Why Now?

Chapter One

When I saw Eli standing in front of me, I started to shut the door in his face. Seeing him sent me back to the day we broke up; to what he said and how his words made me feel... how they still made me feel. It was causing more harm than good. "Wait," he said and he stuck his foot within the frame of the door, so it wouldn't close all the way. "Let me explain."

"I don't have time for this right now." I told him, holding the door closed so he couldn't open it. That wasn't a lie; Callie would wake up any minute and she was going to be hungry. I didn't want to give him the chance to hear her when she started crying. That would make things so much worse. Not only that, I didn't have the energy to deal with this, whatever it might have been. There were so many other important things going on in my life that I had to worry about. I couldn't afford to have Eli back on my mind all the time too.

"Please, Wren. Just give me a minute." I thought about it for a moment, then sighed. Having this conversation with him was the last thing I needed, but I guess I didn't have much of a choice. Eli was stubborn, sometimes more so than me. The only way around this was to let him talk.

I opened the door and Eli's eyes swept over me all the way from my toes up to the top of my head. His eyes lingered on my neck longer than anything else. As a natural reaction, my hand went to grasp the chain and charm hanging from it.

Shit, I thought to myself. I hadn't realized that I still had it, nor that I had continued to wear the necklace the whole time. It was muscle memory at that point to take it off for showers and put it back on after. Not to mention, there were so many other things that had been going on in my life that I was still trying to process and heal from. On top of that, my whole world, outside of my classes, revolved around Callie. I didn't have the time or energy to remember, think or worry about the jewelry.

He smirked to himself before he continued studying me. When he finished taking in my state, he spoke again, "still as beautiful as ever."

Huh, yeah right! I thought to myself. If anything, I looked like a hot mess. My hair was up in a messy bun with curls and fly always escaping everywhere. I knew there were deep circles under my eyes due to not getting much sleep. I was chubbier from leftover baby weight that I couldn't seem to lose. I had on an old, ratty t-shirt and a pair of black leggings. I wasn't wearing a bra because, quite frankly, it was much more uncomfortable to wear one now than before Callie. The shirt was filled with holes and most likely had spit-up stains or breast milk spots from leaking or both. The leggings had old paint stains on them from the many times I repainted the walls and when I used to craft. So I knew he was lying.

A light blush rose to my cheeks at the compliment anyway, though I hated that he could still be the cause of a reaction like that, "stop it." I told him seriously, before asking him "what do you want?"

"To explain myself," Eli started. I looked at him warily. What could he possibly have to explain? And why would he wait so long to do so? He sighed before speaking again, "I took my frustration out on you and that wasn't right. I had someone in my ear telling me things that I know now couldn't have been true, but it continued and I got angry and took it out on you. I'm sorry. You didn't deserve to be treated like that."

"Eli, I-"

"Let me finish, Wren, please," he interrupted. I nodded quickly, completely out of my comfort zone. I didn't know what to make of this. "I was angry for a while at you and the situation. I didn't want to believe that you had done what he said, but I did. For a long time, I couldn't even think about you without getting angry. Then one day I realized that with everything you'd been through, you would never even consider cheating. I'm sorry for insulting you that way. I'm so sorry for putting you through that."