The Virgin Romance Novelist Chronicles

by Meghan Quinn

  Sam Smith was right when he said, “Too much of a good thing won’t be good anymore,” especially if you don’t give it the attention it needs.

  My stomach flipped as I imagined not being able to patch things up, but losing Henry forever.

  Not wanting to waste any more time, I charged through the apartment door to find piles of boxes scattered across our living room.

  What the hell?

  Is he really moving?

  I walked around the boxes to Henry’s door, which was closed, but I could hear voices on the other side. Lightly knocking, I waited for Henry to answer.

  Were the boxes his? There was no way he’d found a place that quickly. Maybe they were Delaney’s. Maybe she’d failed to tell me she was moving in with Derk or maybe Derk had moved in with us.

  Henry’s door opened and on the other side, to my absolute dismay was Tasha. She was wearing one a tight fitting, leather dress, something I could never pull off and her hair was in thick waves, beautiful as ever. Just past her, Henry was standing off to the side, a lifeless expression on his face as he buttoned his shirt sleeve.

  What the fuck?

  My heart sputtered in my chest from what was in front of me.

  Henry and Tasha?

  Did they just have sex? I hated to assume, but since Henry was meticulous about making his bed every morning and at the moment, the sheets were tossed and disarray, I couldn’t help but think that maybe they did.

  He and I slept together three days ago. Three. Days. Ago. And he’s . . . Everyone was wrong. Henry did not want me.

  He’d lied. It had all been an act. I was such a fool. A very broken-hearted fool.

  “Rosie. Oh my God, it’s been so long,” Tasha said, grabbing me into a hug. Involuntarily, I felt my arms wrap around her and take part in the spontaneous hug. “I’m so glad you’re here. I’d missed you. Can you believe Henry is moving in with me? Crazy, right?”

  Swallowing the lump in my throat, I nodded my head as I cautiously eyed Henry behind Tasha, who failed to make eye contact with me. Coward.

  “I’m happy for you.” At least that’s what I thought I’d mumbled. I could barely breathe.

  “Do you want to help pack? We’re aiming for a Saturday move but we’ll see.” She crossed her fingers up and down and bounced in front of me. The girl was perfect with her caramel-colored hair, olive skin, and bright blue eyes. She was the girl you chose to hate just based off looks but was as sweet as could be. I despised the woman.

  “Fingers crossed,” I said, feeling like I was going to puke. “Um, seems like I caught you two in a bad spot. I will, uh, let you get back to what you were doing.”

  “You’re sweet. It was so good to see you, Rosie.”

  “You too, Tasha.”

  She shut the door on me, leaving my heart broken and scattered on the floor. He called her Sunday?

  Sunday!

  He clearly hadn’t felt what I’d felt to have called Tasha so soon after our coupling.

  Every nerve in my body ached as I forced myself to walk to the kitchen for a bottle of water. Just when I thought I could fix things, it blew up in my face. I only had myself to blame.

  As I was grabbing a water from the fridge, I heard Henry’s door open and shut. I refused to turn around to see if it was Henry, but there was no mistaking his chest against my back.

  “Hi Rosie,” he said in that deep voice of his.

  “Hey,” I replied somberly, as I shut the fridge and started walking away.

  “Can we talk?” he asked, sounding a little desperate.

  Gaining enough courage to look at him, I glanced up catching a glimpse of those heart-melting, kind and caring eyes.

  Damn it, I felt too broken for this.

  “What?”

  He ripped every last part of my heart out with each scan of those beautiful eyes of his.

  “Why did you come to my room?”

  To tell you I love you, to tell you I’m in love with you, that I want you more than anything. That I’ve dreamt of being held in your arms ever since I met you.

  Even though those words were on the tip of my tongue, I couldn’t say them. There was absolutely no point, and I couldn’t face the rejection. Clearly he’d moved on, was with someone else, and was escalating their relationship to the next level.

  “Um, I saw the boxes and thought I should let you know the shirt I borrowed will be clean tomorrow for you to pack.”

  Damn, shit . . . fuck.

  The sullen look on his face suggested that wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but honestly, what was I supposed to say to him at this point? I had no other options. I wasn’t one to break up a relationship, and by the looks of Tasha’s expression, they were happy.

  “That’s all?” he asked in disbelief.

  “Yeah.”

  He nodded his head as he looked away and ran his hand through his hair. I could see the frustration pouring off him, but I didn’t know what he wanted from me, what he wanted me to say.

  “Are you going out with him?” Henry asked, sounding angrier by the minute.

  “Who?”

  “Atticus. Don’t play dumb with me, Rosie.”

  I stepped back from his verbal attack. I didn’t like this side of Henry at all. It scared me.

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “I thought we were friends,” he said with a snide tone.

  “Yeah, so did I until you started acting like a complete ass,” I shot back.

  “I’m the ass? You’re the one talking to another guy the minute I remove my dick from you.”

  Fury lashed through me as I explained. “I didn’t speak to him. I checked my voicemail. I didn’t say I’d go out with him. I haven’t even called him back because in my head, I thought maybe there was something between us, but clearly I was wrong. Every word out of your mouth on Sunday was a lie. Every touch. Every freaking kiss. You only wanted my virginity.”

  “You know what, fuck you, Rosie. Fuck you.”

  Tears fell down my face from his harshness. In all the years I’d known Henry, not once had he ever said that to me. His words hit me directly in the chest where it was now hollow.

  Through sobbing tears, I faintly heard Tasha say something to Henry and him tell her to go back in the room. His room. Where she’d sleep tonight.

  I shook my head and wiped my tears. Straining for bravado, I lifted my chin and looked Henry in the eyes.

  My voice was weak but I still tried to speak with passion.

  “I’m sorry things had to end like this, Henry. Honestly, I wish this never happened, that we never were intimate, because what really suffers from this is our friendship, the one thing I’d valued most in this world. It makes me ill to think of us as no longer friends, that I won’t be able to rely on you when I need you the most, but I guess that was all part of the gamble I took, of trying to make something intimate work between us. I knew the consequences and still tried anyway. It’s not me you want at all. It never was. My mistake. Lesson learned.”

  I turned and started walking toward my room when Henry called out my name, making me stop.

  “Rosie, please, let’s talk about this.” Why the hell won’t he leave me alone? He’s made his choice.

  “There is no talking, Henry. Good luck with your move. I hope you and Tasha are happy together. I remember how good she was to you in college.”

  With a shattered heart, a hole in my chest, and a lack of purpose, I walked back into my room and threw my torn-up body on my bed. This was what heartache felt like. This was what all those books had tried to describe but never truly did justice to. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into a dark hole and never see sunlight again. The feeling of total emptiness encompassed me as darkness took over. I shut my eyes, allowing the world around me to move on while I lay, fragile and cracked.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Smell

  From my window sill, I watched as Henry directed the men packing the moving truck with his boxes. I to
ok the rest of the week off, faking illness, and lay in bed, wondering when the pain in my heart would stop. Unfortunately, it hadn’t. It had only grown worse, especially since it was Saturday and Henry was moving out.

  I hadn’t seen Tasha since Wednesday, but then again, I’d only showered and left my room for the first time today.

  The smell coming off my body had been too overwhelming this morning, so I gave in and took a shower, which was a bad idea since I stared at Henry’s razor in the bathroom and cried over the fact that I wouldn’t see that razor in the shower anymore. I contemplated stealing it for my own sick purposes, but refrained from going batshit crazy on him. Instead, I emptied the remaining shampoo in my bottle and filled it with some of Henry’s so I would at least smell him for the next couple of days.

  Pathetic? Yup, that was me, pathetic with a capital P.

  When I wasn’t lying around, I was writing, fixing the problem in my life through my words in my book. I made sure my two main characters were always together, and no matter what they faced, they were next to each other, hand in hand. There was no breakup, no apex in the story where everything came crashing down. I was simply too raw to write such a thing. No, they would be together forever. If I couldn’t make it happen in real life, then I sure as hell made it happen in my book.

  Currently, I was that wishy-washy girl who went back and forth from loving and hating Henry. I hated him because he’d moved on within minutes after we’d yelled at each other on Sunday, but then again, I was the one who started it all so did I really have the right to blame him? No, I didn’t.

  Delaney tried to come into my room and convince me to talk to Henry, but after the second time of her barging in, I started barricading my door with a chair. I didn’t want visitors. I just wanted to smell, be lonely, and lie in the dark.

  Derk came up to Henry and patted him on the back while giving him a handshake. I hated that Derk and Delaney were helping him. I mean, I got why, they were friends, but the bitter person living in my shell of a body wanted them to hate Henry—which was ludicrous. Henry didn’t do anything to them, except maybe fooled them into thinking he actually cared about me. How I wish they both hadn’t believed him and pushed me to go after him. No, he’d only wrapped me around his finger, made me love him, and then tossed me away.

  That was a lie. He didn’t toss me away. That was the bitter part of me talking. The bitter me made up lies in my head, tried to convince my brain that my heart was broken because of Henry, he’d ruined everything, not me. But the sensible side of me knew Bitter Betty was trying to get her revenge.

  The movers closed the back of the truck and started pulling away from the curb. Delaney gave Henry a hug and shrugged her shoulders when she pulled away. The three of them looked up toward my window, making me duck behind my curtain. My stealth-like moves suggested I hadn’t been detected, but by the way they were shaking their heads after I took a peek, I was slower than I thought.

  I didn’t care; if they saw me, they saw me. What use was it going to do now?

  I watched as Henry took out his phone and started typing, probably texting Tasha to see if she wanted something to eat. That was the kind of guy Henry was, always thinking ahead and making sure his friends were well taken care of.

  Damn.

  My phone beeped with a text message, drawing me from my thoughts.

  Henry: Rosie, come down here and say bye. Don’t just stare at us from up there.

  Mortification ran through me. Another thing about Henry, he loved calling us out.

  Come say bye to him? Yeah, no thank you. That was the last thing I needed right now. Even though I was smelling like Henry, thank you, shampoo, there was no way I was strong enough to say bye to him and not cry, not cling to his leg and beg him not to go. I’d lived with Henry for so long now that not having him in the room next to me was going to be weird. I couldn’t face reality just yet.

  Instead of being a grown-up and going downstairs, I text him back.

  Rosie: Sorry, can’t. Probably not the best idea anyway. Happy housewarming to you and Tasha.

  Tears started falling from my eyes once again, as I turned off my phone and went to my bed. I buried myself in my comforter, separating myself from the world. It was the only way I knew how to live.

  The shirt I borrowed from Henry was under my pillow, I never returned it because it was the one thing I had, the one last piece of him I’d be able to hold on to. Damned if I would let it go.

  “Rosie, I’m not kidding. If you don’t let me in this room, I’m going to break down the door and you can explain to the landlord why your door is broken.”

  Groaning, I got out of bed and opened my door to find Delaney and Derk standing outside of it, casually dressed with their arms folded over their chests.

  “What do you want?” I asked, my voice croaked and my eyes tried to adjust to the light. What time was it and what day was it?

  “You smell.” Delaney pinched her nose.

  “Thanks, is that all you wanted to say?”

  “No, it’s Monday, and Jenny said if you don’t show up to work tomorrow, Gladys is going to have a coronary.”

  “I have pneumonia.” I fake coughed.

  “No, you don’t. Now come on. We’re going to get you showered because, damn, girl! And then we’re going to go out for dinner. I don’t think you’ve eaten for days.”

  “I had some saltines I found under my bed.”

  Derk’s nose crinkled at me as he studied my getup. I was wearing long johns, a purple oversized shirt, one sock, and my hair was plastered to my head since I hadn’t taken a shower in two days. Not my finest hour.

  “You’re done moping around. Let’s go.”

  Without my permission, Delaney gabbed my hand, and led me to the bathroom where she turned on the shower and stared at me. I held my hands up as I backed into the wall.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Taking your clothes off. I don’t care if I see you naked; you need to be cleaned.”

  “Well, I care,” I squeaked.

  “Then be a big girl and take a shower yourself or I will do it for you. I’ll have clothes picked out for you when you get out. Hurry up, because Derk and I are hungry.”

  “Fine,” I said, and waited for Delaney to leave, but instead of exiting the bathroom, she sat on the toilet and covered her eyes.

  “Go on, I won’t look.”

  “Why aren’t you leaving?”

  “Oh, so you can lock me out of the bathroom and drown yourself? Yeah, I don’t think so.”

  “I wouldn’t drown myself,” I said, as I quickly took off my clothes and got in the shower. “Ahhh. It’s freezing.”

  “Yes, I know. I thought it would wake you up.”

  Frantically, I turned the water to hot, knowing full well I couldn’t hop out of the shower because Delaney would see me naked . . . that evil, evil girl. Once the water warmed up, I started my shower routine, trying to ignore that Henry’s razor was no longer there. Nope, I would not think about it.

  I showered like a boss, taking only two minutes to cleanse my entire body. The longer I stayed in there, the longer I felt myself start to weaken and want to crawl into a fetal position at the bottom of the tub. I just missed him so much.

  I turned the shower off and grabbed the towel hanging on the bar.

  “Did you even clean your vagina? That was a pretty quick shower,” Delaney stated.

  “Yes, I cleaned my vagina. God, I’m not a Neanderthal.”

  “Pretty sure Neanderthals cleaned their nether regions.”

  “You’re making this such a joyous experience,” I said sarcastically as I wrapped the towel around my body and pulled back the shower curtain.

  “I thought you were going to have clothes ready for me.”

  “Oh yeah. Well, come on, let’s go to your room. You can comb your hair there and put on at least some mascara.”

  Rolling my eyes, I followed Delaney into my room while Derk sat
on the sofa, watching sports highlights. My mind went to many nights where Henry and Derk had watched highlights together, talking about their teams of choice and their wins and losses.

  My heart ached.

  “You’re kind of depressing to be around,” Delaney said after moments of silence of me brushing my hair and picking out an outfit.

  “Thanks, you’re really sweet.”

  “Well, I mean come on, Rosie. You could at least give me a small smile.”

  “I don’t feel like it,” I said sadly. “You know, Delaney, I never realized how much one person needs another until Henry left. People always talked about having another half, but I never really understood it until now.” I took a deep breath and looked at her. “Will the pain ever lessen?”

  Delaney gave me a sad smile but nodded her head. “It will, Rosie. I promise. It’s just new right now. It will get better.”

  “I hope so. Can I throw my hair up in a wet bun? I don’t feel like doing anything special to it right now.”

  “That’s fine, but at least wear a headband.”

  “Well, of course.” I lightly smiled.

  Delaney picked out a pair of my favorite jeans and a simple black top that fitted my upper half. I matched the top with a black headband that had a little red flower on it, put on some eyeliner—yes, crazy I know—and applied some mascara. That was as good as it would get.

  “Might want some deodorant,” Delaney added as she saw me walking toward my door.

  “Ugh, stupid arm pits.”

  I applied some deodorant and a little bit of perfume—things were getting wild—and grabbed my purse.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  Derk met us in the living room with his hands in his pockets.

  “Ready,” he asked, pulling Delaney into his side.

  “Ready,” I reluctantly replied, knowing already I was the awkward third wheel on this outing. “Where are we off to?”