Forgiven (29 page)

I woke the next morning with a heaviness in my chest. At first I didn’t recognize where I was, fully expecting to wake up in Caleb’s bed and find that all of this was a nightmare. Once my brain caught up, I felt a sharp stab to my chest as I recalled the events of last night.

I forced myself to get out of bed, because I still had to get to class. My whole body was numb. I grabbed my stuff and shuffled to the bathroom. When I looked in the mirror I saw how terrible I looked—my eyes were bloodshot and puffy from crying all night, and my face was pale, the only color was from the mascara streaked down my face. Turning on the shower, I looked at the tattoo in the mirror. I’d wanted it to be a reminder to let my emotions out instead of bottling everything up. Instead it would now serve as a reminder of the worst day of my life—even the day my dad hit me was lower on the list. At this point, I really didn’t care about anything. I wanted to go to my two classes and then come back home, curl up in a ball, and wallow in misery.

I quickly showered and got dressed. When I walked into the living room Emily was waiting, a look of concern on her face. “Are you sure you want to go to class?” she asked cautiously.

“No, but what else can I do?” I shrugged. “Hide in the apartment? At least it’ll give me something else to focus on for a few hours.”

“Oh ,Angie, please don’t bottle it all inside. I know you’re hurt, but we’ll deal with this together.” She moved closer to me and placed her hands on my shoulders. “I can’t stand to see you like this. At least let me drive you to class? You can call me when you are ready to be picked up,” Emily begged.

I pulled my bag up on my shoulder, trying to keep it together. “I’d rather walk. I need to collect my thoughts.” I said, a slight shake to my voice. Emily was my best friend and I understood her need to protect me, but right now I just needed to be alone.

“Are you sure?” she said and I could see the concern in her eyes.
Was I sure?
At this point I wasn’t sure about anything, but being around everyone, while they watched me with sympathy in their eyes was making this worse. I gave my heart away and got it back shattered into a million pieces. Yeah, I wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

“Yeah, if I want a ride back I’ll call you.” I was doing my best to hold everything at bay so I walked out of the door before the sadness overwhelmed me.

I didn’t want people to comfort me right now. It was taking everything I had not to fall apart. My whole life, I’d hidden my pain from the outside world, so why was it so hard this time? There were so many thoughts running through my head that I didn’t realize I was standing outside my classroom door. I sat through my first class and was barely able to focus on what the professor was saying. It took all of my energy to take detailed notes on his lecture.

By the second class though, I felt my composure slipping. Why was it so difficult this time? I had been hiding my feelings for years without much trouble. I knew it was because this time I’d opened up my heart, and Caleb had crushed it. When class was finally over, I made a beeline for the door. I just wanted to get out of there and go hide in the sanctuary of my apartment.

Walking down the hallway with my head down, I ran face first into a solid wall of muscle. I looked up hoping to find that Caleb had come looking for me, but the eyes I looked into weren’t the color of emeralds.

“God Angie, you look like hell. I can’t believe Caleb let you come to class when you’re sick,” Nick said.

That was all it took for me to stop fighting. My legs felt weak and started to give out. Nick quickly wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me to him, holding me upright.

“Angie, what’s wrong?” he asked concerned.

My throat was so choked with sobs that I couldn’t answer him. I felt him rubbing his hand up and down my back and after a few minutes my tears started to subside. I felt Nick reach his fingers under my chin to tip my face up.

“Angie, what happened?” he asked again, his voice pained.

“Caleb,” was the only word I could force past my lips.

He kept his arm around my waist, “Let’s go get a cup of coffee and we can talk.”

Once again I nodded because I still couldn’t talk. Nick led me to the cafeteria and sat me at a table before paying for two cups of coffee. He returned to the table and placed a cup in front of me. He forced it into my hands and waited until I took a sip to speak. “Okay, now tell me what happened.”

I wasn’t sure if I should tell him everything. He obviously knew something was wrong and it had to do with Caleb. Did I really have it in me to betray him, even though he’d broken me? Not really, but right now I needed a friend more than I needed to protect Caleb’s privacy. I decided to tell him the entire story, including dinner with Caleb’s parents to the tattoo, and me telling Caleb that I love him.

“You got a tattoo?!” he asked, surprised. I started to rise from my chair—he obviously hadn’t listened to a word I said—but he grabbed my wrist to stop me from leaving. “Don’t go. I just can’t imagine you getting a tattoo. You’ll have to show me sometime.”

I sat back down and rested my arms on the table. He thought about what I said for a few minutes before looking me in the eyes. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he said shaking his head. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. The way he fought me over you a few weeks ago.” He looked into my eyes. “Something else must be going on.”

I felt the tears slowly slip down my cheeks. “I told him I loved him, and he walked away.”

Nick placed his hand over mine and gently stroked his thumb over my knuckles. I looked up and saw something in his eyes—regret maybe?

“Nick,” I warned as I tried to pull my hand away.

“Don’t,” he said sadly. “I know you love him and you’re hurt beyond belief right now, but please let me be here for you…just as a friend.”

“As a friend?” I thought for a moment. “I could use a shoulder to cry on right now,” I said through my tears.

I watched him get up from his chair and squat down in front of me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and wept on his shoulder. Suddenly, I felt him tense.

“Don’t you dare fucking start with me,” Nick spat angrily.

I pulled away to look at him, but he wasn’t looking at me. Instead his gaze was focused at something over my shoulder. Judging by the anger radiating off of Nick, I had a pretty good idea who he was talking to. I slowly turned my head in that direction and sure enough, there was Caleb. He looked both hurt and angry, standing with both fists clenched at his sides. He took two steps toward us.

Nick slowly stood up. “Stop…right…there. You have no right to come over here—hell, you
gave up
that right! Can’t you see you’ve hurt her enough already?”

Caleb’s eyes snapped to mine. I knew my face was tear-streaked and puffy from crying, but it didn’t matter anymore. He didn’t love me. Nick took a step towards Caleb. Caleb’s fists unclenched and his shoulders slumped forward in defeat. His face was strained, with lines of both sadness and regret. He bent his head, turned and walked out of the food court.

Nick turned back to me. “Are you okay?” he asked concerned.

I shook my head. “I just want to go back to my apartment.”

I stood up to leave and Nick’s hand stopped me. “Wait, I’ll walk you to your car.”

“I walked today,” I shrugged.

He wrapped his arm around my waist. “Well then, let’s go to my car, because I’m not letting you walk back to your apartment like this.”

I just nodded and let him lead me to his car. Once he had me seated in the passenger seat, he moved to the front of the car where he stopped to text someone. He put his phone away and finished getting into the car. We drove to my apartment in silence—it wasn’t far, but I didn’t have it in me to make small talk, and I think Nick understood. He pulled into the parking lot and insisted on walking me to the door. I walked to the door and had my hand on the knob when Nick called out to me. I stopped and waited. That’s when I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Angie…I care about you, and I hate to see you suffer. If you need
anything
promise you’ll call me? I’ll always be here,” he reminded me.

I nodded and turned to look at him. “Thank you, Nick.”

I went into the apartment without another word. Emily and Heather were waiting for me, tissues and ice cream in hand. They both looked at my face and pulled me into a group hug, before leading me over to the couch.

“I can’t do this,” I whimpered.

“Oh Angie,” Emily frowned. “You’ve never let anyone in before, please don’t let
him
ruin it for when the right guy does come along.”

I sniffed. “I thought he
was
the right guy. I love him…even though he broke my heart, I still love him.”

Heather handed me a tissue but it was no use, the tears wouldn’t stop. “What can we do?” Heather asked.

“I don’t know what to do anymore. I saw him today…it was awful,” I whispered.

“Nick text me before he drove you home. He said it was pretty bad,” Emily frowned.

“How am I going to face him tomorrow?” I groaned.

Emily looked at me like I was crazy, “You’re not. You’re going to skip class and I’m going to pick up your work. That way, you have until Thursday before you have to see him.”

“I can’t skip all of my classes,” I told her.

“You’re not skipping
all
of them, just history. It’s your only class with him. Once he’s done, he leaves campus, so it won’t be a problem,” Emily assured me.

I sighed, “Okay.”

The rest of the night was spent watching horror flicks and eating ice cream. It was a good distraction…until I was alone in my room, with only my thoughts to keep me company. I started to cry again when I thought of Caleb’s face in the food court. I didn’t want Emily to hear so I turned my face into my pillow and cried myself to sleep.

Seeing her face streaked with tears was more than I could bear. I almost walked up to her and wrapped her in my arms, just to try and take some of her hurt away. Watching her in Nick’s arms made my blood boil, but Nick was right—this was my fault, and I had no right to try and comfort her. I walked away feeling worse than I had yesterday. Once that phone call came through, I knew there was no chance for us. I would never escape what happened two years ago and thinking I could had only led me to break the heart of the only woman I have ever loved.

When she’d dropped to her knees, begging me not to leave her, I felt as if someone had stabbed me in the chest. I got back to the apartment and trashed my room. Josh finally calmed me down—but only after he’d tackled me to the ground. He wouldn’t let me up until I promised to tell him what had happened.

I told him the story from the beginning…the real beginning, two years ago. I told him everything from that fateful night, right up until I broke up with Angie including all the shit that went down with her dad…

“Are you fucking stupid? She loves you and would stand by you through anything, just like you did for her,” he shouted.

“I can’t.” I hung my head in my hands. “I don’t deserve her. Can you please text Emily and make sure she’s alright?”

He jumped out of his chair. “You fucking dump her after she tells you she loves you, and you actually expect her to be alright?”

“What do you want me to do?” I asked in misery.

He started to walk down the hall, but stopped and turned back to me. “You’re right, you don’t deserve her. I’ll call Emily, but I’m doing it for Angie, not for you.”

With that he turned and went into his room and slammed his door.

If Josh heard what happened today, I’m sure he might actually throw a punch at me. The worst part was I wouldn’t care if he did. Anything to get the image of her begging me out of my head would be worth it. I went back to the apartment, deciding to drink myself into oblivion.

By the time Josh got back from class, I’d finished half a bottle of Jack Daniels. He slammed the door and stalked into the living room.

“What the fuck did you do?” he yelled.

“I guess you heard from Nick?” I laughed.

He eyes flicked to the bottle on the table, “Are you fucking kidding me?” He threw his hands into the air in exasperation. “So instead of dealing with this you’re going to drown yourself in a bottle?” He said pointing to the bottle of Jack on the table.

I raised the bottle in a mock toast. “What better way is there to spend an afternoon?”

Josh grabbed the bottle out of my hand, “This is the last thing you need. You need to figure your shit out.”

“What is there to figure out? I love her and now I need to find a way to live without her.” I threw my head on the back of the couch.

He sat down in the recliner, “You love her?”

“I will only ever love her,” I vowed.

“Then end this. Tell her the truth and let her decide whether she loves you enough to get past this.”

“I can’t,” I whispered, throwing my hands over my eyes before he saw the tears forming.

I heard him slam the bottle on the table and walk down the hallway. I dropped my arm and picked the bottle back up. Closing my eyes, the memories assaulted me. There was a girl whose memory haunted me when I’m asleep, and now one who haunted me while I was awake. I had no escape from the pain of it all. I would never see those eyes when they opened in the morning again. In my mind I saw her laughing with my mom while they were shopping, and the way she gripped my hands as she got her first tattoo. She was everything I always wanted…but everything I could never have.