Scars Like Ours | Red View Romance #2

🍂 Forty

As soon as he'd closed the door, Annie broke down. Crumpled right there on her studio floor next to the puddle of pink paint dripping onto the tarp. Humiliated and heartbroken, she couldn't get the tears to stop, and couldn't bring herself to do anything more than drag herself to bed. 

It didn't help--her pillowcase smelled like his shampoo, and the searing memory of what they'd done there only hours before sent her sobbing out into the living room, where she laid on her couch for the rest of the day wrapped in a quilted blanket, practically comatose apart from the frequent crying spells.

Her brain was numb; she couldn't think. All she knew was pain, deep, endless, and utterly deflating. 

Logically she knew she had a life to get back to at some point, but it wouldn't be today, or likely even tomorrow. She needed to grieve, to wallow in self-pity and mortification for at least twenty-four hours.

She thought she'd had a friend, and that was wonderful enough. Then she'd thought she'd had a lover, something she'd never imagined coming true. 

It turned out Cliff was neither. He'd fooled her. She'd fooled herself.

The oatmeal congealed in its pot on the stove, but she had no will to clean it, much less eat it. Her appetite evaporated, as did her drive to do anything else. She turned the TV on for a companionable distraction, but couldn't muster up the attention to watch even the most mindless of shows. One of her sketchbooks sat on the coffee table, beckoning her to release her emotions through her art, but her limbs were too heavy to even pick up a pencil, her mind too scattered to even know where to begin.

The sun went down, and eventually she fell asleep. Her routine remained the same the next day, empty and depressing. In the groupchat with her friends, she sent a reply to Kenzie's selfie on the beach and mentioned nothing of Cliff. She was nowhere near ready to talk about it, and wasn't sure what to say--besides, it was the last thing Kenzie needed to hear about while she was on her honeymoon. Layla was busy with her gym plans, and Gabby was busy sorting things out with Levi. She'd wait to talk about it, for everyone else's sake as much as her own.

On the third day, when she woke to the wind howling outside her apartment, the embarrassment over it all finally began to shift into fury. 

He was an ass. 

She'd been nothing but kind to him, and he'd taken advantage of her. Even as she thought it, her self-pity slowly transformed into self-disgust. What was she doing, sleeping on her couch, wearing the same clothes she'd been wearing since he'd left? When was the last time she'd eaten?

This is pathetic, she told herself, throwing off the quilt and sitting up. After a quick spell of lightheadedness, she headed to the bathroom and turned on the bath before strolling to the kitchen, where she grabbed a granola bar and filled up a large glass of water. She forced herself to eat, though her stomach still felt hollow and vaguely nauseated. Once finished, she went back to the steamy bathroom, stripped down, and lowered herself into the water.

She'd survive, she thought, turning off the faucet. The quiet solitude of her apartment washed over her. 

Had she really believed it would last? That he could love her? Stay with her?

Yes. She had, she realized. She'd let herself believe it, even if she wouldn't have admitted to it. She'd believed everything he'd said, even the words that seemed impossible. His dream come true.

"Bullshit," she muttered, the oath foreign on her tongue.

Her vexation grew as she washed herself and remembered the way his hands had scoured her body. Every single touch had been a lie. Did he think of her feelings at all? Would he have cared if he knew just how much it would hurt her?