Rediscovering Peace (Military Love Book 1)

by Rogers, Steffy

  Oliver and I went upstairs. He settled on the couch letting me know that I could have the bed. I showered and got myself ready to go to sleep. Tears streamed down my face. We had never argued before and this fight was taking its toll on me. I fell into a restless sleep. A few hours later, I felt Oliver crawl into bed behind me.

  “Go away. I am still mad at you and you reek of alcohol,” I told him sleepily. I hadn’t had enough sleep to deal with him yet.

  “I miss you, sweetheart. Don’t be mad at me. I am an idiot. I shouldn’t have made you go to the club with me. I should’ve gone home with you. Please forgive me, I hate arguing with you. I love you.”

  I sat up and turned on the lamp on the nightstand.

  “Okay fine, Oliver, we are going to talk about this now. I feel like you’re slipping away from me. The last few weeks you have been so distant. I understand that you have a lot on your mind with your upcoming deployment but you have to let me in. We will get through this together and when you come back I will be here with you. We won’t be separated anymore and I will be your wife. But if you don’t want all that anymore you better tell me now. I can’t be the only one involved in this relationship.”

  “Fuck. Skye, of course I still want all that with you. I put that ring on your finger for a reason. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I am sorry that you feel this way, I promise, it will change. I have had so much on my mind. I am scared. What if I don’t make it back from this deployment? I don’t want to fail you.”

  “You could never fail me, Oliver. And you will come back. I know there is always a possibility that you won’t but we can’t think like that. It will drive both of us crazy. I promise I will always be by your side as long as you communicate with me and stay faithful. That is all I am asking, Oliver. It hurts me when you keep your fears from me. We are a team, we are in this together.” I snuggled up to him no longer mad. We would get through this.

  “I love you, Skye.”

  “I love you, too. More than you will ever know.”

  We fell asleep cuddling both needing to be close to each other.

  The next morning Oliver had to go back into work. I was so mad at the army for not even letting us have this one weekend. How much more preparation could they possibly do? They had been preparing for months now. My frustration must have been written on my face because Oliver pulled me into a hug.

  “I am sorry, love. I promise I will be back as quick as possible. Make sure you’re naked when I get back, I plan on fucking you all day.”

  He winked at me and left me with a kiss. Horny bastard. I couldn’t blame him though I longed to have him inside of me too. I flopped myself on the couch and decided to watch Netflix till he came back. I was deep into my series when I heard a phone go off. I walked around and saw that Oliver had forgotten his phone. I grabbed it so I could call one of the guys of his unit and they could tell him that he forgot it. I know he would freak if he thought that he had lost his phone. As I opened the lock screen, I saw that he had gotten a text from a Jocelyn. That spiked my curiosity so I opened it. We knew the passcodes to each other’s phones, so I didn’t think it was a big deal.

  Jocelyn: Hey handsome. When am I going to get to see your face again? I miss the feel of your lips on me. Xoxo Jo.

  I could feel the floor pull out from underneath me. I couldn’t believe Oliver would betray me like this. Everything he said last night was a lie. He wasn’t worried about the deployment. He was fucking someone else while I had been sitting at home planning our wedding. I cried uncontrollably. I felt like my heart had been ripped out and stomped on a million times. All the promises, all the declarations of love. It was all a big fat lie. Getting up I grabbed my phone and dialed Paisley’s number.

  “Hey, girl, what’s up?” She answered after the first ring.

  “Paisley, please come pick me up. I can’t stay here a minute longer.”

  “What happened?”

  “Please just come get me.” I sobbed.

  I hung up after giving her the address and stormed into the bedroom. I was throwing all my stuff in my suitcase and slid my engagement ring off my finger. I went into the kitchen, wrote a note and left the ring on top of it.

  The doorbell rang, and I knew Paisley was here. I looked around in Oliver’s apartment. My glance fell on the engagement pictures we had taken the last time I had visited. I turned and made my way downstairs. Paisley was sitting there waiting for me. I threw my luggage in the car and got in the passenger seat.

  “You look like shit, girl. What happened?”

  “Oliver is a lying, cheating piece of shit. I don’t want to talk about it. Now please take me to the liquor store. I just want to forget about today.”

  She didn’t question me any further and after a pit stop at the liquor store she took me to her house. We sat in silence as we both got drunk. I was happy she wasn’t pushing me to talk about what happened. I wasn’t ready to talk about it just yet. Fortunately, I was able to change my flight to leave in two days instead. I needed to get away from Oliver as far and as fast as possible. My phone started ringing and his name flashed across the screen. How dare he call me? I declined his call, but he just called again.

  “Leave me alone, you cheating bastard,” I yelled into the phone and hung up again.

  I didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t want to hear his lame excuses. He wasn’t able to keep his dick in his pants and would have to suffer from the consequences now. I saw that I had gotten a text from him.

  Oliver: Please Skye, talk to me. I can’t live without you. I am an idiot. I know this. Please, I beg you. Let me talk to you.

  “You know sooner or later you’re going to have to face him, Skye.”

  I glared at Paisley. “He cheated on me. I don’t owe him anything. We talked last night and he had promised me that he was only worried about the deployment. I knew something was wrong. You know what hurts the most? His fucking best friend, Cody, called it. He told me I would never be enough for Oliver. It hurts so badly, Paisley. He ripped my heart out. He could’ve just broken up with me. It would’ve hurt less.”

  “Come here, sweetie, I know it hurts. I promise you will get through this.”

  Paisley hugged me while I cried my eyes out.

  “I am going to lie down. Tomorrow I want you to take me to him so I can tell him how much he hurt me. I want you to be by my side though so I don’t give in and forgive him. I can’t be with someone who cheats on me.”

  “Okay, if that is what you want.”

  My phone started ringing again. It was Faith. I answered even though I didn’t want to talk to anybody.

  “Skye! Where the hell are you? Oliver has been blowing up our phones. Something about you left him and he didn’t know where you are. He sounded terrible. What happened?”

  “He sounded terrible? Maybe he should’ve thought about that before sticking his dick in someone else.”

  I heard Faith gasping. “That bastard. I am so sorry, Skye. Come home. We will get through this together. I am here for you. Or I can come out there and rip his balls off.”

  I loved my BFF even more in that moment.

  “I will be home in two days. I will send you the details so you can pick me up. I am staying with Paisley and honestly I don’t know what I would do if she wasn’t here. I am heading to bed, Faith. Thank you for being my friend. Love you, bitch.”

  “I love you too. I still want to murder Oliver though.”

  I hung up and crawled into bed. I promised myself I would never let a guy get close to me again. It always ended in heart break anyways.

  The next morning I got ready to face Oliver. I didn’t want to see him but I needed to let him know how much he ruined me.

  “You ready for this?”

  “As ready as I will ever be.” I rang Oliver’s doorbell and he opened almost immediately.

  “Skye. Thank God.” He tried to hug me but I pushed him away.

  “I am here to say goodbye, Oliver.” Paisley and
I walked into the kitchen.

  “Paisley, can you wait in the living room please? I got this. If not, I will let you know.”

  “Of course, and you, Oliver, are lucky I am not breaking your face right now.”

  I sat on a stool at the breakfast bar and Oliver stood across from me leaning on the fridge.

  “Skye, I am so sorry.”

  “Stop, there is nothing you can say that will make me take you back, Oliver. All I ever asked was for you to be faithful and honest with me. While you were out fucking God knows who I was sitting at home planning our wedding. I was ready to spend the rest of my life with you. I put all my trust and my heart in your hands and all you did was trample all over it. I hope you are happy with yourself.

  “You know, when you left Cody told me I should forget about you - that you would find someone else and move on. I should’ve listened to him. After all he is your best friend and he knows you, right? Well, he gets his wish, I am done. I hope you look back in a few years and realize what you did to me and what you lost. I would’ve given everything for you. Hell, I got my boss to agree to let me relocate. I was ready to leave my family and friends behind to be with you. Do you know what that means for me? If you have ever loved me, you will respect my decision and will not contact me. I need you to let me go. Or I will never be able to move on from you,” Skye finished.

  “I don’t want you to move on. Tell me what you want me to do. I will do it. Please, Skye, don’t throw what we have away. I made a stupid mistake, and I promise it will never happen again! Please, give me another chance.”

  He was crying. It hurt me to see him like this but I had to stay strong.

  “Oliver, I love you and a part of me will probably always love you. But you shattered me. Nothing you say or do will make me forget how you betrayed me. How you betrayed my trust. I know it’s hard to be in a long distance relationship, but I thought we could make it through this. Goodbye, Oliver.”

  I went over to him, kissed him on the cheek and turned to leave. Paisley got up when she saw me entering the living room. I could feel Oliver behind me.

  “Please don’t go, Skye. You’re all that I have.”

  “You lost her. Let her go or I will make true of my promise to break your face,” Paisley spat out.

  She led me to her car while I was sobbing. As we were driving off, I saw Oliver falling to his knees in the doorway. He had broken both of us. I would never fall in love again.

  Chapter 3

  Skye

  “Call me if you need anything. Even if you just want me to beat the shit out of Oliver.”

  It was time for me to leave Colorado and I was ready. I had spent the last two days crying and getting drunk with Paisley. Oliver had been blowing up my phone every five minutes, and I was considering changing my number so I wouldn’t hear from him anymore. I hugged Paisley goodbye and made my way through security. Luckily, everything went smooth and soon we were up in the air. I put my earphones in getting lost in my music. When “What Hurts the Most” came on I lost it and started bawling all over again. Just when I thought I didn’t have any tears left, I was proven wrong. It had only been two days, and I was already over being such a mess. I wonder if this feeling would ever go away.

  “Here, sweetie, looks like you need this.”

  I looked at the elderly woman next to me as she handed me a tissue. I faked a smile and thanked her.

  “Broken heart? I know how that feels. Let me tell you from experience, it gets better and one day in the future you will be ready to open your heart again to someone who deserves it.”

  “I doubt that. I was going to marry this guy and spend the rest of my life with him. But he had to go off and find comfort in another woman. I am done–I will never fall in love again.”

  “Look at it this way, at least you found out before you got married. Imagine being married and finding out he has been cheating on you. Saves you the headache of a divorce. I went through the same when I was about your age. However, it opened the door to something better and my Stan and I have been married for thirty-five years now and have three beautiful children and six grandbabies. I couldn’t be happier. I promise you will find that once in a lifetime love. He wasn’t it.”

  I thought about that for a while. Though her words were comforting, I doubted I could ever open my heart to someone else again. Oliver had left it in pieces and no one would ever be able to put them back together. I sighed and closed my eyes, trying to doze off so I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore.

  I was glad when my plane finally landed. I was ready to get back to my everyday life again just to distract myself. I had already called my boss to let him know that I would be back to work early. He knew me well enough not to question my decision. Tomorrow I would tell him that I wanted to stay here instead of moving to the new office in Colorado Springs–I had no reason to move there anymore. I was hoping he would not ask me for any explanations because I didn’t want to share the new developments of my life just yet. They would notice soon enough that I wasn’t wearing my engagement ring anymore. Ugh. The thought that my life had been turned upside down within a few days made me sick to my stomach. I just wanted to hide from the world and never appear again.

  “There you are. I hate to tell you but you look like shit. Come on and let’s get you home.”

  “You’re charming as ever, Faith. You know every once in a while it would be nice if you wouldn’t tell me the truth. Is it too hard to tell me how great I look?”

  “Okay. You look great, Skye. I think your vacation was really good for you. Happy?”

  “No.”

  I heard her mumbling something about never being able to make it right for me. I couldn’t help myself but I start to laugh. My best friend was a hoot, and I would be lost without her in my life.

  During the ride home she rambled on and on about the stupid people at work and how she was going to kick her boss’ ass one of these days. I loved that Faith wasn’t pushing me for answers–she knew I would talk when I was ready. We made it home relatively fast and I was happy to be there. The more distance I put between Oliver and me, the better.

  I opened the door and was greeted by Caige, who pulled me into one of his bear hugs. He didn’t say anything and I welcomed the silence. He had always known what I needed and right now it was his hug. I finally let all my emotions out and started sobbing. Caige led me over to the couch and I curled up in his lap.

  “Why, Caige? What did I do in my past life to deserve this heartbreak? I was going to become his wife. I can’t believe he would treat me like this. And she wasn’t even pretty, I saw pictures. Ugh. I hate men!!”

  “Hey now, we aren’t all bad. I am not going to tell you that you deserve better because you already know that. I am going to tell you that life goes on. There will be days where you think you can’t breathe because it hurts so badly but every day the pain will become a little less. Eventually you will move on. You are strong, and I promise that Faith and I will be by your side through this whether you want it or not. Oliver is lucky that he is so far away or I would make him disappear. I am sorry you have to experience this, sweetie. Just know that we love you.”

  I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to Caige before he met me. I had never heard him talk about heartbreak before. Did someone break his heart and was that why he didn’t date anymore? It would make sense. I would have to ask Faith–she’s known Caige longer than I have.

  “I love you too. Thank you for helping me through this, Caige, I don’t know what I would do if you guys weren’t here. Can we get ice cream and watch Netflix all day? I am going back to work tomorrow, but today I just want to be a lazy bum and forget.”

  “You got it. I will go to the store and get you some ice cream. We are out. Do you want me to pick up a bottle of vodka on my way?”

  “No thanks, I have been so drunk the last two days that I am surprised I am not still hungover. I need to work tomorrow, and it would suck showing up still drunk.” />
  While I waited for Caige to come back I checked my e-mails and caught up on some work. I wanted to get a head start on things before going back to work. I was interrupted by my phone going off and saw that it was my mom calling.

  “Hey, Mom. What’s up?”

  “Hey, Skye, I just wanted to check up on you? How is Colorado? How is Oliver?”

  “Umm... I am back at home, Mom. I don’t want to talk about it right now but I promise I will come by this weekend and explain everything.”

  “Did you finally dump that guy? I always told you he wasn’t good enough for you.”

  Anna Donovan didn’t miss a beat when it came to letting you know that she didn’t like someone. Though she had accepted my engagement she had never liked Oliver. She tolerated him but that was about as far as it went. Maybe I should have listened to her from the beginning.

  “Mom, I love you. I am starting to think I should’ve listened to you about Oliver. I found out that he was cheating on me while I was planning the wedding here. So I left him and came home early. Paisley wants me to tell you hello and she misses you. Do you want to have lunch Saturday? We can meet up and I can explain everything to you.”

  “Sounds good, I am sorry that your ex fiancé is a cheating douchebag. You should’ve kicked his ass. Though I didn’t like him I wish it would have ended differently. Do you want to tell Dad or should I?”

  My father, Pete, was a kind man but when it came to his family he wasn’t someone to mess with. I wouldn’t put it past him to get on the next flight and personally kill Oliver.

  “I will tell him. You know he will be on the next flight to Colorado if he can’t see for himself that I will be okay.”

  “Yeah you are right. I will leave it to you. Plus he is in a good mood and I would like it to stay that way. Maybe I can talk him into a date night. Well anyways I got to get back to work. I love you, babygirl.”

  “Love you too, Mom. See you Saturday at lunch.”