Love, Unwanted (Discovering Love #3) (14 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

One week.

One. Bloody. Week. One week since I spent the most incredible night with Phoenix and I haven’t heard a word from him since. I knew when I woke up the next morning and the only thing I found was a note from him saying he had rehearsal and he would try to see me later that something wasn’t right. I ignored it and told myself I was just being sensitive.

The ball in my stomach grew when I waited around that suite all day for him to come home, but eleven at night came and he never showed. I fought the tears back when I called the cab and went home.

I repeated this for the next three days as I waited for his calls that never came. I came up with excuse after excuse as to why that was. He was busy. Maybe he lost his phone. Maybe a family emergency. Maybe he was eaten by a shark. The justifications were endless.

It was day four when I got the nerve to call him. No answer. It just rang and rang. I also received no call back. This pattern went on for day five and six as well.

Day seven, I lost all patience. I went to his suite. I basically got the same response. I knocked and no one answered, so I used my key. Everything was the exact way I left it last Sunday. I knew instantly he hadn’t even been home.

I left that hotel with the last of my hopes dashed. I could feel my heart shattering, but I just couldn’t accept Phoenix would do that to me, not after knowing what it did to me when Chris did the same thing.

It’s now day eight and, after pouring my troubles out to Violet over the phone for almost an hour last night, she decided what I needed was to get out of the house and have a girl’s night at the movies. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that was the last thing I wanted.

So I fight the urge to shoot her a text with some lame excuse as to why I can’t come and crawl out of bed. I do the bare minimum of makeup and decide yogas and hoodie is as good as it is going to get tonight for clothing.

After feeding Bubbles, I pull out my cell phone and ring Violet.

“Pub. This is Violet.” I can barely hear her over the music in the background. Last I knew, there isn’t anything big going on at the pub tonight, so I’m surprised by all the voices I hear.

“Hey, Violet, it’s Caroline. Am I still meeting you at the pub in an hour?”

“Oh, Caroline! Uhh…hold on one sec.” I hear ruffling before a door opens and then closes and all the noise dims. “Hey, I’m going to be a little later so I thought I would just swing by and pick you up? That way you don’t have to wait around for me.” She rushes all that out in one breath, which makes me suspicious.

“I don’t mind waiting.”

“No, it’s cool, babe. I know how much you hate crowds,” she stutters.

“What aren’t you telling me, Violet?”

“What do you mean? I was just saying I know how you hate crowds and we have a big one tonight.” Since when does Violet try to detour me from being around crowds? She’s the biggest supporter of me going out and having fun. The excuse she gives me doesn’t make sense.

I wrack my brain, trying to figure out what she could be hiding from me. My heart sinks to the bottom of my stomach when I realize what it is. Phoenix. He’s the only one who Violet would try to protect me from.

“He’s there, isn’t he, Violet?”

There’s a pause before she finally sighs and says, “Yeah, honey. He is.”

I squeeze my eyes against the pain. All this time I’ve tried to come up with any kind of reason why he all of a sudden disappeared out of my life. I refuse to believe he would do this to me, that he could love me the way he loved me that night, say the things he said to me, and then leave, treat me like I was just any other kind of random groupie.

What could I have done? I thought that night was perfect.
Screw that. I spent a month after Chris blaming myself for this and that. I won’t do it again. I did nothing but give all of me to Phoenix.

I went through obstacle after obstacle, ignoring all the hurtful words I received from many of the people in his world all because I never believed any of it was true. Phoenix couldn’t hurt me like this. The excuses are over.

“I’m on my way, Violet,” I say with steely determination.

“Caroline, I don’t think—“

“I’m coming,” I snap and hit end on my phone.

The cab ride there is a blur. My mind stirs the entire way. I’m seeing red by the time we pull up to the pub and I slam the cab door. The pub is so stuffed with people they can’t even close the front door.

I elbow my way through the crowd. Everyone is drunk and loud and it’s only adding to my anger. When I finally fight my way in, I have to squint my eyes to see. It’s dark and there’s a thick cloud of cigarette smoke in the air.

I hear my name being called from the bar, but I know it’s Violet, so I ignore and continue to fight my way forward. “Caroline!” Shaun says right before he steps into my view. “What are you doing here?” His eyes bounce around the bar, almost like he’s looking for Phoenix to give him some kind of warning. Well, he gets no warning, just like I didn’t when he decided to demolish my world.

“Where is he, Shaun?”

“Where’s who?”

“You know who and I’m sure you know why I’m here. Where. Is. He?” I grit out. I’m sure, at this moment, if I was in a cartoon, flames would be coming out of my mouth and steam out of my nose and ears.

I know I have no real reason to be mad at Shaun, but, right now, I can’t help but be mad at anyone trying to prevent me from giving that arsehole a piece of my mind. I’m not a violent woman, never have been, but at this moment I have enough anger built up inside me I feel like I could tear someone’s head off.

I’d like to think Shaun can sense this, which is why he admits defeat and steps out of my view. What is left of my heart crumbles. All the fight I have left in me drains out when I see the sight in front of me—Phoenix leaning up against the wall with a bottle of Jack in his hands and a big breasted bimbo clinging to his front. I feel the burn of tears at the back of my eyes and pray for the ground to swallow me up.
I was a bloody idiot for coming here!

All plans of putting him in his place cease to exist. I’m about to walk back out when Phoenix chooses this moment to turn his head and look in my direction. All the noise around us is drowned out by the thumping in my chest. I wait with baited breath, just wondering and trying to guess what he’s going to do.

I see his eyes widen. He never expected me to show up here and one look at my attire makes it clear I didn’t come here for the party. I came here to confront him, a very un-Caroline-like thing to do.

I also see, even in this smoky pub, when he decides what to do. He wraps his arm around the waist of the blonde and pulls her closer to him, if that’s even possible, and his lips go to her ear, where he whispers something. My hackles rise when she throws her head back and laughs. Phoenix takes another swig of beer and his dark eyes come back to me.

“I’m so sorry, Caroline. He’s a fucking idiot.” I turn around and see Shaun’s sympathetic face.

“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m the fucking idiot.”

“Do you want me to give you a ride?” he asks, but I shake my head and start backing away. The only thing I want is to get out of this bloody pub. I stop when I bump into something. Just when I think this night couldn’t possibly get any worse, I turn around and come face to face with Marcy. Of course she is here to witness this, and the sadistic smile she gives me lets me know she has, in fact, witnessed everything.

“Said you were nothing special.” She laughs. I don’t respond. I mean, really, what can I say? She’s right. I wasn’t anything special to him. I was just another lay. I push past her and head for the exit.

I ignore Violet’s sad look and burst out of the pub. My chest feels so tight that I take a huge gulp of cold air. The tears I am struggling against break free. I know I said I would never regret being with him no matter the pain I could go through in the future, but I never knew pain could feel like this.

I feel like my life is crashing around me. My whole world is flipped on its axis. I don’t know how it’s even possible, but my body is in so much pain, yet numb at the same time.

I have no desire to wait around all night for a cab, and a long walk home sounds like it’s the best thing for me right now. I’m not quick enough, however.

“Caroline!” My breath seizes when I hear the voice I craved to hear all week, but was just a moment ago praying I’d never have to hear.

I don’t stop my walk to hear what he has to say. I want to put as much space between him and me as possible. “Will you just wait a fucking second?” he pleads at my back. I still don’t respond. I remain silent and listen to his footsteps echoing behind me.

“You know what? Screw it. You don’t want to talk? Fine.” I remain silent. With each word he says, my anger grows again. “I tried to tell you, Caroline. I’m no good for you. This…this is who I am. It’s who I’m always going to be.”

I snap. I completely lose all sense of reality. I let out a scream full of every emotion that’s choking me, whip around, and push Phoenix away. It shocks us both, but I hold on to my anger. “Liar!” I shout in his face through hot tears. “You’re a liar! This isn’t who you are. This is who you want them to think you are!” I shout and point back to the pub and the small crowd gathered to watch my pathetic display.

I lower my voice and it’s devoid of any kind of emotion. I officially give up. “You’re nothing but a coward because only a coward would do what you did to me. I never want to see you again.”

Without another word, I spin on my heels and rush away. By the time I complete the hour walk home, the tears haven’t stopped. They don’t stop falling through my shower, or by the time I get dressed, or climb into the bed.

In fact, they don’t stop falling until the sun rises. I spend the entire night replaying the pub scene and trying to convince myself a life without Phoenix Castle won’t be so bad.

Chapter Nineteen

Not Ready To Forgive

I groan when I walk into my library and see a beautiful arrangement of flowers sitting on my desk. That’s not exactly the normal reaction a girl gives when she walks into work and the first thing she sees is flowers. Well, that’s the reaction a girl gives when it’s the third bouquet of flowers she’s received from a guy she decided she never wants to see or talk to again. Yes, three bouquets of flowers since our big blowup at the pub four days ago.

The Sunday after the pub, I didn’t get flowers. I got Phoenix showing up at my door banging on it and yelling through it that he wasn’t leaving until I talked to him. That wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t going to let it happen even though I have to admit a huge part of me wanted to swing that door open and hear what he had to say. I still didn’t open the door.

He wasn’t lying, though. He wasn’t going to leave until I opened the door, so I did what any rational woman would do. I called a cab, directed them to pick me up at the street behind my house, climbed out my bedroom window and hightailed it to the cab, where I jumped in and told the cab driver to hit the gas. I was a woman on the run.

I considered having the cabbie take me to the library or maybe even the pub, but I know those two places would be the first place Phoenix would look, so those locations were out.

I spent the rest of the day in the next city, traveling from bookstore to bookstore, killing time until I felt it was safe enough to return home. I returned at one in the morning. By that time, I was physically and mentally drained, and wanted to cry when I saw he was gone and I could go inside and crash on my bed.

Do you think that’s what I did? No. I went inside, crawled into bed, and cried for a good couple of hours. Then I moved into the pissed-off-at-myself phase for crying over the ass hat in the first place. Afterward, I promptly slid into the pissed-off-at-the-ass-hat-for-doing-this-to-me-in-the-first-place phase.

No sleep was had that night, and no sleep has been had since that night. Every night it’s the same thing on repeat, and every morning I get out of bed feeling the same way—pissed off. This morning was no different.

When I see the flowers on my desk, I storm across my library to do what I’ve done with the other two bouquets and throw it in the trash, but as I go to grab the vase, I stop.

Sitting on the desk next to the flowers is a small decorative castle for the inside of Bubbles’s bowl. I try to keep my heart steely toward it, but despite myself, my heart begins to soften. I pick the stupid cute castle up and toss it in my purse. I shove my purse under my desk, pick up the flowers, and toss the flowers in the trash.

What? I said a little bit of my heart softened, not the whole damn thing!

***

I jump in my computer chair when the library door bursts open with a loud bang, disrupting my otherwise silent library. I can feel my eyes bulge when I see Violet standing in the doorway, fuming.

“Uh…hi,” I whisper.

“Hi?” The eerily calm way she repeats that informs me “Hi” may have been the wrong thing to say. “I’ve been calling you nonstop for the past four days. I’ve been worried sick. I have to come down here on my one day off to check on my best friend and make sure she’s not dead and the only thing she has to say for herself is ‘Hi’?”

She storms over to stand in front of me and gives me an expectant look. “Well?” she snaps.

“I’ve been busy?” I phrase it as a question because I’m quite certain that answer won’t be satisfactory either. I know I’m right in assuming that when she places her palms on my desk and leans across it until her face is only inches from mine.

“Look at my face,” she demands.

“What?” I ask, confused.

“I said look at my face.” I guess I did hear her correctly. I take a second to do as she demands and scan her face. She’s still every bit as pissed off as she was when she burst through my door.

“Okay,” I say when I’m done.

“Does this look like a face that believes your bullshit?”

“It is not bullshit!” I yell and stand from my chair, clearly offended by her calling me out on my…well, my bullshit.

“Oh, come on! We both know it is. You’re heart broken and trust me, babe, you have every right to be and I understand that, but whether you and Phoenix work through this crap or not, you need to realize he was necessary. Just look at all the progress you’ve made. You’re living your life, meeting new people, and having fun. I’m not about to let you just throw all that away and curl back into yourself and I sure as hell am not about to let you push me away. I’m here, love, if you want me to be or not.”

When she’s done with her speech, she gives me a challenging look, almost daring me to argue with her. I want to; boy do I want to. I want to tell her everything she just said is a lie, but I don’t because I’m sick of fighting. I’m sick of painting on a smile and pretending I’m okay in front of people just to go home and soak my pillow with tears. I’m tired of walking around like my spirit and my heart isn’t crumbling into pieces.

So instead of lying, I look at Violet and let the tears I’ve been fighting so hard to hold back all day tumble. “I’m so sad,” I confess in a wobbly voice.

It takes a nanosecond for her to wrap me in her arms. “I know you are, babe.”

“How do I fix this?”

“It isn’t going to happen overnight, hun. You just take it a day at a time. I do have a temporary fix.”

I look up at her. “What’s that?”

“Coffee.”

***

“He’s not doing so great either.”

I stop walking abruptly and turn to look at Violet. We picked up coffee and decided to take a walk around the park, the same park that Phoenix and I first went to.

We managed to avoid all talk of him for the first forty-five minutes and I was just starting to let my guard down when that sentence left her mouth, and now my heart has plummeted.

“Who?” I ask, but I already know the answer.

“Phoenix. I’ve seen him a few times since that night, and trust me, he’s not doing well at all, babe.”

Deep down, I thought this whole time I wanted to hear that he feels as miserable as me. I’m not alone in feeling like I’m no longer a whole person, that half of me is missing, but hearing that didn’t have the effect on me that I thought it would have.

All I am is royally pissed off. What gives him the right to feel this way? He did this. He destroyed us, and for what? What could I have possibly done to make him hurt me like this? All I did is love him. All I’ve ever done is try and change myself to fit into his world and all he did is cause what seems to be unbearable pain.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Violet.” I sigh and start walking again.

“It’s not good to hold all of this in, Caroline. You need to talk about it.”

“Well, I’m sorry. I don’t really want to talk about how bad Phoenix is doing. He doesn’t even have the right or reason to feel bad. This was his choice.”

“A choice he is clearly regretting. He could have had a reason for doing what he did, but you’ll never know because you won’t talk to him,” she argues.

“No excuse he could possibly give me would make it okay for the way he hurt me; and since when did you become Phoenix Castles’ biggest fan? You didn’t even want us together in the first place,” I snap. My anger has reached a boiling point, and right at this moment I have no patience for anyone who defends Phoenix to me, especially someone who is my friend.

“I’m not his biggest fan. I’m a fan of seeing my friend happy, and before this he made you happy.”

“Yes, and then he screwed it up. I don’t care about what possible reason he had for doing that. You shouldn’t either.”

Neither one of us says anything. We just enter this staring match—her trying to decide if she’s going to let the subject drop or hold on to it like a dog with a bone, and me daring her through my eyes to say one more thing about him.

“Fine. I’ll let it go.” Relief sweeps through me when she says that, but it was too soon. “After I say this. Right now you’re upset. I just don’t want you to be making a mistake that you’ll regret when this anger fades. True love only comes once in a lifetime.”

I’d be lying if I said her words didn’t resonate inside me, but right now I can’t see past the wound enough to agree with her or care. “I promise I’m not letting my anger get in the way of my decisions. I’m one hundred percent sure about my decision to stay away from him.” Everything I just said is one hundred percent a lie, and Violet knows it.

I will probably never be okay with a Phoenix-free life. I think the pain I feel right now is the kind of ache that stays with a person for the rest of their life. It’s the kind of pain read about in books and seen in romantic movies.

The saddest part is, in the books and movies, there is always a happy ending. That’s what I wanted since the time I was just a little girl. I just wanted someone to call mine, someone who would call me theirs.

I thought after Chris I had given up, but deep down inside, I always held on to the hope that Mr. Right would come along and sweep me off my feet. I thought I finally got that; I thought my knight finally arrived, but all Phoenix turned out to be is wrong.

He’s worse than Chris in so many ways. All I had with Chris was two dates. There were no promises made. That wasn’t the case with Phoenix. He made me fall in love with him. He made me believe there was a future for us, that he was different.

Even though I think all of this, a part of me wonders if any of it is true. Did Phoenix do all of that or did I just see more than what was there? Maybe I just wanted to believe this was it, that he was Mr. Right. Maybe I moved too fast and fell too hard and it was completely one-sided.

I’m so confused, more confused than I have ever been in my entire life. Overnight, everything in my world shifted and now nothing is as it seemed. The only thing I know for sure is I’m not ready to forgive.