Page 22 of Heartstrings & Horseshoes

“Now, if you don’t mind, can you please get out of my apartment? I have a date tonight and I don’t need tattooed-Adonis answering the door when he gets here.”

I nursed one beer at CJ’s, so I’m fine driving the mile back to my apartment. Parked at the apartment complex, I bash my face into the steering wheel.

How could I do this to her?

I open our text thread, and my stomach sinks further. Scrolling backwards, the screen is filled with texts from Delilah I managed a one-word response or thumbs up, and many more I couldn’t bring myself to answer at all.

After she texted yesterday letting me know she was spending the night with her sister, I picked up overtime and worked through till this afternoon. For as much as it hurts being around her, I couldn’t bear spending the night at home without her.

Not seeing her for days has my body physically aching from missing her.

I can’t be a coward and sit in my truck all night, so I drag my ass to my front door and hang my head. What am I going to do? What am I going to say? A text distracts me.

CJ: Don’t be a pussy.

Fucking CJ. Don’t be a pussy. I’m being a pussy.

Darkness greets me when I walk into the apartment. Locking the door behind me, an eerie silence raises the hair on the back of my neck. It’s not even 7:00 p.m., where is she? Her car was in the parking lot, unless Iz or Liv drove her to the ranch yesterday and she hasn’t come home.

Delaying my suffering, I make something for dinner. My stomach’s eating itself after a double shift consisting of gas station garbage, and half a beer at CJ’s. I open the fridge and find it nearly bare. Lemonade. Carrot sticks. Hard boiled eggs. A half-eaten dry salad. What the fuck?

My pulse kicks up realizing my absence hurt Delilah far more than I anticipated. The pantry isn’t much better. Microwaveable rice. Old fashioned oats. A sealed jar of peanut butter.

It takes all my restraint not to break the pantry door slamming it shut, instead, softly clicking it closed, trembling with fury. Not at her—never at my fallen angel—at myself. What kind of man, friend or otherwise, abandons someone like this?

I know Delilah better than she knows herself. I should’ve seen past my selfish bullshit and realized how badly she’s been struggling. I rack my brain for the last time I really looked at her. During the rare times I’ve been home, I’ve tried hard to not let my eyes linger because it’s physically painful not being able to touch her.

The roots of my hair scream as my hands yank the long strands in agony. My feet are moving before my brain registers where I’m going.

My heart breaks standing in the doorway to our bedroom. The room’s dim, lit only by her bedside lamp. She’s bent at disjointed angles like a broken doll amidst piles of textbooks, notebooks and laptop.

The blue glow from the screen rips my heart out through my throat. The screensaver’s a slideshow of Delilah’s favorite pictures. Photo after photo, my face appears on the screen. Selfies of the two of us at every age, and photos of me I’ve never seen.

Our life plays across the screen in full color. The occasional photo with Izzy or Olivia provides short-lived relief from my heartache.

She’s working herself to death and I haven’t been here. Her chest rises and falls with each slumbering breath, but what causes my fingernails to cut into my palms are the dark circles under her eyes, how pronounced her collar bones are against the shadows, and the goosebumps lining her arms from how cold she is.

The apartment isn’t cold. She’s freezing because she has no calories in her body, and it makes me want to beg for mercy at her delicate feet.

I did this. Another glaring reason I don’t deserve her.

I pad silently into the bedroom and gather her school materials and set them on her nightstand. Lifting her laptop, I subject myself to a few more moments of masochism and watch the slideshow of our friendship—each photo a brutal reminder of what I stand to lose.

I crawl into bed beside her, and she instinctually rolls towards my body. She curls around me, every possible point of contact made between our bodies. She sighs like everything is right in her world now that I’m here—and it makes me hate myself even more.

My body heat warms her chilled skin, and her body becomes heavier on mine as she sinks into deeper relaxation. I have so much I need to say, but I don’t dare wake her. She needs the rest far more than she needs my excuses.

So, I hold her in my arms and vow to never let her down again.

I haven’t waited this long, and worked this hard, to give up on my dream. I plan to give Delilah everything she’s ever wanted until my dying breath.

I’ve been hers since the first time I saw her.

I have to believe someday she’ll be mine.

13

My body is languid and warm. I don’t want to wake from the dream I’m having. Hovering in the haze between dreaming and waking, I’m weightless and safe. I move to snuggle deeper into the bed when I feel him.