When I Leave, and Other Broken Promises

Preface

So...was that it?

Was that what she'd waited for? He hadn't even bothered to stick around.

Candice lay on her side, staring at the open window across the room. Less than two hours before, he'd climbed through it, and, less than twenty minutes after she'd given herself to him completely, he'd climbed out again. At first, she'd asked herself why he hadn't used the door. Now, she knew better than to ask such questions.

Normally, she would have been chilly. It was barely May and it was well past midnight. Her sheer curtains were billowing slightly in a nighttime breeze so soft that she could hardly feel it on her face. She should have been cold, but all she could feel was regret. Maybe if his excuses hadn't been so painfully transparent. Maybe if he'd lingered just a little longer. Maybe if he'd tried just a little bit harder to pretend, to play the game with just a tad more finesse. Maybe then she wouldn't feel so used. But, he hadn't, and, in spite of it all, she knew she really had no one to blame but herself.

Right from the beginning, he'd sent her the message loud and clear, but she'd been deaf to it, caught up in her own version of reality. She'd seen what she'd wanted to see...hadn't she?

She found herself reaching back into her memory to the place where it had all started. At first, she'd suspected that it must have had its origins with Lindsey, but that wasn't right. Things hadn't really start going to hell until after Christmas. Maybe it was Valentine's Day? Well, not Valentine's Day, exactly, but Winter Ball. That's when the wheels had started turning, she decided. That was the night when she'd finally decided that she was done waiting for Curt Mezzlo...