Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
L ily
Me: I can’t stay with a man who doesn’t respect my wishes.
My fingers tremble as I hit send, and a hollow ache settles in my chest. Packing up my things in Ethan’s room doesn’t take long, and yet it’s grueling.
His room became my haven, but I don’t belong here anymore. He made his choice tonight. Apparently, his principles are more important than my feelings.
As I step out into the hallway, my chest tightens. I don’t want to go back to my sorority house, even though I love my girls.
I love Ethan more. It’s excruciating that he couldn’t choose me.
When I open the door to my sorority house, Kinsley is sitting on the living room couch.
“Lily.” She jumps from her seat and walks toward me. “What’s going on? Is your week with Ethan up already?”
Her voice is so gentle, so motherly, that the facade I’ve been holding on to crumbles. My eyes grow misty.
“I had to leave,” I say. “I couldn’t stay anymore.”
Her eyes grow wide. “There was more to it than just him helping you out, wasn’t there?”
A lump forms in my throat, and I can only nod. Kinsley seems to understand immediately, because she nearly leaps on me. “I knew he was in love with you. I knew it all along. Oh, honey. What did he do?”
I lean into her warmth. “He can’t accept me as I am,” I say in a choked voice. “He wants to stick to his strict Ethan code regardless of how it affects me. It’s more important to him than a promise he made to me.”
She squeezes me tightly before letting me go and looking into my eyes. “He’s a stubborn guy. That’s for sure. But, Lily, I really think he’s one of the good ones. Maybe he just needs a little more time.”
“No,” I say firmly. “Something happened tonight. He…” I wince. None of this is going to make sense to her since I never told her the full truth. Oh well, I’ll tell her what I can. “He punched Mason because of me. On the sidelines after the game tonight. You might even see it on the news.”
She pulls away, her eyes growing huge. “He punched him? Because…Mason is your ex?”
I lower my gaze to the carpet beneath my feet. “It’s a complicated story, and I’ll tell you all of it when I’m ready.”
She nods slowly. “I always thought there was more to your breakup than you let on.”
My throat grows tight. “There was.”
Her expression softens. “Well, I’m here whenever you need me.”
I let out a heavy breath. For the first time in months, the idea of telling another person about what happened to me doesn’t fill me with shame. I can thank Ethan for that.
Maybe it’s a good thing that Ethan and I were thrown together, even if it ultimately broke my heart. He taught me I can’t stay bottled up forever, that all it does is make the pressure of my troubles build like bubbles in a shaken champagne bottle, ready to explode at any moment.
I might finally be able to sleep in my own dreaded bedroom tonight, but it’s little consolation.
I’ll miss those big arms wrapped around me, and the steady comfort of his heartbeat. But I’m strong enough to prioritize needs.
I just wish I didn’t have to.
Ethan
Her things are gone.
It doesn’t take a detailed search to confirm it. The few items she’d brought with her—her duffel bag, the toothbrush sitting on my sink, the clothes she left strewn on the floor after the last time I peeled them off—are nowhere to be found.
I already knew she wouldn’t be here. Her text implied she’d be gone.
Yet a chilling emptiness spreads through me, and memories of the day my dad left come flooding through my mind. All his things were gone too.
When I cried and told my mom he left because I was bad—the silly fear of a child—she held me and told me it had nothing to do with me. That moms and dads get in fights. That he would be coming back.
It was months before she learned the full extent of what he did, and even when she tried to shield the details from me, I knew.
She couldn’t hide that there was someone else. Not when I had to stay with my dad’s mistress during my rare weekends with him.
I knew the truth. He chose that woman over us. Because what we provided him wasn’t fulfilling enough for his insatiable, selfish quest for what he called happiness.
Over time, I got over it. I decided I was lucky that blustering prick moved out. Lucky that he cared so little about me that he rarely exercised his custody rights. Hell, he paid my mom more child support just to avoid me.
This loss feels different. In this moment, this ache in my heart feels permanent, a scar that will follow me everywhere, even into death.
Lily brought into my life something I never knew existed: pure, unbridled joy. She’s become my key to unlocking the beauty and tenderness that life can offer. Without her, I’m lost in a sea of unquenchable longing. A void not even God can fill.
Just like I was before she came into my life.
Despair wraps around me like a vise, squeezing tighter with each second. I sink onto the edge of the bed, burying my face in my hands.
The room is cold, lifeless without her. The light in my heart has been shut off, leaving me in darkness.