Hailey

I stood there on his porch while he shut the door in my face. Tears were already streaming down my cheeks as my sobs began to wrack my chest. What the hell had just happened? My body felt alive, full again while his arousal dripped into my underwear. But he had just cast me out like an unwanted animal, and I crumbled on his porch.

I felt a searing headache rip through the front of my head as I took in a stifling breath. The pain ripped the air directly from my lungs, and for a single moment, I couldn’t breathe. I heard the rumbling of a storm off in the distance punctuating the moment that had already happened. I finally found the strength through my searing headache to pick myself up off the ground and head for my car.

And not once did Bryan ever double-back to open the door.

I’d come over to talk. I’d come over to give him answers. It had taken me a week to find the courage to do this, and I was met with this. I could taste the alcohol on his lips, and I should’ve kept denying him. I should’ve kept pushing him off me and kept demanding that we talk. But his touch had been so wanting, and he was already practically naked. Holy hell, I’d missed the way his body felt against mine, the way he filled me so perfectly and always left me satisfied.

Well, until now, that is.

The headache raged through my skull again and took me to my knees. I knelt beside my car, taking deep breaths, so I wouldn’t get sick and puke in his driveway. The last thing I needed was to try and clean up that kind of mess with Bryan being half-drunk in his home. He was probably stumbling his way upstairs, watching my pathetic existence try to make it to my car after he fucked me into oblivion.

From the moment he opened the door, he never had any passion to talk.

All he wanted to do was get me out of his system one last time.

For good.

I took deep breaths as my vision continued to shake. I finally got the door of my car open and climbed in as the nausea I was feeling wafted up my throat. I swallowed and grimaced, finding the strength to crank my car so I could start blasting the air conditioning unit. I’d been painting too much and been so focused on finishing up my portraits of Bryan that I hadn’t even stopped to think what that was doing to my eyes.

What being around all that paint was doing to my body.

I leaned my seat back and took a deep breath in through my nose. Tears were still streaming down my face as I turned my head to look at Bryan’s home. I wanted him to be standing on the porch. To be walking over to make sure I was all right. I still believed he would come to his senses. I still believed he would realize what he’d done and try to come out to stop me from leaving.

I didn’t even expect us to reconcile. I just knew he deserved answers from a woman who was no longer hysterical over the situation.

But now, I had no idea how I could reach Bryan. I couldn’t call him, I couldn’t message him, and I couldn’t email him. And now? I couldn’t come by his home without the threat of the police looming over my head. Was he watching me from a window? Was he calling them now? It didn’t matter if he was. My migraine was taking over my body, and all I could do was sit here in my car with tears rolling down my face as I tried to recuperate.

The moment he had kissed me I felt myself let go. Even though the rational part of my mind knew we had to talk, he had me the moment our lips reconnected. The passion and the fury that poured from his body, it made me feel as if we were reconnecting. Rejoining ourselves by pouring out our anger and our frustrations into one another like couples sometimes do. I’d missed him more than I could stand, more than I was ever willing to admit to someone. The way his hips had slammed into me and the way his lips seemed to attach themselves to my neck, I could feel the love he had for me.

I could feel the desire that still erupted from his skin.

I knew it was there. I knew I couldn’t have been that far off with how he was feeling. If there was one thing about Bryan I adored, it was the fact that he wore his emotions on his sleeves. He didn’t realize it, nor did he want to acknowledge it, but there was never denying what he was feeling.

He had been angry, yes, but he had also been filled with a passion I don’t think I’d ever experienced from him.

Ever.

What I thought was our reconciliation was just a final goodbye for him. What I thought was him making love to me was really a stupid venture to screw me out of his system. The blank stare that had been in his eye after he’d thrown me out of his house shivered my body, and as my migraine finally began to lift, a realization dawned on me.

What if he’d accomplished what he set out to do?

I slowly leaned my seat up as the migraine dissipated, and suddenly my tears ran dry. I looked back over at the house, searching in his windows for any sign of him, any sign that he was still a little attached to the scenario that had happened. Even if he was waiting for me to leave, him looking out to see if I was still there would tell me he was at least curious about where I was and what I was doing.

But I saw nothing, and it ached my heart.

I toyed with the idea of going back up there and demanding we talk. At this point, I really had nothing to lose. I could stand to have the gallery shut down for a few days if he was serious about having me arrested, and for once, I knew what was actually good for him. He needed to ask questions and he needed to get answers, but his anger was still clouding his judgment.

As well as that alcohol, but that was a different subject for a different day.

If I demanded he talk to me, maybe he would finally relinquish and give into this power struggle. If I banged down his door, or even tried to see if I could pick the lock, maybe he would finally come to his senses and let me talk with him like we’d needed to before he robbed me of the only hope I still had that we weren’t done for yet.

I knew I deserved some of his anger, but this was too much. Throwing me out of his house after fucking me like I was some sort of toy was going too far. I felt tears welling in my eyes again as the scene played out in front of my eyes. I could see myself stumbling out of his home, still trying to get the zipper on my pants up while he stood there with his empty eyes.

His dark, empty brown eyes that had once been so full of love when they looked upon me.

I jumped when the door slammed in my mind again, separating us once again. Behind that door, he held all his anger and all his frustration and all his depression. I felt my lip trembling again as I drew in a deep breath of the cold air around me, but then I heard something that ripped me from my stupor.

The sound of sirens off in the distance.

I cranked my car and got out of there, racing out onto the road as I made my way home. A police car zoomed by me as it slowed down by Bryan’s home, and I lost it behind the wheel of my own car. He had been serious. He’d called the police on me because I wouldn’t leave.

In that very moment, I realized how hopeless the situation was. Bryan was willing to throw me in jail to get me to stop. He was willing to jeopardize everything in my life to get me to stop pestering him. In that very moment, as I cried myself all the way home, I accepted he really was done with me.

And I could still feel his arousal drying against my thighs.

I’d been so happy with him. I’d felt so complete. For the first time since my own parents cast me out, I felt like I was establishing a family again. Picking my own instead of trying to tolerate the family I’d been given. His touch had set my soul aflame and his kisses sent twinges of electricity through my body. Even now, thinking about it, I could feel my very own breath being robbed from my lungs. Silent tears dripped down my cheeks as I pulled into the parking lot of my home, and I sat there while I tried to collect my thoughts.

Images of us laughing together over dinner plagued my memories. Snippets of moments kept barreling through my head as I leaned my forehead against the steering wheel. Snippets of jokes he would tell me or surprises he would bring to me at the work site. Snippets of passion we had in that back room and moments of smiles that had been provoked by the mere sight of me. Bryan had cleansed me in a way I didn’t think was possible. His presence had pushed the darkness of my life right out into the cold, threatening to kill it with nothing but the starvation of my sadness.

But now, there was nothing.

I threw open my car door and slowly dragged myself up the stairs. The tears had stopped falling as his smell followed me to my home. The first thing I had to do was throw away these clothes. I’d never be able to keep them without thinking about our last time together.

How it had been the moment he threw me out like a sack of garbage like my parents had.

I brought my key up to the lock of my door, but suddenly, I felt heavy. I leaned my body against the door and sighed, trying to figure out what I could do to forget all of this. Forget tonight. Forget Bryan. Forget John. Forget Los Angeles.

What the hell could I do to forget all of this?

“Hailey?”

Her voice wafted into my ears as I slowly panned my gaze over to the side. My jaw dropped as tears clouded my vision once again. She took a step closer to me, sniffing deeply before pity fluttered over her gaze.

“Oh, Hailey,” Anna said.

I threw myself into her arms and sobbed into the crook of her neck. She held me closely, swaying my body in front of my little apartment as her hands rubbed up and down my back. I sobbed for the hurt I was feeling, and I sobbed for the ache that was still in the back of my head. I sobbed for my heart that had been shattered, and I sobbed for the mistakes I made with Bryan. I sobbed for John’s demise, and I sobbed for my responsibility in it all.

But mostly, I sobbed tears of joy at the fact that Anna was here.

My sister had flown in from Phoenix to comfort me.

“Let’s get you inside,” she said as she peeled my key from my fingers.