Note: This version of the story is a draft. The complete book has been published in ebook and paperback and available for purchase :)
Tessa O'Connell is a girl with an unbreakable spirit and a strength that will get her through anything. Her goal f...
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(Savage^^)
Chapter Fourteen: A Valley Girl Stores Kale Like A Camel Stores Water
Looking back at my life, although it doesn't require too far a look back, I realise that I don't really have a penchant for aggressive behaviour. Am I dramatic? Of course I am, it runs in the family. My grandmother likes to tell me the story about her high school prom date bailing on her and how the very next day she showed up to his house, claiming to be the mother of his unborn child. It'd been a huge production, complete with lots of tears and yelling and cursing the young man in question to hell. Apparently her little ploy worked because she never saw him again. Grandma being the smart cookie that she is knew exactly what she was doing because she never saw the guy again. I think going to a Minister's house and telling him that he's son's definitely not saved himself for marriage and has had a child out of wedlock would prompt drastic action to be taken.
So I think a flair for the dramatic definitely runs in the family and some dormant aspect of my personality that I inherited from Grandma has come alive forcing me into this confrontation. Do I have a game plan? No. Do I have even the slightest hint of what to say to a woman who is causing all sorts of problems in my six year relationship? Not really. But what I do know is that things can't just go on the way they are. Cole might have shut me out and in a way I'm not even doing this for him. My flying all the way down her to talk to Mel isn't a desperate attempt to salvage our relationship. I'm doing it for me. I'm the one who needs answers and I'm the one who does not want to be kept in the dark anymore. If she refuses to see me, I'll find another way to get her to talk. If I'm here, then it's because I refuse to play the part of the clueless girlfriend who gets made fun of while her boyfriend lives a life she's completely unaware of.
I'm preparing myself to argue, to make my case to the manager on duty just so that he lets me up but I realise that while I've been planning out my speech he's been saying something.
"I'm sorry what?" He looks at me a little strangely.
"I said you can go up. She told me to remind you what floor her apartment is on as well as the number. Apparently you two don't see each other often."
"Yes?" I feel a little dazed that Mel gave in so easily. I didn't think she'd want to meet me at all, especially if she's aware of mine and Cole's fight.
He's been so tight lipped about whatever it is that's going on here and that's the one big reason for our fallout. Even when he's called or texted to apologise, he's never once answered my questions and I just don't know why. Without even wanting to, I think about what Leila said to me about Cole being bored and wanting to be with someone who needed him.
Just like I once had.
Make no mistake, I still love him with everything that I am but I don't rely on him for my very next breath like I had when I first fell in love with him. Back then, he took a girl who had absolutely no self-value and who was self-deprecating to a fault. I relied on him to feel good about myself, to see myself in another light than I'd been painted in. Of course I needed him then because he was the only person holding me up. Everything around me, all the relationships that I valued were crumbling and he walked in like this ray of pure, unadulterated light and happiness. He made me love myself, made me realise that I could be more than just the ostracised former fat girl with a dysfunctional family. Because although I'd lost the weight I needed to by the time he came back, my mind was still stuck in the body of that overweight, scared girl who'd been torn into by bullies. I don't need to be reminded of the drastic measures I took to change the number on the scale but I'm terrified to think of what I would have kept doing had he not walked back into my life. Before he came back, I'd pinned my hopes on another boy, his stepbrother Jay and when Cole came and rescued me, those feelings switched to him.
