Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
But I thought for sure that this time would be different. I thought that the damage he’d done to my heart this time would make those two enemies, but my heart still recognized him and still wanted him. I don’t know how many movies I’ve watched in the last five years where I yelled through the screen at some female for being too easy on the jerk in her life but look at me now.
All it took was one stupid post that partially confirmed part of his story, and I was ready to forget all the trauma of the last five years and what he had done. I would ask my therapist for help with this malady, but I doubt she could help.
Somehow, I knew that this was out of my control and always has been. It sometimes feels as if there’s an invisible string pulling the two of us back together time and again, and the few times I’d fought it, it didn’t end well for me. I’d usually end up in bed with a carton or three of tissues, red eyes, a blotchy red nose, and a pain in my chest that would last for days or until he came barging back into my life.
“We were too young when we first started dating. We fell in love with the personas we saw on TV and the stage, and then we had to get to know the real person, that we were both human and not some ideal. We were each other’s first real anything, and no one ever taught us how to be together, how to truly love each other.”
“The love was there, I know that, but the navigation system was broken all to hell, and we kept missing each other’s signals and going around in circles.” Why the hell does that sound like a GPS system? Leave it to Ryder to use some sort of car analogy.
“That was a good enough excuse for the first time we broke up, but we came back together time after time because of the genuine love that grew out of that. It was that love you betrayed. I gave you my true heart, and you ripped it apart and threw it into the fire.”
“Now you want me to forgive you, to just pretend like it didn’t happen.”
“Why not? You forgive everyone else; why not me?”
“Because I never trusted anyone the way I trusted you. Don’t you understand, don’t you get it? I gave you the part of my heart that I never shared with anyone else.”
“I trusted you to protect my love the way I protected yours, but instead, you trampled all over it and played me for a fool. I hate you.”
“Don’t say that.” He moved closer and stood towering over me.
“I hate you.” Defiant till the end. I know he hates those words; in the past, they made him rabid.
“Don’t you ever say that to me again? You’re mine, Elena. You belong to me, always have, always will.”
“Hah!” I turned to walk away and found myself being pulled back and into his arms again with my back to his chest.
“You love me, and you know it. You could no more stop loving me than I could you.”
“Says who? I’ve loved plenty of people since you.” Lies, all lies.
“Did you ever say that to any of them?”
“Say what to who?” How could I have forgotten that jealous streak of his?
“Don’t play games with me, Elena. Did you ever tell any of those fools you were dating that you love them?”
I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly and pulled away again. “I might have, so what? Weren’t you married? You had a whole ass wife, so what has it to do with you whether I told someone else that I loved them. Didn’t you say it to her?” The words tasted bitter on my tongue, and the sick feeling in my gut didn’t help.
Once again, he came up behind me and wrapped his arms around me with his lips to my ear. “Never, not once did I ever give her those words; they were only ever meant for you, and you know I’m not a liar.” I shouldn’t be as pleased as I was by his confession, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.
“You expect me to believe that? As anal as she is, I’d expect her to force them out of you every other minute.”
“She tried, but I was never able to do it. Maybe that’s why she did all the stuff she did, attacking you online and getting her friends to join in. I’m sorry about that, by the way.”
I just rolled my eyes and escaped his hold again. It’s true; he’s no liar. Even when his words were ripping my guts and heart out, he was brutally honest, which meant that he was serious about coming here after all this time, serious about getting back together. But I hope he doesn’t expect me to just accept him with open arms.