Let Love Heal (The Love Series) (21 page)

I slump back into my chair and let
my
worries fade away. It’s the only way that I can take on his. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I can hear the tenuous shaking of his breath as it escapes through his lips - lips I suddenly long to kiss and comfort. “It’s just that she’s having a really hard time dealing with things at home. Apparently, my dad is moving out this week and Emmie doesn’t understand it. I just spent the last hour trying to explain it to her, but it’s just too big for her to wrap her head around.”

“Oh, Bryan. I’m so sorry.” I hate that there’s pity in my words. I hate that I’m just going to cause him more pain.

I hear a hardened sigh fly out of his mouth as something crashes down in the background. “Fuck!” he yells, his emotions obviously getting the best of him.

“Calm down. It’ll be okay. I don’t know how, but it will be. You’re a good brother being there for Emmie. You know that, right?” My fingers itch to touch his face, to feel his stubble beneath them.

“I don’t feel like that right now. I feel so helpless. I just wish I could be there for her.” A throaty growl echoes down the line and my heart breaks for both him and Emmie.

“I’m getting another call, Melanie. Hold on one second, okay?”

“Sure.” The thirty seconds that he’s on the other line stretch out painstakingly. Yet in that short span of time, I decide that what I have to tell him can’t be said over the phone, especially after learning this. Breathing out a tortured breath, I wait for him to click back to me.

“Hey, I have to take the other call. It’s my mom. Rain check on tonight?” His anger has morphed into vulnerability and I just want to wrap my arms around him. He deserves so much more than what he’s being handed. Unfortunately, that includes me as well.

I hear him shuffle a few papers before he says, “I think we’re both off from the lab on Wednesday night. Can we get together then?”

Without even thinking about it, I blurt, “Yes. Of course. I’ll see you then. Bryan, I …” the words I want to say get stuck in my throat, so instead of telling him that I love him, I say, “I’m here for you. Call me if you need to.”

“I know. I will. I gotta go. Talk to you later, babe.” And then the line goes dead.

So does a piece of my heart.

The freezing rain cuts through the winter air. Even though I’m wearing rain boots and a rain jacket, I feel soaked to the bone. Chills race over my body and I feel like I will never warm up.

And that may very well be true.

It almost feels like tiny razor blades slicing at my freckled face. It’s a welcome pain, though. I’ll take the physical kind of pain over the emotional torture I’ve been putting myself through. I just wish I didn’t have to put Bryan through it too. No matter how many times I wrack my brain over it, there’s just no way around not telling him the truth. I even contemplated just breaking up with him – no explanation, no reason, no justification. But I know, that despite how much this confession is going to gut me, I owe Bryan this much. I owe him at least a reason.

After a short ten minute walk, I arrive at the on-campus senior apartment suites where Bryan lives. I bring my purple-with-cold hand up to his door and knock timidly. The vibrations from knocking course through my arm and a pins and needles sensation pulses across my skin. A sinking feeling crushes in my chest and a lump of emotion rises in my throat as I hear his footsteps get closer to the door.

The knob turns and I swear my heart stops beating. Nervousness engulfs me and makes my legs almost too weak to even hold my weight. Through the grey haze of the early evening, and the crackling sound of the rain pelting against the building, I see and hear the door creak open.

“Melanie, what the hell?” Bryan reaches to pull me into his door when he sees me standing there, soaked and shivering. He grabs a throw blanket from his small couch, which is right next to the front door and wraps it around my shoulders after he peels my raincoat from me.

Bryan starts rubbing my shoulders and upper arms as he pulls me close to his solid chest. “What are you doing here? I’m supposed to pick you up in like two hours.” He takes a step back from our embrace and tips my chin up so that I can look in his face. When he stares into my eyes, I swear he can see everything. Concern knits at his brow. “Is something wrong?”

I nod my head and move past him to sit on the couch. Pulling the blanket tighter around my shoulders, I feel that sickening feeling creep up in my belly. The couch sinks as Bryan settles in next to me. I try to garner as much strength as possible from the arm that he’s just wrapped around my shoulder.

On a deep breath and a silent prayer, I steel myself for the inevitable outcome of this conversation.

“We need to talk, Bryan.” My voice shakes with both fear and a chill that just will not leave my body. My teeth start to chatter and I’m pretty sure that my lips are blue. Sliding one leg under the other, I twist to face him on the couch and he does the same.

That concerned look hasn’t left his face. “What do we need to talk about, Melanie?” he questions softly as he coaxes a strand of soaking wet hair that’s plastered to my forehead behind my ear. When he softly traces my jawline and cheekbone before placing his hand on mine, I can actually feel my heart split in two.

Here goes nothing.

“I have something to tell you,” I blurt out.

He softly chuckles at me. Tilting his head to the small window behind us, he says, “Well, I kind of figured as much since you walked here in this weather. What’s the matter?”

I’ve run over this conversation a million times in my head and I still can’t figure out where to start. What feels like hours pass between us, and I still can’t find the words.

With two fingers under my chin, Bryan angles my head up to his. “Hey, baby. Whatever it is, you can tell me. I’m here.”

My God! Could he be any more perfect?

Just as I’m about to speak, he cuts me off. “I know I’ve been distracted lately with my parents. But I don’t ever want you to think that I’m not here for you. I … I’ve actually wanted to tell you something for a while.” Cupping my face gently in his warm hands, the pads of his thumbs trace over my cheeks and his warm lips dance softly across mine. I melt into him knowing that it will be the last time I’ll ever feel
this.

When he pulls away from the kiss, he traces his knuckles lightly across my face. The action makes my eyes flutter open, and what I see before me is amazingly breathtaking. Bryan’s warm eyes are wide and sincere. The soft crinkle in the corners that’s always there seems softer now as his lips pull up gently at the corners.

He pulls both of my hands into his and brings them up to his lips. Returning our laced-together fingers to my lap, Bryan gazes at me one last time as the words, “I love you” tumble freely from his mouth.

Involuntarily, I gasp. My eyes widen and my heart speeds up. Pulling one of my hands from his, I cover my mouth. Not knowing what I have to tell him, Bryan must confuse my reaction for excitement because he laughs at what he must perceive as crazy girl antics.

Without letting me say anything, he covers my mouth with his once again. He starts speaking against my lips, through our kiss. “I’ve never said it to anyone before, but I do. Melanie, I love you and I’m so sorry that I’ve been a crappy boyfriend lately.”

With wide eyes and trembling hands, I inhale a shuddery breath and try to find the words that I know I need to say. But instead of words coming out of my mouth, tears stream down my face and my throat constricts.

“Shh, baby. Don’t cry,” he coos into my ear as he pulls me to his chest. Dancing lightly through the tangled mass of my wet hair, Bryan’s fingers calm me a little.

“I’m so sorry, Bryan. I’m so sorry,” I say I’m sorry over and over again, but he doesn’t know what I’m sorry for.

Yet.

Looking at me once again, his eyes still soft and warm, he calmly says, “It’s okay. You don’t have to say it back. Just know that I love you.” He kisses his lips gently to my temple and I lose it.

Wrapping my frail arms tightly around his waist, I tell him the words I wanted to tell him so long ago. “Bryan, I love you too, so much,” I whisper the words a few more times into his heather-grey T-shirt before pulling completely away from him. My body chills again without his warmth pressed up against me.

I wipe at the tears streaking my face and take a deep breath. Straightening my spine and squaring my shoulders, I swallow my guilt and let the words fall.

“I love you too. And no, I’m not just saying it because you said it. I do love you, but I have to tell you something else, and I know that after I tell you, you won’t love me anymore.” He gives me a “don’t be crazy” look and moves to speak, but I cut him off.

“I slept with someone else.”

I wish I could say that I feel lighter for finally having said those words, but I can’t. All I feel now is crushing pressure as my heart begins to implode.

Bryan recoils from me and shoots up from the couch. There isn’t much space in the small room, but he’s frantically pacing the small patch of carpeting that’s there. I can’t imagine what’s racing through his head. Hell, with everything going on with his dad cheating, I
don’t
want to imagine it.

I notice that his hands start to shake so I stand up next to him and try to hold them to calm him. Not surprisingly, he doesn’t let me touch him. Instead, he folds his arms across his chest and stands stoically in front of me. He scrubs his hand gruffly across his face and growls out a loud “fuck” which reverberates through the small living room.

I can feel his anger pulsating off him. The tension is so palpable that I just don’t know what to say. Nothing matters now, anyway.

Roughly, he stuffs his hands into his pockets and stares at me harshly. “With who?” he grits out.

“I don’t know.” A mouse squeaks more loudly than I just spoke.

Seething now, he steps in front of me. “What did you just say?”

“I said, I don’t know.” My eyes are staring at the old, stained carpet – that sight more pleasant than the anguished filled look I’d surely see on Bryan’s face.

“You don’t fucking know? What the hell kind of answer is that? Tell me everything, Melanie.” He yells and it forces more tears to spill past my lids. Still unable to speak, he yells at me again. “Fucking tell me!”

I fall back on the couch at the anger in his words. I hate myself for putting them there, for erasing the beauty that is usually etched onto his face.

Through my sobs, sobs to which I have no right, I choke out, “It was over Christmas break. I’m so sorry, Bryan. Please, I love you. I’m so sorry.”

More pacing and more sobs. An awkward, painful silence. Our hearts are being torn in half, with the hope of ever being repaired off in the vast unsure distance before us.

After a few minutes, my tears stop enough for me to see that his anger has morphed somewhat into sadness. Bryan flops onto the couch and huffs a loud sigh.

I look over at him – his shoulders sag and his face sinks with pain. With his eyes searching the ceiling for some kind of escape, he whispers, “Why?”

His elbows fall to his knees and his head drops into his hands as he whispers “why” over and over again.

“I … I … don’t know. I’m sorry.” I stumble over my words unable to find any that will help to explain my motives.

“No!” he barks. “Tell me, now. Why? Was I not good enough?” The hurt that tramples across his face makes me cave and tell him everything.

“It was because of the text. And then you weren’t calling me. I wanted to come visit you, but you told me not to. I thought you had moved on.” I let the words race out of my mouth and hope to God that they make sense.

Huffing, he stares at me confusedly. “What text?”

“Courtney sent me a picture of you two kissing and I just figured you got back with her. And then you told me not to visit you and you were so distant … I just thought … well, I just thought you were done with me. “

“Done with you?” he seethes quietly, but his flippant sarcasm shines through. “I thought I’d never be
done
with you,” he adds sadly.

A beat later, his anger returns as he recalls the rest of my words. “Why the fuck would I get back with her? Especially after everything I told you about her! Hell, even if she wasn’t a stuck-up bitch, the fact that I have told you over and over again that I don’t want her … that I want you. I don’t fucking understand why you never believe me.”

“I don’t either, Bryan. I hate that part of me … that part that questions everything. That can only see me as worthless. I …” Crying sounds emerge as my words trail off.

“You are not worthless,” he says as he sits back down next to me. His words are a little softer than they were a few minutes ago, but he’s still distant and cold. “And I told you not to visit because my parents were splitting up. None of that had
anything
to do with you and me.”

“I know. I know. I wish I knew that then, but I know it now. Please believe me that I’m so sorry. I would do anything to take it back, but I can’t.”

“This isn’t just about the cheating, Melanie.” His words shock me to silence.