AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dan wouldn’t even make me coffee after we had sex.
But Oliver…he got up way earlier than I did and made me breakfast in my own kitchen.
The weight pressed hard on my chest and I nearly choked back a sob as I watched him.How could I do this to him? I didn’t deserve all of this!
He must have caught the sound because he turned to face me, a slow smile spreading across his face, unknowingly gutting me with guilt.
“Good morning, Amanda,” he grinned. “I checked and Grandma Margaret is still sleeping. I hope you’re hungry! I made pancakes.”
“Um… yeah… I meantno!” I hastily amended, steeling myself to act cool and composed when my heart was practically beating a tattoo on my ribcage. “Actually, there’s something I need to tell you, Oliver.”
My dog barked happily, and I fought the urge to roll my eyes at him.Thanks for the loyalty, Buddy.
Well, it was best to get over this as quickly and painlessly as possible. It was the same thing as ripping off a Band Aid in one go, right? If you dragged it out slowly, you only set yourself up for more pain and prolong the agony. Dragging it out unnecessarily was unfair for Oliver, when he had shown me nothing but kindness and tenderness.
Grief clawed at my heart. I didn’t deserve this man. I honestly didn’t.
“About what happened to us last night,” I said. “That shouldn’t have happened. It was a mistake. A huge mistake! I am so sorry I used you like that. I think… I think you should just go now.”
The words tumbled out of my mouth in a rush. Oliver’s face paled at my words. His earlier happiness seemed to shrivel up and die in their wake, and I watched as the smile on his handsome features was replaced with pain and shock.
It crushed my heart, but I knew that this was for the best.
“But Amanda—” he pleaded, his hand reaching out for me.
He looked so vulnerable and so wretched, I nearly broke down in front of him, too. I should have known that he felt something for me, probably had all along, but I couldn’t string him along while nursing a broken heart.
He was too good to me and he didn’t deserve that. He deserved someone who wasn’t still trying to get over her bastard boyfriend. Someone who could give him the love he deserved.
That someone just wasn’t me and ithurt.
So, I tried to be strong for the both of us, to do what was right.
I shook my head and took a step back. “No… please justgo, Oliver.”
Silence fell on both of us. The pain was written so clearly in his features, it broke my own heart all over again.
“Anything you say, Amanda…” he finally said quietly. His face had turned wan and pale, as if they’d lost all sense of life in mere moments.
He turned around and set the pan back down on the stove slowly. I hadn’t even realized he was still holding onto that. He fiddled with the knob for a while, and then crouched down in front of Buddy to give his furry head one last rub with a sad smile.
“I have to go now. Bye, Buddy,” he murmured. And then he wordlessly rushed past me and out of the door.
I had no idea how long I stayed in the kitchen. All I knew was that as soon as Oliver left, all my strength and false bravado left me, and I sagged down to the floor, the tears streaming down my face.
I never wanted to hurt Oliver the way I did just now. It killed me to do all of that when he looked sohappy,making breakfast forme.
But it was so much more cruel to keep his hopes up when I was still so wounded and broken inside.
Buddy ambled up to me, confused why Oliver had left so suddenly when they had been so happy earlier. He nudged me with his cool, damp nose, and stuck his furry body into the ball I had curled into on the kitchen floor. My arms came around him as I sat there, crying. He licked my face repeatedly and laid his head on my leg.
Besides, it made no sense to start a relationship again when he was going back to England in less than a week. He was a successful cardiologist there and a lot of people needed him while I…
My life was here in Georgetown.I could never leave my home.
All we had left was really just a handful more days, and it would only hurt more for things to get serious between us once more. It would open up old wounds and I wasn’t done healing from the ones Dan had left me with.
“This is all for the best, Bud,” I told my best friend miserably. “He was going to leave anyway. It would never have worked out between the both of us… It would have been so much harder if we allowed ourselves to be happy for a short time, only to have to say goodbye all over again.”
