CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
MOLLY
My bedroom door clicks shut, and my knees give way, hitting the floor hard. I dig my fingers into the carpet as I bend over. Pain rips through my torso almost crippling me. They say that heart break is emotional, but it feels fucking physical to me. I roll onto my back on the floor, clutching at my aching chest.
Why is it that every time we part ways it hurts a little more. Surely it should get easier? I had come to terms with this. I was good, and then he turns up out of the blue and bam, I’m right back where I started.
That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Every fibre of my being wants him, wants to fall into his arms and pray that he never lets me go, but that’s just it…I can’t live on blind faith, on the hope that I’m enough for him, because the likelihood is that I won’t be.
I could easily fall for Hugo’s sweet lines and false promises, but I’m done losing all sense of self-respect over him. No matter how much I love him, I have to love myself more.
As I sit here, staring at the ceiling, I realise that I might never get over Hugo Harrison, but I can’t move in with Alex. I can’t be with Alex. I know Hugo and I can never happen, but my heart hasn’t realised that yet, and it still firmly belongs to him. I can’t keep denying that. Just wanting to feel the same thing for Alex isn’t enough. I can’t keep dragging him through this shit, only ever half committing to him and using him to soothe my battered heart.
No more.
I scramble up off the floor and walk straight through the flat and out the front door. I don’t stop until I slide behind the wheel of George’s little Jeep. I lean my head against the steering wheel and take a few deep breaths. I can still taste Hugo on my lips, still smell his cologne.
I know what I need to do, but at the same time I’ve never felt so unclear in my life. All I know right now is that I need to get out of this mess. I turn the ignition and throw the car into reverse.
I pull into a parking space and stare up at Alex’s flat. My heart is hammering against my ribs like a marching band. I drag my hands through my hair and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to gather my scattered thoughts. I don’t know what I’m going to say.
I take a deep breath and open the door. The climb up his stairs feels like miles. I knock tentatively on the door, half hoping he’s out and I can put this off.
A few seconds later I hear footsteps and then the door swings open revealing Alex’s smiling face. My stomach bottoms out and I bite my lip as tears threaten immediately.
“Molly?” His smile disappears and his eyebrows pull together in a frown. “What’s wrong?” He reaches out and touches my shoulder reassuringly. Shit, I don’t know if I can do this. Now that I’m here, my resolve is wavering. “Come in.” He ushers me into the flat, the flat that I’m supposed to be moving into tomorrow. I feel like a zombie as I shuffle into the hallway.
“Alex, I…” I croak. “I have to talk to you.”
“Okay.” He leads me through to the sitting room, taking a seat on the sofa. I stand there, numbly facing him.
“I can’t move in with you.” I blurt.
His golden eyes move slowly over my face, and I want to shrink away from his studious gaze. Surely he’ll see what an awful person I am, the things I’ve done. I cheated on him. Oh, god. I cheated on him! My eyes start to prickle, and tilt my head back, looking at the ceiling and trying desperately not to bloody cry.
“What’s going on Molly? If it’s too soon, then we can delay it.”
I shake my head. “No, I just, I can’t.” Just say it Molly. “I can’t be with you anymore.”
He looks shocked. Of course he looks shocked. He thought he was moving in with his girlfriend tomorrow, and now she’s here trying to break up with him. He eventually stands up and moves in front of me, blocking out the rest of the world with his massive presence. He gently cups my face, and I close my eyes. I can’t look at him.
“Talk to me Molly.” He says in that soothing, deep tone of his. I shake my head, because there are no words that can make this any better. It’s horrible. My chest aches. “I love you.” That does it. The dam bursts, and tears streak down my cheeks. I press my hand to my mouth to try and stem the choked sobs coming from my mouth. What the hell is wrong with me? Isn’t this what I want? I turn away from him and his hand falls to his side. “Please tell me what’s wrong. This isn’t you. I can see you don’t want this.”
He’s right, I don’t want this, but I don’t want him as much as I should. I don’t want him more than I want Hugo, and that makes this wrong and unfair to him on so many levels. He shouldn’t be a consolation prize.
I hear him move behind me before his arms wrap around me, comforting me. I am a vile person.
“I have to do this.” I whisper. “You deserve better than me.”
“There is no better than you.” His low voice rumbles against my ear. Oh god, I can’t sit here and listen to him tell me how good he thinks I am, because I’m not.
I inhale sharply and step out of his hold, turning to face him. “I’m in love with someone else.” My voice cracks.
A look of confusion washes over his features before his eyes slowly lock with mine. “You said you loved me.”
“And I do. I promise you, I do love you.” I defend quickly. “But I also love him.”
“Hugo.” He says without accusation. I don’t respond, but my face must give me away. He turns away, locking his fingers together behind his neck. “You promised me you were just friends.”
“We were…we are.” I stumble over my explanation.
His face whips around to face me, and he laughs. “Don’t you see what he’s doing Molly? He had you and you walked away. You’re his friend, and he can’t stand that you are moving in with me. He wants you to himself, but he also wants to keep sleeping with every girl who looks his way.”
I shake my head. “It’s not like that.”
“He’s not good enough for you, not even slightly.” He growls. “He tells you what you want to hear and you instantly fall for it.”
“I know!” I shout. “And I don’t fall for it. I’m not breaking up with you so I can run to him. I’m breaking up with you because I have feelings for him. I know he’s not good enough. Believe me, I know.” I take a shaky breath. “I wish this was enough Alex, but it’s not, and you deserve to be enough. You should be someone’s everything, and you will be. I really wish I was that someone, more than you can possibly know.”
There’s a long beat of silence as we both take in what just happened. This is the end. I’ve had my fair share of heartbreak, and I’ve broken many hearts, but this one feels so much more catastrophic than the others. This is something that could have been great, and was tainted by my actions. Usually when you walk away from a relationship, you do so for a reason. You weren’t compatible, or you wanted different things, maybe you just weren’t that into it, but this is none of those. This was something that had a future. I know that without Hugo in the picture I would have moved in with Alex and probably married him, and I have no doubt I would have been happy.
This is so damn hard though.
“I would have given you everything, Molly.” He rasps.
“I know.” My voice breaks on a sob.
“So that’s it?” I can’t answer. He nods, accepting my silence as an answer to his question. “Then I wish you the best of luck.”
“I’m so sorry.” I cry.
He turns away from me, but not before I catch his face crumple. He braces his hands on the windowsill. “I think it would be best if you just go.”
I stand numbly for a moment, trying to find something, anything that would make this better, but there is nothing. Some things just are horrible, and there is no way around it. This is one of those times, no matter how much I wish I could fix this. I quietly leave the apartment with tears streaming down my face and what feels like a knife in my chest.
By the time I get to the car I’m hysterically crying. Why does this hurt so much? I don’t know how long I sit there with my hands clenched around the steering wheel. I want so badly to go back up those stairs and take it all back, to let Alex hold me and make this pain go away. Heart break is always brutal, but I’m doubled up with it, and it feels like my chest is being torn apart. I barely register the door opening, and small arms wrapping around my shoulders. Lilly.
“How did….”
“Alex called me.” She murmurs into my hair. I cry harder. I just broke his heart and he still cares enough to make sure I’m okay. I want him to shout at me, to tell me hates me, anything. Anything but his kindness, because it’s killing me. This is all so fucked. For a moment I allow Lilly to just hold me, to lend me some of that warrior strength that she brandishes like armour.
“Come on. I’ll send Theo for the car.” She guides me out of the car and across to the car park, holding the passenger door of her car open for me. She doesn’t say anything on the ride back to her house, just holds my hand whilst my heart bleeds out in her passenger seat.
When we get to her house she leads me straight up the stairs, to their open living area. “Okay, sit.” She orders, pointing at the breakfast bar. I take a seat and lean my elbows on the bar, burying my face in my hands.
“Oh god, I’m such an idiot.” I sniffle.
“Drink this.” She slides a glass of clear liquid across the bar to me. I pick up the glass and down it in three gulps. It’s pure vodka, and I cough as it threatens to incinerate my oesophagus. She immediately tops it up. This is Lilly all over, just drink until it doesn’t hurt anymore. Right now, I’m totally appreciating her methods. This is a first for the both of us. Her the calm and collected one, whilst I lose my shit and break down. I’m never that girl. Fuck, why can’t I stop crying?
Three more glasses of vodka later, I stop crying because I stop feeling. I’m just numb. Drunk and numb. Vodka is like morphine for my shattered heart right now, so I just keep on drinking.
“So, are you going to tell me what happened?” Lilly asks tentatively.
“Hugo happened.”
“You’re going to have to elaborate.” She prompts.
“He came to me right at the last bloody minute and laid it all out.” I wave my hand around, before slapping it down on the breakfast bar and taking another sip of my new best friend.
“Typical fucking Hugo.” She sighs.
“He’s a fucker.” I slur as tears threaten again. “He just let me think he didn’t care.” I slump forward, resting my forehead against the cool granite work top. “I love him, and I fucking hate myself for it.” My voice quivers. I lift my head and meet her eyes, expecting to see some sort of judgement, fuck, I deserve judgement right now, but all I see is sympathy. That might be worse. “Alex should be with someone who loves him to the moon and back. He’s such an amazing guy. I couldn’t keep doing it, pretending like he was enough, because how can he be? If he was I wouldn’t be in love with someone else as well.”
“That doesn’t make you a bad person Mole.” She says, her green eyes softening.
“I feel pretty fucking shitty right now.” I sniff. She takes the bottle of vodka and tops me up. I take a big gulp, making a face at the disgusting taste. She laughs.
“Men suck balls babe, and this shit is never straight forward.”
“I think he’s the one.” I can hear the broken despair in my own voice.
“Who?” She asks cautiously.
I meet her eyes. “Hugo.” I whisper.
She sighs and closes her eyes, tilting her face towards the ceiling. “Of all the men who have fallen at your feet Molly, you have to fall for the one that doesn’t. Hell, you fall for the baddest of the bad boys.”
I nod pitifully. It’s so damn tragic when you look at it like that.
“What are you going to do?” She asks.
“I’m going to keep drinking Vodka until I forget his name, and then, I don’t know. I think I need time.”
She nods. “Then take your time.”
They say that shit comes in piles, well ain’t that the fucking truth? The third pile hits the next morning when I have to call my dad.
“Molly.” He answers the phone gruffly. I have a pounding fucking headache and my eyes are swollen and soar from crying.
“Hey dad.” I croak.
“What’s wrong? Are you ill?” He almost sounds concerned. Almost, but not quite.
“No. I’m fine.” Ruined but fine. “Look, I need you to speak to the letting agent. I need to keep the tenancy on the flat after all.” I cringe as I wait for the verbal beat down that I know I’m going to get.
“I thought you were moving in with that boy. In fact, if I remember rightly you were pretty adamant about it.” I can hear the smug tone in his voice, but I don’t even have it in me to be angry about it. He was right. Agreeing to move in with Alex was a mistake, just not for the reasons that I’m sure he’s thinking.
“We broke up.” I say quietly.
There’s a beat of silence, and I can feel the weight of his judgement. Poor pathetic Molly, can’t even keep a guy. I allow him to make his assumptions over Alex and I because honestly, I don’t feel like talking about it and I don’t care.
“Molly, I think it’s time you stood on your own two feet, don’t you?” I swallow hard as he speaks the words. When I told him I was moving in with Alex, I didn’t listen to his objections. I knew he just wanted to keep control of me, and I was so bloody happy to be out from under his thumb, to have my own life and stand on my own, with Alex by my side. Now though, I’m homeless. I have to take the keys back to the agent today, and without my dad to pay the rent, there is no way I can afford it, even with George to help pay for it, and he’s already moved in with one of his dancer friends yesterday.
I have savings and I can find somewhere else, but in twenty four hours? No. It’s fine. It will be fine. Isn’t this what I wanted? To be free of him? This might be a good thing, but on top of everything else that has happened in the last week I’m very fucking close to the edge. I don’t even respond, I can’t. I hang up the phone and let it slip from my fingers, falling onto the duvet beneath me. My entire life has flipped on it’s head in the space of a couple of weeks.
A few minutes later there’s a knock on the door, before it opens a crack and Lilly pokes her head around the corner.
“Hey babe. I brought you coffee.” She steps into the room, holding a steaming cup in her hands.
“Thanks, and thank you for letting me stay last night.” I say quietly.
She pops the coffee down on the bedside table. “You know you’re always welcome here.” I nod meekly, and she reaches out, brushing a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but things will work out Mole. They always do in the end.”
“I just spoke to my dad.” I whisper, dropping my eyes to the discarded phone on the bed.
“And?”
I look up and meet her eyes. “I’m officially homeless right now.”
It really hits me right then, I could have had everything, but instead I have nothing in this moment. There’s a very big part of me that just wants to curl up and sulk, but I refuse to be that person. I made this situation, and I will damn well get myself out of it.
“You will never ever be homeless.” Lilly assures me, taking my hand. “Stay here for as long as you like.”
“Thanks Lill’s. I don’t know what I would do without you.” I manage a small smile. “I just need a few days, until I can find something else to rent.” I want her to know that as much as I appreciate her help, I have no intention of imposing on her and Theo.
“For as long as you like.” She reiterates as she stands up. She leaves me alone with my thoughts, going over everything I’ve done wrong.
I find my iPad, and skype call the one person who can make me feel batter and kick me up the arse at the same time. My mum.