Chapter 16
MICAH
A month later…
The way I feel is like someone’s ripping my entire old self out of my body—the version of me I built after Laura left, the one who was finally content. I had Heath, a really good job with guys I liked. A purpose. I just had to be a good man, and eventually, good things would come.
Well, they did.
Their name was Sienna Vesper.
Through the last several weeks, I’ve come to realize that Laura is the one person in my life who can still make me feel so strongly in a negative way.
Who eats up all the good I was trying to do before.
All the aspirations of things I wanted for myself, my son, and a life I was in the middle of building all came to a crashing halt.
The only thing I can focus on is burying Laura in court and forcing her out of our lives for good. 899
Nothing pleasant comes out of Laura Groves. I’ve berated myself a million and one times about how I could be so fucking stupid as to date her in the first place.
To fuck her to spawn a child with her.
As much as I would never take back the moment she gave life to Heath, there is a small part of me that wishes I had waited. That…if I had, Heath would have a different mom. I would have another future and life.
Laura comes with a lot of unnecessary drama, and it’s my fault I’m here. It’s my fault that I had to break things off with Sienna.
I couldn’t risk her.
There was no way I was going to drag her down this deep, dark hole that Laura was going to lead me in.
When there’s my ex, there’s a darker side of me that comes out to play.
I’m all petty and no mercy when it comes to that woman.
There is literally no chance in hell I was going to allow or put Sienna into that.
That woman was light.
That woman deserves the world, her job, and no gossip mills running around town with her name in it.
No, keeping her safe is a priority of mine, and regardless of the way I felt I had to go about it, it’s done.
We’re done.
I did what I had to do, said what I had to say to get her off my porch.
I had to be an asshole.
I had to treat her like I would Laura if she did the same thing because another second of that woman begging me to help, I would’ve caved. She would be here under the mess of court bullshit and my stress on a daily basis.
I’m not doing it.
No matter how much it’ll cost me in the end.
LAURA: I want to see Heath.
Dropping my burger straight in my lap, I glower at the screen, nostrils flaring and my blood pressure beginning to skyrocket through the roof.
This again.
I can feel the blinding hate fill my veins and soul because I wanted a lot of things, too. I begged her for months after she left us to change her mind.
Begged.
I never heard a response to any of those messages.
MICAH: Talk to your lawyer about it.
LAURA: I’m talking to you about it. We don’t have to do it this way. We can figure this out.
Yes, we do.
Laura is a wrecking ball that’s trying to break into our home, and I know she’s going to leave devastation in her wake.
It’s in her blood. It’s in her DNA. She cares about nothing and no one besides herself and what will make her happy at any given moment.
It doesn’t matter who she’s going to hurt in the process.
MICAH: Get off my phone and go talk to your lawyer.
LAURA: Micah, I love you. We can be a family.
My stomach knots at her fake admission of trying to manipulate me.
She doesn’t love me.
And she doesn’t love Heath the way she should. Laura admitted she was with someone else.
I haven’t forgotten that fact.
Not because I’m jealous, but because she’s had some sort of happiness that she didn’t and doesn’t deserve.
MICAH: Does your man know about that? Do you want me to play mistress to your boyfriend?
LAURA: Of course not.
LAURA: I just…after being here, I know.
MICAH: You don’t know anything, Laura. Now, again, get off my phone.
LAURA: This could work.
MICAH: And what happens to him?
LAURA: I break up with him. And you and I start fresh.
Do we now?
My God, people…if you ever decide to pull some shady ass shit on your other half, make sure it’s verbal so it ends up being a he said she said scenario.
Because what Laura doesn’t know is that I just screenshotted her conversation with me, and I’m already going on Facebook to find this random dude she’s been with.
I find him within seconds of typing in Laura’s name. A Paul Burgos.
Poor Paul.
I screenshot his Facebook profile and send it over to Laura, then shoot a text message over to test my theory.
MICAH: Did you want to tell him now, or did you want me to?
LAURA: Micah, don’t. Let’s talk first.
MICAH: Nah, you love me. What’s to talk about? You don’t need him. You don’t want to drag someone along while you long for someone else.
LAURA: I will. But I just want to know we’re going to work.
MICAH: And if we don’t? You gonna go run back to Paul?
LAURA: You’re being unreasonable.
MICAH: I don’t think I am. Message him right now and tell him.
LAURA: I can’t. I’d rather do it in person.
MICAH: Like you did with me?
Laura is so damn weak, it’s pathetic.
She doesn’t love anyone but herself. She doesn’t love me, and I’m scared to think of what she’s going to gain with Heath.
Or what she thinks she will.
I exit out of her text messaging thread. Sienna’s is right underneath hers, and I wish to God I could reach out, but I’ve already done enough.
I don’t want to be a Laura in her story.
I don’t wish to be someone to push and pull her back into the whirlwind of my bullshit.
I only desire the absolute best for the woman who temporarily pulled me out of the black depths of loneliness and showed me that I could care for someone else again.
And I fucked that up.
And I continue to fuck that up.
Because, for the next several months to a year…I do become someone who refuses to let her go and find any happiness outside of me.