I stare at him, desperately trying to soak up the last remnants of him that I’ll ever have, imprinting him into my memory. Wanting him to come over to me. Say something, anything. Even if it’s good-bye. But even more, I wish that he’d tell me he made a mistake. That he doesn’t want me to go.
He does nothing.
I take a step back as disappointment cuts through me, and I reach for the door handle to close it.
“Dillon.”
My heart pauses at the sound of my name. I look over at him. “Yes?”
He stares at me for what feels like an eternity. Then, he looks away. “Have a safe flight.”
“Have a safe flight.” Those four words crush the small fragments that remain of my heart to dust and make my eyes sting with tears that I can’t stop.
Turning from him, I shut the door. The thunk of it closing is so final.
The end.
thirty-one
Dillon
Time slows down when your heart is hurting. The days drag on. I’ve been home for three days. It’s been four days since I walked out of West’s apartment. It feels like it’s been longer.
Not seeing him is agony of the worst kind. I miss him so much. I spent nearly seven weeks with him. The first two of them solidly. I got so used to being with him that not having him around is strange. And shitty. So very fucking shitty.
When I got to the airport after the Uber driver dropped me off, I ended up wandering around and sitting in the airport all night until my flight boarded in the early morning. I was sleep-deprived and emotional. My journey back was hella long with the two stops and plane changes, and looking back now, it wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had. Being stuck on a plane with nothing but my thoughts for company for long periods of time was torturous. But I hadn’t exactly been thinking straight when I booked that flight.
I just keep thinking if I hadn’t asked him to read the book, maybe I would still be there with him right now. Maybe if I’d never written the book at all, things would be different. But I guess it was always destined to end at some point. West and I had an end date stamped on us, but it was only him who was privy to the exact date and time.
The funny—or not so funny—thing is, I don’t even have a copy of The Two-Week Stand. I wrote it on West’s laptop, and stupidly, I never emailed it to myself as a backup. I wasn’t even thinking about that when I left his apartment. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized it. And I can’t bring myself to text him and ask for him to send it to me.
I haven’t heard a thing from him. Not even a text to check that I got home okay.
Not that I expected him to. Just hoped. But I guess when West is done with someone, he really is done.
So, after all of that, I have nothing. I don’t have West, and I don’t have my book.
Maybe that book was a curse anyway. I mean, West read some of it and dumped me. Not dumped me. You can’t be dumped if you’re not in a relationship.
He just … put a stop to us.
Actually, you know what? He did break up with me. I don’t give a shit what he might think or say, but for those seven weeks, we were in a relationship. He might not be grown up enough to admit it, but I am. And when he read that ending and saw that possible future with me, he got scared—okay, those are Aunt Jenny’s words. She thinks he maybe has unresolved issues from his mum dying and finds it hard to get close to people. Maybe he’s scared of losing them like he lost her. I didn’t tell her about his difficult relationship with his dad. I trust Aunt Jenny implicitly, but that’s West’s private business and not mine to share. I only told her about his mum dying because it’s public knowledge. You can literally Google him, and it’s there in detail.
And I get what she’s saying, but who the hell doesn’t have issues? My dad died when I was a baby, and my mother screwed my fiancé. You don’t get any more messed up than that! And I was there, ready to be with West.
But whatever.
Actually, no. Screw him!
So, I think I might have reached the anger stage of my grieving over our breakup.
Aunt Jenny says there are five stages to a breakup—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They’re supposed to go in that order, but mine have been all over the place, and I skipped a couple. I haven’t had denial—probably because my relationship with West wasn’t conventional. Weirdly, acceptance that it was over came first. I didn’t try bargaining with him because I knew it was a lost cause and that his mind was made up. I’ve been dealing with the depression since I left his apartment, and now, apparently, I’m angry.
Thank God Aunt Jenny has gone to the shops to get us some more Prosecco because I could really do with a drink right now. She’s also grabbing takeaway while she’s out because she says I haven’t been eating enough, and she’s right. Maybe now that I’m feeling angry with West instead of just sad, I might feel like eating more.
I’m staying at Aunt Jenny’s until I can get a job and a place sorted—you know, because of the whole having nowhere to live due to giving up my apartment to move in with the prick I was supposed to marry. Now, that definitely feels like eons ago. So much has happened since then. I can’t believe I even considered marrying the prick. What was I thinking? Clearly, I wasn’t.
I hear a knock on the front door. Jenny might have forgotten her key, but she hasn’t been gone that long either, and we’re not expecting anyone else.
I’ve been hiding myself away here. I’ve not even told my friends that I’m home yet. I’m just not up for peopling quite yet. Aunt Jenny told me that I made it into the local newspaper and that there was also a small segment in the nationals. I guess an unknown girl from Hull being seen with the American president’s son would make news. Thankfully, people don’t seem to know that I’m home, or if they do, they haven’t figured out where I’m staying, and as I’m not going to be seen with West anymore, the story should die a quick death.
If only my heart would. At first, I did wonder if a heart was irreparable after being broken twice in a short period of time, but it’s hanging in there, feeling all the hurt and pain and loneliness of missing West and the general shittiness that is my life. I’m just hoping this newfound anger will sort me out.
I get up from the sofa and make my way into the hallway and to the front door.
On my way there, I have these few seconds of stupidness where I think it might be West. That he’s come to see me. Even though, deep down, I know it won’t be him, my stupid heart still reaches for that notion, even with knowing I’ll be left disappointed when I find out that it’s not him.
I reach the door, push up onto my tiptoes, and look through the peephole. It’s not West.
Pain and anger hit my chest like a punch—not because of the disappointment, but because of who’s standing on the other side of the door.
I yank the door open and stare at the woman who gave me life. “What are you doing here?” I snap.
She smiles. “It’s nice to see you too, darling.”
“I know you’re not here to see Jenny, so I’m guessing you’re here to see me. How’d you know I was here?”
“I bumped into Phil at the pub last night. He said you were here. Said he saw you arriving the other day.”