It's You

Chapter Ten

I got halfway to my parents' house and had to pull over because I was crying so hard.

Declan is asleep in the backseat and thinking about going home makes me feel ill.

Thinking about telling my parents why I'm crying, about telling Ali...

I can't. I bet they'll invite me to the wedding. The Moran's and my family will be heartbroken if I don't show up.

But I can't. I can't watch Aiden marry another woman.

I can't go home and talk about it.

And I can't avoid Aiden, but he's told me countless times he loves me, but not as a friend.

He's not going to let me leave his life again.

I'm furious with him. I'm furious that he waited so long to tell me, and I'm furious he almost kissed me right before he did.

If he loves her, why the hell was he about to kiss me? He wanted to kiss me when we went ice skating too.

If his fiancé finds out that Aiden almost cheated on her with me two different times, she's never going to forgive him.

I shake my head, beginning to wonder if I know him at all.

I mean, I never thought Aiden was the type of man to cheat, and technically he didn't, but he almost did, and that's enough to destroy a relationship. He just seemed like regular Aiden, the Aiden I loved when U was fifteen. The Aiden I never stopped loving.

But after hearing that he's engaged, I feel like I don't know him at all.

I grab a water bottle and get out of my car in the drug store parking lot. I pour some water in my hand and splash it on my face, taking a couple shaky breaths in.

I wipe my face on my shirt and get back in the car.

My fingertips grasp my cell phone and I hold down the power button.

I hit power off and set it on the seat, and then I rest both hands on the steering wheel and sit there for a good twenty minutes.

And then I pull back out onto the road and just start driving.

__________

I got onto the interstate and just drove, and drove, and drove. I drove until my eyes hurt so bad from crying and not sleeping that I felt like they were scraping against my eyelids every time I blinked.

I followed the street signs until I found an exit for a city I recognized, and now I sit in the parking lot of a Crowne Plaza hotel, at four in the morning, somewhere in Columbus, Ohio.

I grab my purse and the diaper bag and get out of the car, walking around to Declan's car seat.

He's fast asleep, so I carefully unbuckle him and lift him up.

He squirms in my arms and then rests his head on my shoulder, continuing to sleep.

I lock the car and walk, numb, across the parking lot to the entrance.

The woman behind the desk is rubbing her eyes when I walk in.

"Do you have any rooms?" I ask.

"Yeah." She nods.

"How much?"

"It's seventy eight dollars." She says.

I set my purse on the counter with my one free hand and fight it open, struggling to open the zipper.