by Blair Holden
“That’s the thing, you two like to send each other updates if the other person just gets up to drink water. Your phone blows up faster than my Twitter feed, and I follow twelve thousand people. So turn that phone off.”
I love Cami.
But Megan gives in and so for that night, we go back to the good old days where there weren’t any annoying boys nearby who’d break out hearts, and the closest thing I had to having a man in my life was Jess.
***
After having the most fun and relaxing night in what seems forever, we head over to our rooms in the early morning to get ready for breakfast. Beth and I shared a room last night, and I could hear her crying into the early hours of the morning, with nothing I could say possibly comforting her. She’s worried that she’s embarrassed my family. But I tell her my grandmother would be proud of her fighting for her man. Then she cried because she thought despite having psychotic tendencies, Jenny was more fit for the O’Connell family than she could ever be.
I talked sense into her pretty quickly for that one. If she thinks there’s anything remotely noble or dignified about my family, then she’s got another thing coming. We put up a good front, but there are enough skeletons in our closet to fill multiple graveyards. She also cried because she’s so upset with my brother for leading Jenny on to the point where she thought she could just walk into their engagement and declare her love or Travis, thinking he’d leave Beth for her.
I couldn’t say much on that front because honestly, men are idiots. They don’t think about their actions, don’t think about how a woman might interpret them. They might be trying to act noble and do a good deed, but sometimes it sends out the wrong message and the next thing you know, you’ve got someone banging at your door at three in the morning, ready to kill the poor innocent girlfriend who’s done nothing but be supportive.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
But I tell her that my brother comes from a good place and that he’s never been able to see the truly manipulative side of Jenny. She’s a great actress when it comes to him, and they have enough history for her to know just how to get to him. I hope that Beth understands and I hope that they’re able to come out of this stronger. Otherwise, the next time I see her, it’ll be me pulverizing that little witch. I fear that my pep talk might not be having its intended effect, but the doubts clear up because as soon as I open the door to leave, I find myself face to face with Travis, who’s holding up the largest bouquet of flowers that I’ve seen in a while. He may have stolen one of the centerpieces from the wedding that took place last night for all I know, but inside, I’m cheering for him. Now that’s how you win back a girl. He looks just as bad as Beth, like he’s barely slept, and he’s still got on his clothes from the night before. I make way for him to get to his girl and try to give them privacy, when he tells her he’s sorry and that he loves her, I watch Beth throw herself in his arms, and that’s when I know that they’ll be okay. With a relieved smile on my face, I step away.
I’m happy for them and try not to be hurt over the fact that Cole’s not here.
We go our separate ways and I find myself getting riled up again. I’m not even sure if Cole’s still here or if he raced to rescue his little family. I’m being petty and hypocritical, especially considering the pep talk I just gave Beth about giving Travis the benefit of the doubt. But I guess it’s easier to preach than practice because just thinking about how Cole dismissed me last night makes my blood boil. As I’d forgotten to take my key the night before, I have no choice but to knock. I just need to get a change of clothes and slap on some concealer. I’ve been getting enough odd looks about my face to make me self-conscious. Even though what I want to do more than anything is go for a run on the nearest trail, I don’t think I want to go out looking like someone went at me with a baseball bat the night before. I knock a few times but there’s no answer, so I guess he left after all. That stings a little, and I’m hurt enough to ignore the looks that I get as I make my way to the lobby, still in my robe, to get an extra key.
“Could you tell me if Cole Stone returned his key last night?” I ask the manager on duty.
“Sure, Ms. O’Connell, let me just check that for you.”
I feel as though a lot depends on his answer, and that’s way too much pressure to put on a man at eight a.m. But I need to know if I’m that dispensable to Cole that he’d just leave without even trying to come find me.
“No, we don’t seem to have his key,” he informs me and I breathe a sigh of relief. He looks at my bruised face with a worrisome expression. I imagine the scenarios he must be constructing in his mind and none of them do Cole any favors. I attempt to talk my way out of this before he decides to call the police.
I spin around, grabbing my keycard, and leave a concerned manager in my wake.
***
In the time it takes me to shower, get dressed, and put on some makeup, Cole still isn’t here. My anger has transformed from barely contained fury to crushing disappointment, and the latter hurts my heart so much more.
After breakfast, the rest of the gang goes for a leisurely walk while I go back to the room to pack, still waiting for Cole to show up. I realize quickly that I did in fact need to check my phone because I’ve got a meeting scheduled for early tomorrow morning. It’s best if I get on the road as soon as I can so that I can prepare for it. Cole’s things are still here so I trust that he’s not halfway across the country by now, but where the hell is he?
I checked my phone first thing when I came back but there was nothing from him. I called him multiple times but he doesn’t pick up. None of the guys know where he is either, and when I call Jay to check if he’s at home, I end up with nothing. On a whim, I still try looking for him everywhere that I can on this huge property, and although I manage to lose myself several times, I still don’t find him anywhere. Most people assume I’m a hysterical-verging-on-unhinged girlfriend who’s just been broken up with. It’s not a pretty picture, and I’m wondering if I’ll ever be allowed back to the hotel. But embarrassment isn’t even a concern right now. The disappointment is rapidly turning into worry. I wonder if I should call the sheriff and have him send out a search party. Maybe something terrible’s happened to him, maybe he’s hurt and alone and doesn’t have anyone to help him. I’m so mad at myself for not trying to find him sooner...
“Come on, Cole, pick up. Please pick up.” I try his phone again but I bet by this point it might as well be dead. A few hours later, I’m nearly reduced to tears and, totally defeated and tired, head back to my room. I feel sick, to the point that I nearly throw up my breakfast. There’s no time to find my friends; they seem to think Cole went back home, but if he’s not there, then...I’m in panic mode, blindly grabbing things like my bag, my phone, and ready to burst out the door when, “Tessie?”
I’m hit with a kind of relief I’ve never felt before. I open the door to his face and it’s as though someone’s just punched me square in the chest. I struggle to breathe and jump at him without thinking, wrapping myself around him tightly.
“Hey, what’s wrong,” he croons, stroking my hair, kissing my cheek, holding me tight to him.
“You’re okay.” My voice is muffled into his neck but I hold on to him for dear life.
“My phone died; I didn’t think to grab my charger. Tessie, I’m fine. I’m so sorry, look at me, please. I’m okay.”
Despite his repeated assurances that he’s fine, I firmly hold on to him, to the point where it must be hurting for him to breathe.
He’s here.
He’s okay.
I can breathe.
Five minutes of squishing Cole to death, I’m able to pull back. He cups my face and leans in, pressing a deep kiss to my lips.
“I’m here, Shortcake.” He chuckles, lips lingering at the corner of my mouth. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
It’s the sound of his laugh that gets to me. Usually it’s a sound that I live for, that makes me
happy on the saddest of days. When he’s around and he laughs, it uplifts my soul and makes my insides sing. Today, though?
My old friend fury is back with a vengeance. I shove him off of me and curl my hands at my sides.
“What the hell, Cole?”
He seems taken aback, then tries approaching me like one would come closer to a wounded animal.
“Tessie, wh-what’s wrong?”
“Are you actually fucking asking me what’s wrong?” I yell, “Where the hell have you been?”
He blanches, clearly not used to me yelling at him. I’ve resisted the ice cream tucked away in my deep freezer for longer than I’ve stayed in a fight with him. Even if it were Gordon Ramsey himself serving us, I’d sooner decline the dessert menu than fight with Cole. You get the gist, right? We don’t argue, certainly not the loud, messy kind of arguments that force the people in the room next to you to come out and stare. We haven’t even bothered to go into the room, still standing on the threshold. Of course this looks bad, especially for him, given the state of my face. The purple skin still peeks out from among the layers of concealer.
“Do you want any help?” A lady comes out, cinching her robe tighter around her waist. She glares in Cole’s direction. “Is he hurting you?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say yes, because of course he’s hurt me.
But I would never accuse him of physically laying a hand on me because he’d rather die than do that.
Cole’s face pales as he realizes what he’s being accused of. “No, we’re fine. I think the two of us had a little too much to drink last night. Hangovers make me cranky.” I smile, mentally patting myself on the back for putting on a brave face.
She looks unsure but retreats back into her room, clearly not in the mood to get in the middle of a fight while she’s on vacation.
“Get inside,” I hiss at Cole and slam the door after him.
“Let me explain.”
“What possible explanation could you have...” I can’t even finish my sentences, that’s how mad I am. I’m literally shaking. “I thought you were dead!”
He has the decency to look shamefaced. “I’m sorry, Shortcake, I wasn’t thinking. A friend needed help and I—”
“Save it; just save it. I don’t care if Mel couldn’t find where she keeps her daughter’s favorite blankie. You could’ve just spared a second to tell me that you were still alive.”
“I’m sorry.” He tries to come near me but I back off. I’m so mad at him that I’m afraid that if he gets any closer, I’d slap him, and that’s not a place I want to go.
“Stop, just stop. I’m done here.”
Grabbing my suitcase, which I’d already packed, I push past him, but he doesn’t give up so easily. Grabbing my arm, he whirls me around, eyes desperate and panicked.
“Don’t leave, please, Tessie. I’m sorry, I fucked up. She needed my help and I—”
“I don’t even recognize you right now. Why are you doing this to us? Who is she? Why is she so important that you’d leave everything behind for her? Why couldn’t you reach out to me just once?”
He doesn’t answer any of my questions but tries to kiss me again, his hand coming up to my face.
And this time he hurts me, literally. The sensitive, bruised skin prickles beneath his touch, and I grit my teeth as a wave of pain washes over me.
“You’re hurting me.”
He drops his hand immediately, realizing his mistake, and I take the opportunity to pull away and walk out.
“Don’t come after me. I can’t be around you right now,” I bite out, knowing that he’s following me.
“Please, just—”
“I’m so mad at you right now that I’ll say things that I won’t be able to take back. So just stay the hell away from me, for now, please.”
And it’s the please that breaks him because when I leave, he doesn’t try to stop me.
Yeah, this weekend definitely did not go as planned.
Chapter Thirteen: I Think It’s Time to Call Off That DNA Test
Note to self, when someone asks you how Thanksgiving weekend was, you do not say the words, “I think my boyfriend has a secret love child.”
The only problem is that I’m pretty sure I’m putting our society back at least a few decades by using that term, and who even am I if not a progressive millennial?
Wonderful, I can’t even dramatize my heartache without worrying about the connotations.
Beside me, Leila chokes on her quinoa porridge.
Listlessly, I stir my coffee and for what seems like the thousandth time that day, look at my phone, which thankfully has stopped being bombarded with texts and calls. Any other girl would be thrilled that their significant other cared enough to be persistent and did not give up. I, however, feel nothing but relief that Cole’s gotten the message loud and clear.
If I so much as go near him right now, I will snap and end up saying something I could never take back. All the anger from the past few days comes rushing back as I think about how I’d left. I didn’t even think to stop at home to grab my things, just grabbed the overnight bag I’d packed for the hotel and made a run for it. A very grave-looking Travis and Beth had delivered the rest of my things, and my brother had kindly offered to put the fear of God into Cole, but I’d obviously refused because the two needed to resolve their own problems first. So I’d held my head up high and refused to talk about the incident to anyone. My parents were concerned, but I’d reassured them that I wouldn’t relapse into high school Tessa who’d fallen apart at the seams in the aftermath of heartbreak. I’m a grown woman now and although I’m hurt, I know that you can’t really hit pause on life.
But there’s something so comforting about sharing your problems with a stranger. Although I’ve been working with her for over a month now, Leila and I might as well be just that, strangers. I don’t really know much about the girl, and she just has the most bizarre assumptions about me, which she gathers from stalking me online. Just the other day she asked me right to my face if I’d gone under the knife to lose the amount of weight that I did and if I would mind sharing my doctor’s number because she couldn’t deal with her cellulite anymore. Firstly, I don’t even know how she stumbled upon my Fatty Tessie days and secondly, what cellulite? The only excess fat the girl looks like she’s ever known is the one she purposely gets injected into her lips.
Back to the matter at hand, it seems as though the weekend straight out of Days of Our Lives has her interested, and she pushes aside her breakfast to sidle up to me.
“I smell drama.”
We’ve just left a meeting and are taking a breather in the breakroom when it all comes pouring out. Call it the coffee or the fact that I really haven’t talked about it to anyone since the fight with Cole happened, but all of a sudden, I’m pouring my heart out to Leila and surprisingly, she listens without interrupting me once. There’s a gasp or two when needed, but for the most part, she lets me recount the previous weekend’s happenings without stopping me.
“And I thought my family had problems.”
“Do you think Lainey could be his kid? I did the math and it doesn’t make sense. For him to be her father, he’d have to be what, seventeen years old, and I don’t think he could’ve had the time to leave military school and have a child when his parents had him on lockdown at all times.”
“This might sound like a crazy theory, but I think the kid isn’t his.” Sarcasm oozes from her voice, and of course anyone who isn’t actually experiencing Cole in the Twilight Zone would think I’m crazy.
But what other possible explanation is there?
“You want my opinion?”
“Sure, if you have one.”
Sometimes strangers also give the best advice. They don’t know or honestly care about you, so whatever piece of advice they give you is possibly the most practical one. Family and friends will be too cautious of your delicate feelings, but someone who barely knows you won’t be afraid to steamroll
right through them.
Leila is steamrolling and crushing anything that comes in her way.
“I think you’re reaching because you’re obviously upset and understandably so. The only reason you can come up with to explain why your precious boyfriend tossed you aside like you’re dollar-store beer to play house with someone else is that he’s donated his sperm to the kid. But that’s just way too crazy, even for me. Here’s what I think.”
I lean toward her as if the next words to come out of Leila’s mouth should be taken down and inscribed into rocks so that generations to come can learn from her wisdom.
“I think he’s bored.”
“What?” I stare at her profile as she examines her gel manicure.
“You guys have been together for what, like six years?”
“Almost.”
“And you got together when you were seniors, in high school? That’s such a cliché, no wonder you’re having problems.”
“I don’t understand why the fact that we’ve managed to establish a healthy, long-term relationship is problematic.”
“Because, Tessa,” Leila blows out an exasperated breath, “people change. You want different things at twenty-two than you want at eighteen. You two were glued to each other’s sides up until a month ago, so of course things would change when you actually spent some time apart.”
See, there’s the difference I’d been talking about. My friends would never, ever voice my worst nightmare out loud. But Leila just has, and she’s got no intention of stopping.
“You think he...he doesn’t love me anymore?”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m sure he does love you in some capacity. But the thing with men is that they always want something they can’t have, right? So you’re always there and available, and then there’s this hot older woman who also happens to be a single mother who makes him feel needed and wanted. He gets to be her knight in shining armor and voila, it’s something completely different from all that he’s known before.”
My thoughts are spiraling out of control and I realize that being around Leila isn’t the best idea right now. Despite thinking that I might possibly have to play the role of a stepmother soon, I’d never considered that Cole would actually have feelings for Mel.