Bad Taste (Part I) // Colby Brock

177 - Rebecca

I broke when I got home. Not a second earlier or a second later. It started with a single tear falling from my eye as I shut my door, then another as I walked softly to my bedroom, then another as I laid my head down on my pillow. They got worse until my eyes started to sting.

I'd hoped so badly that Colby hadn't gone to my father when I went to the house. I hoped he'd be sitting in the red room with absolutely no idea why I was mad at him, but when we first made eye contact, I knew. I could tell by the way he was looking at me with so much regret in his eyes—too hidden for the others to see.

When he stood there saying it was his only chance, though, every part of me had just set alight. How dare he assume that I could be swayed in another direction. How dare he try to convince me that I didn't want what I was saying I wanted. How dare he go behind my back to do so; to my father, of all people.

Lying in bed wasn't helping me hate Colby like I needed to if I was going to stay away from him. I didn't know how long I'd be able to last without him—just the last hour had been enough. It felt like a part of me was missing and I hated it. Why did I have to depend on him to feel whole? I was perfectly fine without him way back when. I was a confident bitch who didn't take any shit. Now here I was lying in my bed moping because my boyfriend—was he even my boyfriend? I'd just broken up with him, after all—had fucked us up.

No matter how much I hated it, I couldn't bring myself to get up and do anything else. It felt like I couldn't move; like I was paralysed in place.

He'd looked a bit like that when I told him we were done. I wondered what he was doing now. Was he moping, too? Had he already forgotten about it?

STOP THINKING ABOUT HIM, I yelled at myself in my head as I shook it violently. I gripped onto my sheets tighter, squeezing my eyes shut. My thoughts were racing through all of the possibilities, dying for anything that wouldn't be him. Unfortunately, everything in my mind led back to him somehow.

Designing? I'd gotten back into it because I'd been happy and inspired around him, even back then at the beginning of our relationship.

Angela? She'd been the one to finally get me to put all the dots together and, in some fucked up way, she'd also prepared me for the last decade of my life for learning that vampires existed. I hadn't freaked out when I discovered my boyfriend was one... actually, I was into it.

My apartment? I hadn't been to it in a while because I was staying at the house. Although I hadn't said to Colby that I was going to live with him—I actually said I wasn't sure about that—it was unspoken that I already was. I hated that because now my bed didn't feel like my own. It wasn't some obnoxious, huge gothic bed like the one I spent most nights in... with someone else.

I groaned as I rolled over, as if I thought that would clear my head. The tears had stopped but I didn't feel any less hurt about what had happened today. Losing Colby—even if I was the one to pull the plug, hurt more than anything I'd ever felt before.

Why did he have to go and fuck us up?

Among my moping, I heard my front door open and close. My first instinct was to go out there and tell who I assumed to be Colby to fuck off, but when my bedroom door slightly opened to reveal Tara, any words caught in my throat. She didn't say anything as she walked into the room, her features mostly blank.

She walked to the side of the bed and sat down before sliding in next to me. If I had any fight left in me, I would have fought her, but I didn't so I didn't even bother thinking about it. I let her pull me into a cuddle facing each other in silence. Some part of me enjoyed it.

We lay there in silence for a short while. I held onto her because I wasn't sure what else I could do, and she just let me do whatever I wanted. Her breathing was slow, which I realised matched my own. She kept me calm and she kept the tears away.

After a bit, however, she reached up to brush the hair back from my face. There was a soft smile on hers, her touch as light as she could make it. "Jake's here to watch over us," she told me, "and I need you to invite him in so he isn't stuck outside when the sun comes out."

I hesitated but saw no reason to say no. "Come in, Jake," I whispered.

It was like that was all Tara was waiting for because she immediately pulled me into a tighter hug after that, wrapping me up tightly in her embrace. I responded just as fast, holding onto her to make all of my thoughts and feelings go away. The way she started stroking my hair reminded me of someone else, but I kept my thoughts focused on her.

Breathe, I told myself sternly. Forget about him for just one night.

It took a lot out of me to do that but I did it for long enough that I fell asleep right there in Tara's arms.