Two
Astoria
As I sit on my bed and take in the space around me, sadness floods me at the packed boxes scattered about my dorm room. College is over. I loved it here. I don't have a job lined up yet. I've busted my ass for four years, and deserve a few months break to relax and job hunt. My parents are throwing a graduation party for me back home.
I have mixed feelings about going home to Arrow Falls. Yes, I did return for holidays, but during the summers, I've traveled abroad. I wanted to see all there was before I graduated, since I wasn't sure if I'd get the opportunity to do so again. And maybe there was a part of me that wanted to avoid going home as much as possible. Okay, so that was a big part of it. There's someone there I don't want to see. Someone who after four years still holds a piece of my heart, no matter how badly he broke it, or more precisely, shattered it.
"You all packed?" my roommate, Cassidy, asks.
"Yeah, just resting for a few before my parents get here."
"Ah, yes, the Livingstons." She says my last name with extra snootiness. I laugh and throw a pillow at her. "Hey, I didn't say you were stuck up, just dear old Mom and Dad."
"I know." I loved having Cassidy as a roommate. She's smart, beautiful, and has a great sense of humor.
I lie back on the bare mattress and close my eyes, trying to find an inner tranquility. I love my family, but with them comes memories I’m not ready to face again. My mom is a homemaker. She worked until she married my dad, then her job became tending house and raising me, once I was born. They tried to have another child, but I guess it wasn't meant to be. My dad is the CEO of a biotechnology company about an hour from home.
I obtained my bachelor's in English literature. Ideally, I'd love to work for a publishing house as an editor. Last summer, I interned at one and enjoyed it, but the company has since gone under. I've been told it's a tough field. I love the written word and wanted to pursue something I felt passionate about.
A knock on my door has my eyes popping open. My parents enter as Cassidy is bustling around the room, packing her remaining things. My mom hugs her awkwardly and my dad nods in her direction. Cassidy is big on hugs.
"You ready to go, peanut?" Dad asks me. I roll my eyes. I'm twenty-two years old. I’ve outgrown the nickname. He might come off frosty to others, but he's always been very loving to me.
"Yes, everything is packed." He looks at the boxes on my side of the room and starts with the biggest one to bring it down to his SUV. I stand to stack two smaller boxes and fill my arms with them.
"Your father can get those. No need to bother yourself with them," Mom tells me.
"It's fine. I don't mind carrying them."
My mom looks around the room before deciding to stand off to the side with her hands folded in front of her. While Dad is loving, Mom is more...proper and old-fashioned. She always does what my dad asks and is sure to keep the house in order and meals on the table.
A bunch of trips later and my dad's SUV is loaded with my belongings. My little silver coupe sure wouldn't hold all the boxes. It was a gift from my parents before I started college. While it didn't do great in the snow, there was plenty of public transportation near campus during winter, and most of the time I didn't bother leaving. I'd rather stay warm inside.
I hug Cassidy goodbye and promise to stay in touch. She's from California, so I doubt I'll be seeing her again anytime soon. Maintaining contact with people isn’t one of my strong points unless I see them often.
We start the drive home, me ahead of my parents. It's not a short trip, but it could be much worse. I could be driving across the country like Cassidy. She's looking forward to it, where I would have been dreading it.
Mile after boring mile I drive, and with each one, I grow more and more anxious. It's been four years since I've seen Parker. Four fucking years of me nursing a broken heart.
No, I never got over him and don't think I ever will. My love for him was a once in a lifetime kind of love. The kind that no matter how hard you search for someone else to love, no one can come close to comparing to the other person. Believe me, I've tried. I dated a lot in college. I went to parties, had flings, but no one kept my interest. No matter how great the guy I was with seemed, he wasn't Parker.
Parker broke my heart. He cheated on me. And worse, he did it when he knew I was coming over. Did he think he could fuck her quick in the shower and get rid of her before I got there? Maybe he thought I'd be into a threesome. I was young and inexperienced until I met him. We did like to get a little adventurous when we had sex. I have no clue what his reasoning was, but it devastated me. It brought me to my knees once I left his apartment that day. I drove to the basketball court where I first saw him, and mindlessly got out of the car to walk onto the court, where I collapsed. Luckily, no one was playing.
It was there I lost it. I cried and screamed. I hit the ground with my fists until they were bloody. Someone came rushing over to my side to get me to stop. I didn't know who they were. They heard me screaming and wanted to make sure I was all right. I wasn't. Not even close. The lie I said was bitter on my tongue when I told them a friend had died, and I needed to get out of my house. But hadn't something died that day? A relationship of epic proportions. Love so strong I didn't think it could ever be broken. My life isn’t a fairy tale. Maybe I thought it was back then. I'm still waiting for my happily ever after.
I've read many books and lived vicariously through the characters within them, wishing one day it would be me. My heart still hurts and I'm not sure if it will ever be healed. The pain will never leave me. Neither will the look on his face the last day I saw him.
Parker tried to text and call me that terrible night. He left me so many voice messages that my mailbox filled and couldn’t accept any more. I changed phones and deleted all but one message from him. That message I backed up and saved. It was the last one he left me—only seven words. The way he spoke them still sends tears to my eyes when I listen to it. And I do so often. "I'm sorry, Tora. I'll always love you."
Does he still love me? I haven't heard anything from him since. Not on my phone—I kept the same number. Not on social media or email. Not through my friends. Kenzie still lives in Arrow Falls. She's told me she'd seen Parker out. He's nice to her, but they don't talk outside of a passing hello. After a while, she stopped telling me when she saw him. She knew it would hurt me.
My relationship with Parker did teach me one valuable lesson. No matter how broken my heart is, or how fucked up my mind is where men are concerned, I will never settle for less than I deserve. I'm a good person who has a big heart. I'm smart and have been told I'm pretty. Cassidy, Kenzie, guys I've dated—they told me. Yet, none of their words mattered to me, because nothing could compare to the compliments Parker had showered me with when we were together.
He had a way of making me feel like the most loved and cherished person on the planet. And that's what made him cheating on me more difficult to believe. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I might not have believed it. There is no forgetting that memory, though. I saw him with a naked woman about to get into the shower. I didn't want to hear his lies or whatever his excuses were for his actions.
I've matured a lot in the past four years. I'm not the same innocent girl who left Arrow Falls for college that summer. Will I fit back into our small town? I'm not sure, but I’m going to try. I don’t have any other choice. With no job on the horizon, my options are limited.
When I'm ten miles from home, my stomach starts to knot and a sweat breaks out on my forehead that has nothing to do with the hot sun beating down on my car. "He's just a guy, Tori. Just an ordinary guy," I tell myself. "Who the fuck am I kidding? He's Parker!" I slam my palm down against the steering wheel and find a really angry song to listen to. It fits my mood, and I belt out the words like the song was made for me. I sing about heartache and revenge. Love lost and exes getting what’s coming to them.
The song ends, and I still find him on my mind. Fuck! I'm never going to get him out of my head, am I? Coming back home sure as hell isn't going to help me. What happens when I see him? Will he try to talk to me? Will he want to meet up? Or will he ignore me as if I never existed?
Kenzie told me he's living with Cy Revere and his wife. I remember Cy, and he was certainly not marriage material back in the day. Hell, no. He was a womanizer if I ever saw one. But from what Kenzie said about what she knew, I misjudged him. Though, I still wouldn't have pegged him as someone who wanted to settle down.
Then there's Blair. She lives in Arrow Falls now. Kenzie kept me up to date about her as well, for a while. She's seen Parker with her. The thought of them together heats my veins with rage. Years have passed, and I have nothing but pure hatred for that woman. For what she did to us.
Pressing the brake a little too hard and abruptly, thanks to my current mood, I stop at a traffic light. A traffic light next to a sidewalk where Parker Maxfield just happens to be walking.
He glances over, our eyes lock, and my heart begins hammering in my chest. Then I see her. The same woman who was about to get in the shower with him all those years ago. Blair Hardwick—his brother’s girlfriend. Although, by the way she's got her arm looped through Parker's, I doubt she's still dating him. Her eyes follow Parker’s and she notices me. Recognition flashes on her face and she quickly drops her arm from Parker and turns away. He takes a step toward my car, but a horn blares behind me, alerting me to the light changing green. Thanks, Dad. I hit the gas and put Parker Maxfield in my rearview.