One broken heart. Two old flames. An unexpected reunion.
Diana Hamilton has spent the last six years trying to leave the girl she was in high school behind. Along with any residual feelings she had for Mason Hayworth, the golden boy who shattered he...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I have never, ever been so angry in my entire life.
Rage seeps into every pore, until all I see is red. My pulse thrums beneath my skin and my heart pounds so hard it threatens to burst out of my rib cage. The words play over and over in my head like a merry go round.
Mason only dated you because he thought you had potential. Mason only dated you because he thought you had potential.
Everything clicks into place like missing puzzle pieces. From the fact that he approached me in the first place, right down to his throwaway comment in the car that I had been so eager to ignore. The truth which I had been blind to for so long, finally presents itself to me in the most hurtful way possible.
Mason never loved me. It's possible he never even cared about me. All he wanted was to change me, to mould me into what he considered beautiful. While I had been falling for him, he was nudging me in the direction he wanted.
Well, screw him.
My session with Amy earlier on in the week pops into my mind. I had been so quick to give her advice, and yet so oblivious to my own circumstances. I think back to what I said to her.
No matter what, you can't let anyone else define you.
Isn't that exactly what I have done? I have let Mason walk all over me, back then and now, making sure to stay inside the lines that he had drawn. I even let him dictate what I ordered, too scared of his rejection to stand up for myself.
There is no one else in the world that is like you.
Isn't that what Hailee had been telling me all along? Chase and Alexa too? No matter what I looked like, if Mason really cared, he would have accepted me for who I am.
But he never did.
Why am I only seeing this now?
Because this place was amazing, and someone didn't see its worth. Instead of making the time to take care of it, they neglected it and didn't care for it enough. And yet, it's still the most beautiful building in the whole town.
Damn, I feel stupid.
Although I want to, I can't lay all the blame at Mason's feet. After all, I am the one who let him try and change me. I had been so passive, so desperate to have him. For so long I had just wanted Mason to love me the way that I loved him. I would do anything or be anything that he wanted, so convinced that it was what I wanted too that I didn't even see how much he was controlling me.
I felt so grateful that someone like him would even date someone like me that I didn't question the fact that he did. I accepted the blame every time we had a fight. I ignored the fact that he was too embarrassed of me to even introduce me to his parents. I let him tell me what I could and couldn't eat.
Well, not anymore, that narcissistic, arrogant dirt bag.
I spent so much time wondering if I was good enough for Mason, that I never even considered whether he was good enough for me.
