Chapter 15 #2
“Okay, I don’t see it anywhere,” I say to Morgan, sitting down at our light wood table with green chairs—chairs Morgan splurged on a week ago when she said the feng shui of the place wasn’t vibing anymore.
She told me my funk was stinking up the place, so she changed most of the shared furniture after forcing me up and down the aisles of Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel, giving her credit card tied to her father’s account a workout.
“Okay, well, if you don’t have it, it seems to be officially MIA. Has anyone been over this week?” Morgan asks.
After what feels like minutes, an idea comes to me. It doesn’t make any sense at first, but the longer I sit there, the more the idea starts to take shape in my mind.
“Do you think…” I start. “Do you think Kane might have taken it?” I look at Morgan to see if she thinks I’m as nuts as I feel.
Her face screws up like she can’t tell if I’m joking or spiraling. “Why would he take the plate? That seems like something one of those jack-offs would have done during college.”
“I think that’s exactly what happened,” I muse, sitting back and crossing my arms over my chest, letting my mind wander.
“I think somehow that motherfucker figured out what we’ve been doing, and this is his retaliation.
” I stand up quickly, a light bulb dinging in my brain.
I hurry to grab my phone and dial Marcus.
I pace my room while it rings, waiting for this turncoat to answer his phone, only to get his obnoxious voicemail.
I toss my phone on my bed again with a huff.
I turn to Morgan, who stands in my doorway looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. “You call him. He always answers when you call.”
She scoffs, crossing her arms at the mention of Marcus. “He’s probably busy jacking himself off or something,” she replies with an air of nonchalance. Her blonde ponytail bobs as she flounces around the room, avoiding my stare. I huff a laugh. We walk back to the kitchen to reconvene at the table.
“So if Kane knows, what next?” Morgan asks, grabbing the peanut butter and bread. She pulls out four slices and plates them. She smothers them with way too much peanut butter, then turns and hands one to me as she retakes her seat opposite me.
“What do you mean?” I reply around an oversized bite of sandwich. The peanut butter sticking to my mouth makes the words come out muffled.
“Cute,” she teases at my full bite. “I mean, do we stop pranking him? Or do we get him back even harder?”
“Of course we get him back. That fucker doesn’t get to win just when he started to play.”
“Or you could talk to him, you know. Have a conversation. I know it sounds wild, but as a rational human, it should be considered,” Morgan suggests, one perfectly manicured eyebrow raised at me.
“Look, just because he isn’t actually dating someone else doesn’t change why we broke up.
He checked out, he gave up on me long before I broke things off.
And bringing all that up again is painful.
So, what happens if I do and nothing changes and he still doesn’t want me?
He let me walk out that door and didn’t come after me.
I waited up all night hoping for a knock on the door, or even a phone call, and got nothing.
” Tears fill my eyes because that’s the part that hurts the most. The broken, abandoned part of me needed him to come after me and prove I was worth keeping.
That I wasn’t defective or unwanted, as my brain likes to remind me on the rough days—the days when losing my parents feels all consuming.
“Honey, there hasn’t been a single second since that man met you that he hasn’t wanted you.
I saw the way he chased after you in high school and he hasn’t stopped chasing you since.
I don’t know what happened, but I know whatever thoughts you have spinning in that beautiful head of yours are wrong.
He is not your parents,” she soothes, always able to read my mind and see the parts of me I work so hard to keep hidden.
She reaches across the table, grabbing my hands in hers.
The feel of her soft palm gripping mine calms my racing brain and fills me with enough courage to keep speaking.
The thoughts circle my brain, the pain from my parents an ever-present bruise that feels as if someone pressed on it.
They abandoned me too—maybe not physically, but I can’t recall a single second they fought for me to stay in their lives.
When I told them I wanted to go no contact, they didn’t even seem bothered.
They acted as if my therapist was manipulating me into cutting them out of my life.
Their inability to see me and the damage they did is something I’ve been trying to heal from since long before this all happened.
“I know, Mor,” I rasp as my voice cracks.
“I just don’t know if I can handle it if this is it.
If it’s officially over. These past few weeks, I’ve been walking around with the delusion that someday we will be us again.
That I will wake up one day, and this nightmare will be over, and I won’t be walking around with this gaping hole in my chest. I know that I wanted to break up, but I just needed him to fight for me, to see the cracks already forming in our relationship and work on repairing them. ” A sob wracks through me.
Morgan rushes to my side of the table and pulls me into her, cradling my head against her stomach. She strokes my hair as the tears continue to pour out of me. I grip onto her as I let all my emotions pour out of me.
When my breathing finally slows, Morgan brushes my hair from my damp face. “Okay,” she says softly. “What’s the next prank?”
The panic recedes, pulling a strangled laugh from my chest. Her laughter follows until we’re both a mess, clutching onto each other.