18. Chapter Eighteen
Walking out Easton’s front door with no plans on returning was the easiest, yet hardest, decision I’ve ever had to make. After the way he treated me last night, what did he expect?
Savanna’s name pops up on my phone and I blow out a rough breath, hoping my sadness won’t make itself known to her. The last thing I need is for her to pity me right now. All I want is a place to stay until I figure something else out.
I’ll look into transport out of this town soon, but for now my thoughts turn to Bethany and how devastated she’ll be when she wakes up to find out I left. I’ve left a note sitting on the kitchen counter addressed to Easton, telling him why I can’t keep working for him. Surely that should be enough for his cold heart to process.
He doesn’t deserve much else right now.
Sitting in my car, I call Savannah. “Hello?” Her soft voice echoes through the bluetooth, startling me from my thoughts. “What’s up, Autumn?”
“Uh, do you have room for me to crash at your place? Just until I find somewhere else I can afford.”
“Goddammit,” she mutters. “I knew he’d screw everything up with his stubborn fucking brain. Yeah, come over. The front door will be unlocked and I’ll be on the back patio waiting for you.”
The fact that she knows exactly what happened sends another wave of fresh tears falling from my eyes and I swipe them away angrily. He doesn’t deserve my tears right now, yet I can’t seem to stop them because they aren’t only falling for him. I’d become used to waking up every day to find Bethany’s smiling face in the kitchen and a mug of coffee held out to me, knowing that I needed it before I start the day.
I’m not going to experience that anymore.
It cracks my heart, but I can’t take all the responsibility. I was stupid enough to believe that Easton had removed a small sliver of the wall blocking his heart, allowing me a chance to get inside and give him what I know he craves. He’s just too scared to admit it. He only wanted me for a moment and had every intention of discarding me like trash.
Will things ever go the way I want them to?
I let the tears subside, then pull away from the house that has slowly turned into a home for me, refusing to look in the rearview mirror. If I look even once, there’s a chance I’ll turn around and change my mind, but I can’t do that. Not until Easton admits to himself what he really wants and stops playing with my emotions.
Just as Savanna said, her front door is unlocked and I push inside easily, beelining for the sliding glass door that leads to her large patio. She’s rocking slowly on the love seat Dawson got her recently and immediately holds her arms out to me with a frown. “Get over here, babe.”
Without saying a single word, I climb onto Savanna’s lap and let the tears fall again until there’s nothing left to drain out of me. I’m fresh out of tears by the time I get up and sit next to her, shaking my head. I’m disappointed in myself for giving him this much of my time and energy. “How could I have been so stupid?”
Savanna sighs and runs her fingers through my hair, not caring at all when they get stuck on a knot. “You weren’t stupid, Autumn. The only stupid one in this scenario is my brother who is too consumed with fear to realize the damage he is causing.”
“I walked out,” I mumble and surprisingly, a new wave of tears builds up in my eyes. “How hurt do you think Bethany will be?”
She gives me a small smile and shrugs. “She’ll probably understand why you did it, but I’m sure you don’t plan on being completely separated from her life.” When I’m silent, she pushes away from me and pokes her bottom lip out. “Right?”
I avert my eyes from hers and look out at the darkened sky, which shows a sliver of light to indicate the start of a new day, then I shrug. “I’m not sure what I’m doing, Sav. How can I face him after all this?”
She’s my best friend and knows as well as I do how bad my crush was for him years ago, so I’m sure it’s easy to imagine what it’s like now that I’ve gotten a taste of him. Can she really expect me to stick around after that?
Her hand gently comes over my mine and she gives it a squeeze. “If I know you, then you’ll figure it out.” She sighs and looks in the direction of the sky with me. “As much as I love you, Autumn, you have a nasty habit of not sitting still and letting things come to you as they’re meant to. You quit everything too easily as soon as it gets tough, which is what’s happening right now.”
I open my mouth to respond, but she holds her hand up and I clamp it shut. “I’m not saying Easton doesn’t deserve to be pushed a little, which is what I think you walking out will do, but I don’t believe you should completely disappear without talking to him again.”
“He said things to me last night that I can’t begin to forgive, Sav. He screwed up big this time.”
She nods slowly. “Would it help if you knew that for the thousandth time my mother mentioned setting him up with someone from town?” I glance at her briefly, then go back to looking at the sky – it’s the only thing that can keep me sane right now. “It’s an ongoing problem and I think last night Easton got fed up with it, and it didn’t help that apparently Bethany admitted she knew about you guys. It went downhill from there.”
That all makes sense as to why he was so frustrated, but that doesn’t excuse the way he talked to me. Would I possibly give him a chance to apologize and make it up to me? Sure. Am I counting on him making that move without having to be told? Not at all.
“I just need space,” I mutter, hoping that will satisfy her for now. There’s no point in telling her that my mind is mostly made up and that I’ll be researching possible accommodation ideas once I wake up in the next morning.
As for this morning, I’m likely going to be shoving my weight in junk food into my mouth in hopes that I don’t gain anything on my damn hips. At least I’ll have Savanna there to support me, even if it’s with that devastating look of pity on her face that she’s giving me right now.
I’m almost finished with an entire tub of chocolate chip cookie dough when my phone vibrates on Savanna’s coffee table. I pick it up, fully expecting Savanna to be the one calling me and my heart stops at the sight of Easton’s name instead.
It’d be more mature if I answered his call, but I never claimed I was mature in the slightest and that’s why I turn my phone screen so it’s not visible and lean back into the couch. There’s a small smile on my face, thinking I got one over on him for once, but it ends up ringing again and again, one call after another.
My irritation is reaching extraordinary heights when Savanna finally steps through the door with her phone at her ear and a frown on her face. “Sorry, big bro, I can’t help you.” I sit up straight on the couch, watching like a hawk as she walks through the house without looking at me, then I get up so I can hear the rest of her conversation.
She holds a finger up, then shakes her head. “I don’t know what to tell you, Easton, maybe you should’ve been nicer to her.” Her face pales as soon as she says that because the only way she’d know anything about our fight is if I either came here, or called her about it.
Considering he knows I don’t have a home anymore, I’m sure he’s already figured out which one I went with.
Did I have to be so damn obvious?
I groan loudly, then stomp into the living room to finish the rest of my now melted ice cream. Whether Easton is coming here or not, I’m not about to let him ruin my splurge on the sweet goodness.
Savanna sinks onto the couch beside me and runs a hand through her hair. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have answered his damn call.”
“He was bound to figure out where I was eventually. At least I got a few hours or so out of it.”
I’m already mentally prepared when Easton knocks loudly on the door and Savanna pulls it open with a bright smile. He doesn’t even bother to acknowledge her, instead heading straight for me still curled up on the couch. He comes to a stop in front of me. “What the hell, Red?”
I pucker my lips and shake my head. “Don’t you dare call me that right now. You don’t have any right.”
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Look, I know I screwed up last night, but was it really necessary to walk away like that?”
“Are you kidding me? I should’ve done worse than that. You’re lucky I had at least some sense not to come up in your room and give you a little parting gift.”
“What is so wrong?” He asks, as if he’s genuinely clueless as to why I’m this upset. It makes my heart sink even lower in my chest.
He’s so fucking blind to love at all that he can’t even tell I’ve fallen for him? I fucking live for the mornings when he is home, smiling and laughing with Bethany. Somehow it brings a light into my life that has been missing for a very long time. I thought he’d noticed, but apparently not.
While my heart has slowly gotten used to being in a house with him and Bethany, he’s been waiting for me to walk the fuck away so he doesn’t have to deal with his feelings.
“If you can’t figure it out, then I don’t know what to tell you. Please leave me alone.”
A look passes over his features, one I desperately want him to act on, but he shakes it away and nods his head slowly. “If that’s what you want.”
With each step that he takes away from me, my heart cracks a little more until I’m left sitting on the couch with more tears falling like a waterfall down my face. I’m pathetic to be giving him this much power over me, but I can’t help it.
How can he not realize he’s breaking me?
Savanna doesn’t say anything when she sits down next to me. She just wraps an arm around me. There’s not much she can say, not when she knows exactly what I’m going through right now.
Except she got the guy in the end and I can’t be entirely confident that it will happen to me. I didn’t even have him in the first place.
That thought sends me into another fit of sobs and I let myself slowly drift into a much needed sleep. At least this way my mind can’t focus on him, or so I think. Green eyes still meet me in my dreams, even though I desperately try to shove them away.