” Kyler says.
I close my eyes and let my head fall to the box in front of me as I listen to him breathing through the phone. “I can’t,” I reply on a broken whisper. “I can’t.”
“You can. Come back. Please. It was a mistake. I don’t want anyone but you,” he begs.
“You do, though, Kyler, and that’s okay. We’ve changed.”
“Oriana.”
“Yes?”
“I do love you.”
“And I love you, Kyler. Nothing can erase that love. You were my favorite person for more than a decade. But we aren’t the same people anymore. I wish you nothing but the best, you know that. But I need to be me and see how me is without you.”
“Then you will come back?” he asks.
And I’m taken aback when I answer without hesitation, “No,” I say firmly. I wait for him to speak again, but we both stay silent. My tears fall down my cheeks and drip off my chin onto the floor as my head leans on the box. I watch as they form a puddle, and it spreads out.
“What do I do when I’m nervous, Kyler?” I ask and wait a heartbeat for him to answer.
“Pace?” he says, and I can hear the uncertainty in his voice.
“No, wrong answer.”
I hang up and wonder if he even knows me at all and if this was always a one-sided relationship.
Harvey leaves, and I’m left in his house to work out my life. What type of life do I want? I don’t even know who I am outside of Kyler anymore.
And he is not to blame for that.
I am.
I should have seen it from the beginning.
I gave him my all, and he just took, and took, and took.
I spend the rest of the week doing nothing. Boxes remain unpacked, but I managed to move some around, so they are not in the way. A private number keeps calling me, but I know who it is. I’m meant to go out with him tomorrow, but I don’t want to. Not because it’s him but because of what I might do.
I’m not in the right frame of mind for any of this.
Not in the right frame of mind for a man.
Kyler calls once. I expected at least a few attempts, but I have a feeling the last time he called was because he came home to an empty house and panicked.
A loud knock sounds at the door. I sit up on the couch and look at it. Is Harvey expecting someone? Did he forget to tell someone he went away? I stay where I am, not wanting to answer until the knock comes again.
“Oriana.” I groan at the sound of that voice.
I hate how I recognize it already.
I hate that it sends shivers all over my body.
“You have food at your door, did you know?”
I sigh and pull myself up from the couch, then make my way to the door. Pulling it open, I come face-to-face with a man who single-handedly made me realize my husband doesn’t love me without him doing a single damn thing.
“You look…” he stands there, dressed in black dress pants and a black button-up shirt, holding in his hands my Chinese food I ordered and may have forgotten about, “different.”
I give him an eye roll and reach for the food, but he snatches it away.
“Good. Now can you leave again.”
“Do you swear?” he asks.
“Swear?”
“Yes. Do you say, fuck, whore, dick, cock?” I feel my cheeks flushing at his words. “You don’t. I bet you do in your head, though. I bet you have a solid vocabulary in your head.”