Lessons in Letting Go (Study Abroad Book 3)

by Jessica Peterson

  I don’t remember how I got to Javier’s apartment.

  I remember dialing Maddie’s number after leaving a tearful voicemail for Rhys as the taxi sped away from the training facility; I remember telling Maddie about the press outside my dorm room, and I remember her telling me to come to her boyfriend Javier’s apartment in Malasaña, a cool neighborhood in Madrid. I gave the driver the address, and then…

  Then I cried my eyeballs out. Rhys refused to see me. He didn’t even pick up my call. I understand why he turned me away. I completely crushed everything he’s worked so hard for. I trashed his image, which means I trashed his relationships with his sponsors, which means I trashed his chance to do right by his family. Rhys really is going to lose everything, and it’s all my fault.

  Then, after a minute, or maybe an eternity, I don’t know, I’m at Javier’s apartment, and Maddie is waiting for me at the door. Like the champ he is, Javier hands us each a bottle of red wine and a wine glass and disappears into his bedroom upstairs, leaving me and Maddie alone. We sit in front of a roaring fire and I cry and Maddie listens. I cry so hard I think I’m going to be sore tomorrow from it.

  I must have fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing I know I wake up with a pounding headache and a dry mouth. My cheek, smeared with drool (lovely!), is stuck to Javier’s leather couch. It’s dark; the apartment is quiet.

  For half a heartbeat, I forget where I am, or why I’m here. I blink once, twice, and then it hits me so hard—the horribleness of it all, the disastrous game, Rhys’s knee, the reporter recording me—that it knocks the wind out of me.

  Rhys. He’s gone. He turned me away.

  A familiar warmth floods my eyes. Fear and self-loathing press in on me like they haven’t in—well, since London, really. It’s like I found this sense of calm being with Rhys lately, this sense that I have nothing to feel bad or guilty about. But now that he’s gone, the guilt is back. It’s horrible. I feel guilty about what happened. I feel guilty about letting Rhys down. I feel guilty about everything.

  Rhys helped me believe I had more to offer the world than my looks. With him, I felt I was more than a collection of pretty body parts. I believed being anything, doing anything, was possible.

  But now—now I feel scared and small again, like I did back at Meryton.

  I reach for my phone on the floor. Maybe Rhys texted or called. Maybe there’s news about his knee—although the way things are going today, I doubt that news is going to be good. My heart begins to thump.

  It falls when I see that I have no texts and no missed calls. I guess part of me hoped exhaustion and anxiety were to blame for Rhys’s behavior. But now I know that he acted like that because he’s really done with me.

  I can hardly breathe for the hurt inside me. I type in my password and see that I have a few new emails. Maybe—please God, please—Rhys emailed me. Although I don’t know why, he never has before.

  When I open my email, I see that I have a message from the dean at my university here in Spain. She sent it earlier today. My stomach flips. I’ve been waiting to hear from her about my (very late) request to stay in Madrid for another semester. I click on the message.

  Thank you for your interest in our program…thrilled you’ve had such a wonderful experience…while we cannot accept your application for this coming semester, we welcome you to apply for next fall…

  I let my arm fall off the side of the couch. I’d laugh if I didn’t feel like bawling. It goes to show how far Rhys has fallen in the past forty-eight hours if even he can’t make this happen. I know I’d be getting a much different email if this whole mess hadn’t gone down.

  Tossing my phone back on the floor, I wipe away a couple tears and sit up. I wince at how tight my pants are. I want to call Rhys, I want to hear his voice, I want him to tell me to calm the fuck down, that everything is going to be all right.

  But it’s not. Nothing is okay.

  ***

  Rhys

  A few hours later

  The results from the MRI came in earlier today. My ACL is fine; the surgeon says I just hyperextended my knee. A few weeks of rest and rehab, and I’ll be back on the pitch and good as new.

  Olivier and Fred clap me on the back and congratulate me. Coach sends a curse-filled prayer of thanks up to the ceiling, then disappears into his office five seconds later. It’s good news. But the relief I feel is overshadowed by the anger and the panic that seep through every layer of my being—blood, marrow, bone, skin—like a stain through cloth. I’m hot to the touch.

  Cristina is the only one who doesn’t congratulate me. Probably because she knows a healthy knee isn’t going to bring my sponsors back. It isn’t going to help me rebuild my reputation.

  It isn’t going to change the fact that Madrid could still wash their hands of me, that I’m still at risk of falling down on my family.

  I curl my hands into fists. I’ve got to do something. The odds are stacked against me. I don’t have a chance in hell, but I’ve still got to try. I’ve got to make people see that I’m not the monster my father was. I want to show them that it was all a misunderstanding. I want to show them I’m worthy of their trust and their respect.

  But how? I run my hands through my hair. I’m tired, but I’ve got to think. Everything, everything depends on it.

  A name pops into my head.

  Monica Cruz. The curvy model Laura and I ate dinner with at the champagne party in London. I’ve known her for a couple years now, having run into her at several events in Spain. She famously does a lot of work with people grappling with drug addiction because she is a recovering addict herself.

  What if I took Monica to Laura’s auction for Santa Caterina? What if Monica and I and maybe the lads on the team took over the entire auction?

  My chest contracts at the thought of screwing Laura out of her own event. She’s worked hard on it for months now. She told me, point blank, it means a lot to her. But this would be an absolute coup for me; I could clean up my image in the press and show my club I’m a decent bloke, all in one fell swoop.

  I’d be a total shit to do it. But I don’t have much choice. If I can just convince Monica that the story isn’t true…

  “Cristina!” I say. “Cristina, can you get Monica Cruz on the phone? I have an idea.”

  ***

  Laura

  Two days later

  It’s December nineteenth, which means tonight is the gala and auction to benefit Santa Caterina. Viv and Maddie graciously offered to come with me since my other date is…well, no longer my date, obviously.

  Nuria and the team at Santa Caterina have thankfully been discreet about the whole Rhys situation over the past couple days. Nuria did ask if we can expect Rhys to still contribute to the auction—I told her I honestly didn’t know—but other than that, no one’s really bugged me about it. Thank God, because every time I do talk about it, I end up bursting into tears.

  The auction is a welcome distraction, and it’s always great to be with my girlfriends. But truth be told, I’d be a little more excited about raising money to buy books for my kids if I wasn’t dying inside. I try to put on a brave face, I do. But every so often, when my phone pings and I check it and I see that it’s not Rhys, or the girls cast sympathetic glances my way as we walk to the auction, my eyes smart and my throat closes in.

  “So you haven’t heard from Rhys at all,” Maddie says, huddling against the cold.

  “Not since he hung up on me after the interview, no,” I reply. It’s a little before six P.M., and while the sky is wide open, warm with the setting sun, the air has a definite bite to it. “I’ve tried texting him, emailing him. I’ve called him a couple times. Nothing. No response.”

  “Dick,” Viv says.

  “Is he coming tonight? To the auction, I mean,” Maddie says.

  I shrug. “I texted him about it this morning, but haven’t heard a word. He’s supposed to bring a bunch of signed Madrid gear to auction off.” I shrug again and look a
way. “Whatever.”

  When we reach the venue—it’s a cool old greenhouse not far from my dorm—I immediately know something is wrong. A couple teachers are hauling supplies out the front door and putting them in the back of a truck waiting nearby. I notice a case of wine, some tablecloths, stacks of gilded chairs…

  “Wait,” Vivian says, drawing to a stop. “Aren’t they supposed to be bringing stuff into the auction? Not out of it?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “They should be. I wonder what’s going on.”

  When we walk inside, it’s all I can do to keep my jaw from hitting the floor. I spent all of yesterday and the better part of today in this space, helping set up a hundred tables, organize hundreds of gifts, and put up hundreds of yards of black fabric to cover the walls and ceiling.

  Now, the teachers and some of the catering guys are taking it all down.

  What the hell?

  I grab one of the teachers, another girl from the states, Sarah, who’s studying abroad in Spain. “What’s going on? Was the auction cancelled?”

  “You didn’t hear?” She wrinkles her brow.

  My pulse begins to march. “Hear what?”

  “I guess I just forgot to call you,” she replies. “Did Rhys not tell you? I thought you guys were…you know. Close, I guess.”

  “We’re not.” Not anymore.

  “Anyway,” Sarah says. “Rhys Maddox is taking over the auction. He’s hosting it—I guess he somehow got the team to pay for it all. How cool is that? Rumor has it he’s even bringing some of the other guys he plays with.”

  “Rhys,” I swallow, hard, “is taking over the auction?”

  “Yes. He’s hosting it at some fancy hotel—we had to change locations to fit all the media and extra guests. The team is promoting the hell out of it, and apparently close to five hundred people are coming.”

  A high-pitched ringing fills my ears. The saliva in my mouth thickens. I imagine this is how you feel after witnessing an explosion—dumbfounded, more than a little hurt. I blink, but the ringing doesn’t stop.

  Rhys is hosting the auction? My auction?

  And the teachers at Santa Caterina forgot to call me? Me, the volunteer who’s worked harder than anyone to make this auction happen. Am I really so replaceable? So forgettable?

  “Apparently there’s going to be a red carpet and everything,” Sarah continues as she scoops up a centerpiece from a nearby table. “Totally crazy, right? Nuria is on cloud nine. With all this publicity, we’re going to raise some serious dough for the Santa Caterina.”

  I take a deep breath, let it out. “I guess I should head over there then, considering I’m the MC—”

  “Oh, I suppose you can still go if you want.” Nuria appears at my elbow. “But Rhys has it all taken care of all that. Apparently Olivier Seydoux is taking over your MC duties. Isn’t that amazing?”

  “Amazing,” I say, turning away so Nuria doesn’t see me blinking back tears. “Yeah. Totally.”

  Vivian loops her arm through mine and gives me a gentle tug. “We should get going.”

  “See you at the hotel!” Nuria calls after us, clapping in excitement.

  The cold air stings my lungs when we hit the sidewalk. Tears blur my vision.

  “I’m sorry, chica,” Viv murmurs.

  “We can blow the whole thing off if you want?” Maddie says. “Go get hammered at a bar, flirt with hot Madrileños…”

  I wipe away a tear with the tips of my fingers. “No, I need to be there. This just—God, it hurts.”

  Maddie leans in for a hug. I let her wrap her arms around my neck, the smell of her coconut shampoo filling my head as I struggle to keep it together.

  Back at Meryton, I always felt less than. Less than pretty. Less than smart. And because I wasn’t pretty and perfect and bubbling with intelligent things to share with the world, I thought I didn’t deserve a place at the table. I didn’t deserve anything. I was nobody.

  It’s clear I am nobody to Rhys, and I am nobody to Santa Caterina. I am easily replaced, easily forgotten.

  In the past couple weeks, I’d started to believe that I was important, that I deserved a place in the world.

  But maybe I really don’t. It’s clear I don’t matter, least of all to the people who said they loved me most.

  ***

  I am anxious as hell as the girls and I climb out of our taxi at the swanky, five-star hotel where Rhys is hosting the auction. A wave of nostalgia washes over me. I can’t count the number of times I’ve swept into a place like this on Rhys’s arm. It seems far away, like it all happened in an entirely different life.

  Just off to the side, in front of a large terrace that faces the street, the red carpet is in full swing. Photographers call out to the players—I recognize Olivier and his fabulously gorgeous pop-star girlfriend—and people passing by stop to gawk, smiles on their faces.

  As much as I began to loathe the whole red carpet rigmarole toward the end, it was so exciting at first. I mean, I eventually fell in love with the guy who stood beside me on that carpet. Hard to believe that guy, the one who looked after me in front of the press, the one who was kind and considerate, is the same guy who ripped my heart out.

  “Hey.” Maddie loops her arm through mine and pulls me close. “You sure you want to be here, chica?”

  I try to swallow the lump in my throat. God, why does people asking if you’re okay want to make you cry that much more? I swear, I had it together two seconds ago.

  And now I want to die.

  I nod my head.

  We’re about to head into the lobby when we hear a sudden commotion over near the red carpet. The people on the sidewalk who have stopped to watch are jumping up and down, their phones in their hands; the photographers are shouting, scrambling to get the perfect shot.

  “Oh, God,” Viv says under her breath.

  Maddie gives my arm a tug. “Come on, Laur, let’s go—”

  But I’m frozen in place, my eyes glued to the beautiful couple that emerges on the red carpet. The flashes from the cameras illuminate their faces, their wide, glittering smiles.

  It’s Rhys.

  Rhys and Monica Cruz, my supermodel girl crush-slash-northern star-slash-Oprah figure.

  They are on the red carpet.

  Together. Rhys is all dolled up in—what else?—a ridiculous brocade tuxedo. His hand is on Monica’s back. Their bodies are very close. He’s smirking, that devastating quirk of his lips that even now sucks the air from my lungs. She’s smiling. He murmurs something in her hear, leaning on his crutches; she throws back her head and laughs. He laughs, too, they laugh together like they’re old friends and have been trading jokes forever.

  I feel sick.

  Monica is taller than him, but Rhys doesn’t appear to mind that very much. She looks fucking amazing, like she always does. Her skin is flawless, and glows with a perfectly even tan. She wears a fabulous dark green gown with even more fabulous jewelry. Her long, luscious hair falls past her shoulders in artfully loose curls. She is so glamorous, so goddamn fabulous and confident and happy.

  She is everything I’ve tried to be. Everything I want to be. But those things feel further from my grasp than ever.

  Those things were never meant for me.

  The message Rhys is trying to portray by being photographed with Monica Cruz is obvious. Forget that crazy American bitch who threw me under the bus. Who cares what she said? I’ve moved on to a super hot supermodel who also happens to be awesome and a recovering drug addict so clearly I am clean, I am good, just like her.

  I never imagined heartbreak would be a physical sensation. But as I watch the two of them slay the red carpet together, and I begin to understand that everything Rhys promised me was a lie, my heart is cleaved in two. My breastbone buckles.

  “Laur,” Maddie murmurs, giving me another tug.

  This time I let her lead me inside the hotel.

  ***

  I make sure to stay as far away as possible from Rhys and his foo
tballer friends during the auction. I offer to help, but I’m told everything is covered. So I sit at my assigned table and pretend to drink my wine and eat my dinner. But all the while I’m shaking with the effort to keep it together, to not break down and cry.

  I watch Rhys from the corner of my eye. He’s schmoozier than ever, smiling and slapping backs like his world—our world—isn’t on fire. Seeing him fake it so well while I sit here and shake stokes my hurt to new heights.

  Why did he string me along all this time, why did he indulge my bucket-list mania, if all he really cares about are his career, his reputation, his image?

  It hurts. This hurts. Recognizing that he lied to me—recognizing that I am not beautiful enough and perfect enough for him—it really freaking hurts.

  I head home in two days, and I need to pack, but the bulk of my stuff is at Rhys’s place. I thought I’d have a chance to grab it when Rhys and I talked things out, but it’s obvious that’s never going to happen. He’s done with me. He doesn’t want to see me ever again. Which makes tonight the perfect opportunity to go over there and clean out my side of the closet, because Rhys is out and about with his new supermodel friend.

  I’ll spare him the sight of my ugly face and uglier body. I never deserved a place in his perfect universe. I was an idiot to ever believe that I did.

  Chapter 31

  Rhys

  I play the part of the buoyant, benevolent host with aplomb. The auction is a huge success. Taking it over was a gamble, yes. But everyone—the press, the club, the world—is looking at me anyway right now. I figured why not take advantage of that attention and use it to start cleaning up my image? Heaven knows I’ve got a lot of work to do.

  But all the while I am thinking about Laura. I steal glances at her throughout the evening. For weeks now, she’s been lit up, flush with life, eyes happy and laughing. But tonight—tonight she looks drawn. Sad. It’s almost like she’s gone back to being the deeply unhappy girl she was on the plane to London.