Between Hearts: A Romance Anthology

by Alexander, Erica

  Chapter 1

  Opie

  "What are you going to do?"

  Leaning back against the overly plush couch, I consider my answer. "What can I do? He’s sleeping with other women."

  "He's an ass for that, by the way," Blake tells me for what seems like the twentieth time.

  I snort. My eyes are sore, from the constant rubbing to make the tears stop falling, but they never do. My nose, I’m sure, is red from the snot that continues to drip down. Blake hands me a tissue, and I know I look pretty unattractive right now.

  No wonder he doesn't want to be with me anymore.

  That's a sad and depressing thought.

  "Thanks." Blake Anderson, my best friend, has been by my side all night—watching me, hugging me, making sure I don't step on the shards of glass that now litter my bedroom floor after I trashed it when I got back home tonight.

  The sight of him being inside some other girl—with her head thrown back in obvious passion—will haunt me for many months to come.

  "I mean it, Opie. He's stupid for letting you go."

  "Was it me?" I ask her.

  "No," her answer is swift and sharp as she grips my hand tightly.

  It's the same question that's been on the tip of my tongue all night. I just haven't had the guts to say it aloud, which isn't like me. I'm loud, brash, crude even. But this? Being heartbroken apparently makes me turn into a pitiful, wallowing girl.

  I don't like it. But my mind is confused. My heart is aching. Every part of me is unfocused on what the next step is. How do you move on when your heart has been shattered?

  Her quick answer doesn't settle me like I thought it would.

  "He's the bad guy in this. Don't be one of those girls who puts her worth on what a guy thinks, or does. Don't." She hugs me gently.

  We sit cuddled together on the couch in silence for awhile.

  "He was the first one," I whisper into her brown hair.

  She rubs my back. "I know."

  "He fixed me." My voice breaks on the last word.

  Because it's true.

  Matt—the asshole I found cheating on me, only a few weeks after I said yes to his marriage proposal—helped me get over the death of my parents. He helped me realize even though they left me, when I was just seventeen, I needed to be open to letting other people in—people like him. After that first year they passed, I was closed off—afraid that the next person I let in would leave. Disappear. Because that’s what happens. People die. People leave. But Matt stayed.

  When family leaves you, before their time, it's a shock to the system. It's hard to let that anger go, because you’re alone. They haven’t taught you everything you need to know about the world. So, you become angry—a rage unlike any other fills your soul, making you wish you'd died with them—especially when you’re the only one to have survived. I still have nightmares of that night. The rain pelting against the windows. The crunch of metal hitting metal, as the semi-truck drove over the median into our lane. My mother’s scream echoing in the dark, black night. It’s blank where the next memory should be. That’s haunted me for years.

  I survived—with the help of a lot of therapy and getting to go away to school here in Cleveland, because Columbus, where I grew up, held too many memories of us as a family—of their funeral. I couldn’t even drive on the road where the accident happened. Getting out was the right move.

  I don't think I actually moved on until I met Matt. He was a sounding board at school. I’d never had one of those before. I wasn’t close to my high school friends anymore. I’d built a wall around myself, never letting anyone in. But he managed to get over it, through it, around it…somehow, he got in.

  Our first meeting wasn’t exactly something out of a romcom. He was leaving the co-ed bathroom as I was entering, and we got caught in that you go first, no you go first game. But the thing that sticks out the most? He looked at me, with an appreciative gleam in his eyes, even though I’d just gotten out of bed. My hair was a mess, in a top knot on my head; my face was full of pillow streaks. But he looked at me like I was candy bar he wanted to take a bite out of. It annoyed me. It put my feminist side on alert. So, of course, I made a snarky comment.

  "What are you looking at?" I wasn't used to having a guy’s attention focused on me like that and I didn’t hold back my annoyance.

  "You," he answered honestly, shyly, quietly.

  I didn't say anything for a moment. He stared at me, but there was a challenge in his eyes—as if he thought I didn't believe he was interested.

  "Well, don't," I replied. I tried to move around him into the bathrooms so I could take a shower, but he stayed in the middle of the doorway, blocking my way.

  "Why not?" He tilted his head, assessing me openly.

  I hated it. It made my skin crawl. "Because, I don't want you to."

  "Too bad, because you're the most beautiful girl here." He looked at me one more time, smiled, and left without another word or glance back in my direction.

  My heart was thudding in my chest while I showered. Back home, my friends, my aunt, and just about everyone else, had kept their distance. They knew what to expect with my anger. They knew how to avoid my barbs. But this guy? He had the gall to tell me I was beautiful and he didn't even know me.

  We saw each other outside the bathroom every day for a week after that. He would make a comment when I was at my most vulnerable. No one wakes up looking pretty. No one.

  Finally, after a few weeks of continually meeting in the bathroom and exchanging insults, he asked me to breakfast. A voice in my head told me to accept his invitation. It sounded a lot like my mother—telling me to move on, get to know more people, let others in. So, I did.

  A cloudy Saturday morning, I joined him in the dining hall for pancakes.

  It was awkward. We were awkward. He commented on how pretty I looked and how nice my smile was. I didn’t want to find it endearing, but he was wearing me down. I retorted with another snarky comment—pretty sure I called him a pig, I wasn’t very witty back then—which only made him laugh.

  He broke through the walls I’d kept up since my parents had passed away simply by not letting my standoffish attitude keep him at bay.

  I tried really hard to keep from falling for him, but at that point in my life, I wanted, needed, someone else to talk to. I turned to Matt when I needed to vent about my parents—how much I missed them, how much I was still angry at them for leaving, how much I doubted changing my major to meteorology, to honor them, to become what they were: respected meteorologists. He was my shoulder. He was my ear. Somehow, somewhere during our many conversations, I fell for him. I fell hard.

  But now, I know it was all a ploy—a play to get to me to fall for him. It worked. It wasn’t until about three hours ago that it hit me. That this was all a game.

  The first time I let him in completely, I wish I had known what I was getting into. It wasn’t a good way to build a relationship.

  I shouldn't let this bother me, but watching Matt chat up another girl, while we're the ones who are supposed to be hanging out, does bother me.

  It bothers me more than I'd like to admit, to myself or anyone else.

  He's gotten under my skin. That’s something I don't let people do. I've never liked people getting close to me; it causes too much heartbreak.

  But Matt, he's different. He makes me feel safe, protected, but he also listens to me. In the past few weeks, we’ve gotten closer. Not in the biblical sense, but as friends. All I want is a friend, but he’s slowly becoming more.

  I thought we were making steps toward being a couple—something I know that he wants—but I've resisted, which might have been my own self-preservation on my end.

  Matt looks up and our eyes meet. He grins at me, and walks away from the girl he was engaged in a conversation with. He approaches me, his eyes never leaving mine, but I catch her glare at me out of the corner of my eye.

  "Hey, you came," he says, offering me a smile.

&nb
sp; I nod, pursing my lips together to keep what I want to say down—which goes against every instinct I have.

  "Want a drink?" He shoves a half-empty Solo cup of something at me.

  "I'm good."

  He looks at me, his smile falling from his face. "What's up, babe?"

  I glare at him. "You tell me, babe." I shoot the girl a glaring look and she waves at me. Bitch.

  He turns his head to see who I'm looking at. His body stiffens. "We were just talking. I promise."

  I shake my head. "Is that best you can come up with, Matt?"

  "Seriously, Opie. Why do you even care? We're not dating or anything."

  I don't flinch at his bitter words, but they cut me.

  "This might be the reason why, Matt. Even when you're talking to me, you're talking to other people."

  He sighs. "Don't be like that, Opie. I'm just being friendly. Come on, let's get you a drink."

  He grabs my arm, and I have to fight the urge to pull away. Because maybe he's right. Maybe he was being friendly. Everything in my mind is telling me not to follow him, but I do. I let him give me a drink. I let him dance with me. I let him kiss me at the end of the night.

  I let him take over. I let him take care of me. I let him think that this is going somewhere.

  I don't know why I let him do this, but it feels good to turn everything off and just let go.

  Our first party together—that was really the beginning of our relationship. For the rest of college, he was loyal, supportive. He was there when I needed him to be. After that party, we turned a corner. It was only us from then on. Every doubt I had that first night washed away because he only had eyes for me.

  That's what makes this hurt so damn much.

  Yes, we weren’t a perfect couple. Yes, I was having doubts about the two of us getting married. Because we had changed after school. He wanted me to be something I’m not. I’m not a Stepford wife. I won’t hang on someone’s arm at party and say, “Yes, dear.”

  After we graduated two years ago, it became clear he wanted me to be the girl he’d met freshmen year. The one who wasn’t sure who she was. I know now. I’m not a wall flower. As I grew through college, expanding my horizons, letting more friends and people in, I grew into myself. I became the person I wanted to be. He never once said he didn’t like my snark, or blunt comments. But when I would let them fly, he’d get this look in his eye, like he was annoyed, or embarrassed by me. I would ignore it, thinking we’d get past it. We didn’t.

  But that doesn’t change the fact I loved him. Or who he used to be.

  I sniff, wiping the tears on my face, since the memory of the start of our doomed relationship hurts more than I’d like to admit. I should have seen what he was back then, but he blinded me by being the caring boyfriend and loving me when I didn’t think I deserved to be loved. "I think it was me. I think I was never really whole to begin with."

  “Opie, you’re not broken. You can get through this. You will be better off without him.” Blake’s voice is soft and soothing. She grabs me for another hug and I fall apart.

  I sob. I cry for my broken heart. I cry for the loss of a love. I cry for letting someone in when I didn’t want to. I cry because it’s the only way I can deal with the pain.

  “You’re strong, Ophelia Warren. You’re so freaking strong. This is just a bump in the road.” Blake’s reassuring words don’t reassure me.

  Instead, they make me angry—annoyed I let a man have this much control over me and my emotions. “Fuck him.”

  She releases me and she moves, leaning against the arm of the couch—her body facing me, completely open and willing to figure all of this out. I can’t sit anymore. I get up and I pace. “Opie…”

  “Don’t. Don’t tell me to not say shit like that, because it’s how I feel. I don’t want to cry. I don’t want sob on your shoulders. I’m not going to be that girl.”

  “Kind of a major change from a few minutes ago.” She sounds curious and a little amused.

  Her words light a fire in my body. She’s right. It is a change. The anger, the rage, threatens to take hold of my mind, body, and soul. I let it. I need it.

  It keeps me from breaking. It keeps me whole.

  Recently, Matt had been distant. He was pulling away, and I let him. Then, he proposed. I thought things were going to be fixed. Why else would be propose? But then, I started to think about Matt and his suspicious behavior. I started to doubt. Blake and I got into a huge fight because I hated she was voicing the same concerns I was having about him.

  He was stepping out. He was cheating. He was flirting with my friends.

  I noticed his leering many times, but I never said anything. Even after Blake brought up her suspicions, I didn’t want to face the reality.

  I loved him. I thought he loved me. He couldn’t be doing what I thought he was doing.

  How could I have been so blinded by this? How could I not know he was sleeping with other women?

  I did what every girl in this situation does. I followed the bastard. He went to a club with his frat buddies from college—all meat heads—and I watched from a dark corner as he chatted up some girl. He placed a hand on her back, intimately, like he knew her on a deeper level. That hurt. I had every intention of calling him out then and there. But I didn’t. Instead, I went back to his apartment and waited for him. He came home alone and he was surprised to find me there. But he smiled at me and even though I wanted to scream, yell, hurt him for hurting me, and proving everyone right…I didn’t. I pushed it all aside.

  Was I really that desperate for love that I would stick with someone who couldn’t keep it in their pants?

  “Opie?” Blake’s voice is quiet, she stands and reaches for me like she’s going to pull me down on the couch to talk some sense, or some wisdom, into me.

  I take a step back. “No. I’m done.” I make my way out of the living room and grab a broom and dustpan from the closet in the hallway.

  When I enter my bedroom, I try not to let the emotions get the best of me—seeing our past, present, and our future laying on the floor. Our engagement photos haunt me as I clean up the glass from the picture frames I broke when I came home earlier in a rage.

  “Are you going to be okay to go with us tomorrow?” Blake asks from the doorway of my room.

  I set the full dustpan down on the floor, careful not to spill the glass everywhere. I look up at my sweet, caring, best friend—the one person I know I can trust with anything. The phone on her hand starts to chirp and I know it’s a text from her own Prince Charming. That kills me.

  “I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. Being around others isn’t really my idea of fun right now.

  “It will be fun. Harley is bringing Owen,” she explains, waving her phone at me.

  “Who’s Owen?”

  “Owen’s his roommate and teammate. Sweetheart of a guy, really. Maybe you just need to get out of the house. Forget about everything. Get out and do something fun. You love the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

  I do love it there—the music history, the displays, the fact it’s never really that busy, unlike the Football Hall of Fame.

  “This isn’t some ploy to set me up with Owen, is it?”

  She sighs. “No, Opie. Matt was an asshole for the ages. Take some time, piece your heart back together.”

  “What if my heart doesn’t need to be pieced back together?” I wonder aloud, questioning if that makes me a horrible person.

  “What do you mean?” She walks into my room, careful of the glass shards still on the floor.

  “I mean, yes, this sucks and I’m pissed, but you and I both know Matt and I weren’t going to actually make it to the altar.”

  Her eyes widen. “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “Didn’t we have a huge fight about it?” I ask her.

  “We had a fight about him being faithful.” She looks at me carefully. “Is it bad that I wanted to be wrong? I wanted you two to end up together?”

 
“I’ve been doubting if we were even going to make it though the rest of the engagement. These past few weeks I haven’t felt the same with him. I need something more, I guess. Something deeper. But does it make me a horrible person to be this angry at him? I’m not even sure if I loved him anymore.”

  “No, it doesn’t make you a bad person. You loved him at one time. Losing a love like that isn’t easy, Opie. Even if it was rocky, you cared about him and he hurt you. Being angry is the typical emotional response.”

  We were friends first and foremost. He was there when my world was just fitting back together. He helped me in more ways than I can count. Along the way, we lost ourselves. I don’t want to admit it, but somewhere in the past few months I’d fallen out of love with him, but I was afraid, I still am, to be alone.

  “I hate this,” I tell her from my spot on the ground. My legs hurt from kneeling for so long, but I don’t dare get up. I don’t know that I can—mentally or emotionally.

  “It will get better,” Blake promises me. She holds out a hand, helps me stand, my knees creaking the whole way up. “Come with us tomorrow. You’ll feel better being around friends.”

  I find myself nodding before she’s even done. She’s right. I won’t sit here and mope, even as much as I want to. “Okay, I can do that. But you and Harley have to contain the mushiness.”

  She smiles at me. “We’ll try.”

  “Oh, ugh. You’re in love.” I tease her.

  She turns serious. “You and I can have a day in tomorrow. We don’t have to hang with the boys.”

  I hug her, knowing she will always think of her friends before herself. “B, it’s fine. We’ll hang with the boys, check out some cool exhibits, and I won’t play the wall shaking, angry screamo music too long tonight.”

  She laughs as she pulls out of my hug. “One night. That’s all I can listen to that racket you call music.”

  We laugh together and she helps me put my room back together.

  I just wish a broom and a dustpan worked on my heart, too.

  Chapter 2