Page 31
But,
I didn’t care.
When the hurt began to subside and I was finally able to get out of bed longer than needed to eat a meal, I was fine until I pulled on a large sweatshirt. As the fabric slid across my face, I caught Eli’s scent—juniper—and broke down. Curled up in the corner of my closet, I wept. I told myself I had no reason to be this sad, to be this heartbroken, because it wasn’t like we were in a relationship. We’d never discussed what we were to one another, but I believed us to be something. And the loss of whatever that something was felt unbearable.
I shook my head, doing my best to clear away those recent memories. I exhaled a shaky sigh, the edge of my breath wavering with tears. It’d been three weeks since Eli and I had spoken and as badly as I wanted to reach out to him, I didn’t. I wasn’t the one that needed to reach out first. He was the one that lied, not me.
And yet…
He hadn’t tried to contact me.
A sharp pang in my chest took my breath away. I pressed a hand to my heart, inhaling a stuttering breath and shaking my head, simultaneously clearing away any lingering thoughts of Eli and the pervasive misery that accompanied heartache. I pulled the sweatshirt off, yanking my sweats off for good measure, and took them to the laundry room, dumping them on the floor besides the ever-growing pile of laundry. I changed into fresh pajamas and headed towards the kitchen. My eyebrows pinched together at the sound of the doorbell.
I approached the door, calling out, “Who is it?” I held my breath, waiting for the other person to respond. Hope bloomed in my chest only to wither instantly when Tristin replied,
“If you actually answered your phone, you’d know who it is. Let me in. I can’t find my key.”
I unlocked and opened the door, standing to the side to let him in. He glanced down at me as he passed, raising an eyebrow. I held up my hand, silencing him before he began. “Don’t. I’m exhausted. I have no energy for whatever it is you’re going to say.”
“Why are you ignoring my calls?”
Because every time my phone rings I think it’s him and it hurts to see it isn’t.
“My phone is off.” I moved to the couch, crossing my arms over my chest as I leaned against the back. “Why are you here?”
Instead of standing across from me, Tristin sat next to me, leaning in until our shoulders met. “My best friend had his heart broken, where else would I be?”
“First of all, that was three weeks ago. And you were here for a few days after. And secondly, my heart is not bro—”
“Bullshit,” Tristin cut me off. “You look like you haven’t washed or combed your hair since that night, your home smells strongly of about—,” he paused, tilting his face up to sniff the air, “—three different cleansers that I pray you’re not mixing together—”
“You don’t pray.”
“That’s beside the point,” Tristin rushed out. “You haven’t been to work. You’re not returning my calls… this is worse than—”
“Don’t say his name,” I warned.
“—Jaxton.” Tristin mumbled under his breath, “What kind of fucking name is Jaxton?” He shook his head and looked over at me. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
My shoulders rose and fell. “I’ve told you most of it...” I trailed off.
“Then tell me all of it because it still doesn’t make sense to me, Dee. How can you not know who he is?”
“Because I don’t care about the culinary world or Fortune 500 companies, Tris. Yes! Even with my career, I don’t care about Fortune 500 companies,” I snapped, knowing what he was going to ask. “I could have lived with him hiding who he was if he was worried about me only liking him for his money. Granted, though it’s not a lot, I do have my own. But that isn’t just it. He—,” I stopped midsentence, wrestling with whether to tell Tristin everything. My stomach churned with doubt, fear clogging my throat as I recalled Eli’s silent reaction to the news of my infertility. “Nothing,” I finally said, my voice quiet.
“This is such bullshit,” Tristin griped.
I turned my head to stare at him, my eyes thinning into dangerous slits. I spat out, my voice acidic, “Excuse me? What about any of this is bullshit to you?”
Tristin turned to face me, an eyebrow arched in challenge. “Oh, maybe the fact that I’m trying my damnedest to be there for you, have been, mind you, and you keep shutting me out. You’re giving me half-truths like I’m stupid, Lane. You’ve been hiding something from me for months and I haven’t said anything because I know how you are. You like to pull away from the world when you have to process something and I give you space. I always give you space. But you can’t call me crying and ask me to come pick you up and then proceed to withhold key information for weeks when I’m just trying to figure out how to fucking be here for you. That is bullshit.”
My hands reflexively ball, my pulse quickening. What if he looked at me the same way Eli did? Or worse, with pity and sorrow? His face blurred and when I blinked, bringing him back into focus, a tear slid down my cheek. I lowered my gaze to my feet, my bottom lip trembling.
Tristin, taken by surprise by my display of emotion, tripped over his words in his attempt to make it right. “Hey, holy sh—I didn’t mean to—”
“He, uh,” I interrupted in a low voice, “He—there was another omega.”
Tristin growled, “I don’t give a fuck who his family is, I’ll kill him.”
