Chapter 46 Two Halves of a Heart #2
I gaped at her words and the immediate scar they sliced across my heart.
I’d seen Monica’s anger attack before, but never had she aimed it at me.
Whenever Monica was mad, she attacked with the intention of leaving a mark on her victims no matter what level she had to stoop to in order to achieve it.
“Hey.” Ethan’s deep voice cut through Monica’s ruthless words as he eyed her with upset of his own. “You need to cool it before you say something you can’t take back.”
A merciless smile broke out on Monica’s face as she turned to him.
“Oh, you mean like she can’t take back fucking my fiancé?”
Ethan’s nostrils flared, and I just wanted all of it to stop. Everything. This scene. The moment. Breathing. Living. I wanted it all gone so that I could start again. I needed a do over in this life.
“There’s no excuse for it, but I pursued her, okay? If you’re going to be mad at anyone, be mad at me.”
“I am mad at you! What the fuck is wrong with you, Ethan? What, I wasn’t enough so you had to stick it in my sister, too?”
“Please stop,” I cried, shaking my head back and forth as my hands fisted into my hair, pulling on the strands they could grab until it hurt. The burn against my scalp was significant and yet still not enough.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This wasn’t the plan I had for my life.
Crying myself to the edge of my sanity in a parking lot while simultaneously losing the two people I love most in this world was not my plan.
I was greedy in trying to keep them both when my world was only designed for one or the other.
I just wanted to be happy for longer than a glitch in time.
“Did you ever stop to consider me in all of this? How it would impact me ?”
“All the time,” I sobbed, nodding adamantly. “I was going to tell you, Monica. I was, I swear.”
When I first considered telling Monica, all I wanted was her forgiveness. Now all I wanted was for her to stop looking at me like I was a stranger she couldn’t wait to get away from.
“If I could take it all back I would,” I huffed, trying to catch my breath through the suffocating heartache.
“I should have been stronger and I wasn’t and I-I failed you and you have no idea how sorry I am, but I love you so much and I—” Another sob cracked through my voice like lightning. “I need you to not hate me. Please .”
At that point I was nearly on my knees, begging for her with both halves of my bleeding heart in each hand.
One half was for Ethan and the other half was for Monica, but the pieces didn’t fit together anymore.
Every time I tried to connect them, one stabbed the other with a misshapen angle that refused to click in place.
The halves of my heart didn’t and wouldn’t mend, so I had to choose which one I could live without and survive with only half a heart.
Weak and overwhelmed past the state of hysteria, I hoped that seeing how openly broken I was at the thought of losing her would steer her answer. I needed her. I couldn’t survive without her, and she had to know that. She had to consider it against my deplorable transgressions.
“It’s hard to not hate you when I can’t even look at you.”
“ No .” The word pushed out of me just like the teardrops that slid down my cheeks, desperate and mournful.
Monica turned away from me and I felt the immediate loss of her so deeply, I was sure I had swallowed glass. The feeling was blinding and unbearable, scraping around my chest like it was carving her existence out from my bleeding heart.
Gravel from the road dug into my knees as I fell to the ground and wailed in the street like I had lost my mind and all sense of my surroundings. I cried so hard that air got caught between my sobs, and I choked on my sadness. Arms surrounded me and soft shushes came from somewhere above me.
“It’ll be okay. I promise.”
The voice and the arms around me rocked my body against theirs, attempting to soften my violent cries, but it was no use.
“She’s gone,” I sobbed, gasping for breath.
“She won’t stay mad forever. We’ll fix this,” he soothed against my hair. “I promise you we can fix this.”
“No!” A bolt of anger struck my body, and I shoved him away from me. Standing up on numb feet, I gripped onto the anger to steady myself because it was all I had left to lean on.
“There is no fixing this and there is no we.”
Ethan’s strength stumbled in his expression over my words, and his dark brows sewed together. “Yes there is. Alice, I’m not letting you go through this alone.”
“That’s the only way I have a chance at getting her back! I can’t have both of you.”
“ Yes you can.”
Desperation was fast acting in both Ethan’s voice and eyes. It consumed him as he pleaded with me. “We just have to give her time and then we can explain that—”
“Stop! Just stop it, okay? There is no fixing this if you and I are together. That’s what fucked everything up in the first place!”
The surprise of my curse splashed across his face as if he’d been slapped again, but I didn’t stop there.
“Loving you was a mistake,” I forced myself to say through my unending tears. “I’m sorry I ever let it get this far.”
Ethan’s face fell, taking with it his half of my heart. “You don’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do.”
And it was true. It was a mistake. All of it. And I was sorry that I let our love run away together as far as I had. If I had chosen Monica like I tried to and failed so many times, none of this would be happening.
“You need to stay away from me.”
Slowly, I backed away from him, forcing the distance between us; whatever it took. I should have done this a long time ago. I should have done this the first time he tried to kiss me. The first time I wanted to kiss him. The first time I even toyed with choosing romance over family.
Ethan made a move towards me. “Alice—”
“Leave me alone, Ethan,” I cut him off. “For good.”
And then I turned away from him, sucking down a quick yelp of pain and biting down on my lip to hold back a scream as my heart ripped in two.
The half that belonged to him shredded through my body to stay by his side and so I left it, knowing there was no use in getting it back.
It was his and would always be his and I would always be left with half a heart, pumping half a life through me.
As I ran back to my car, Ethan called out to me one last time.
“Slim!”
And I nearly collapsed to the ground. Sobs tortured my body as I ran to my car, literally falling to my hands and knees beside it.
I was done, defeated, broken in half by my own hands as I cried out more and more of Ethan’s love.
I couldn’t keep up with how fast I was losing all of it.
My body was draining dry of it, and my chest grew emptier and sadder with every tear.
It was the right thing to do, but it hurt so fucking much that I wanted to just die right there, alone on the ground. Especially as his final word to me echoed through my ears and all I could think was how much I would always love him too.