As I filled my favorite mug to the brim with fresh coffee, my phone vibrated and pinged on the counter with a text message notification. I added sugar and milk and stirred it together with a spoon before finding the strength to pick up my phone.
Nick: How are you feeling today, sweetheart?
A sad, pathetic sigh escaped my lungs as I stared down at the latest text from Nick. He’d been sending me sweet messages all weekend, checking up on me, and even offering to bring me soup and keep me company.
He was a good man. God, he was a good man.
And with the way I’d flaked out on Friday dinner with him and Lexi, I felt like the biggest asshole who’d ever lived. Every time he’d sent me a text or attempted to call me over the past two days, I felt more ashamed of my behavior.
I'd spent the last forty-eight hours going through the following stages: Shock. Anger. Fear. Doubt. Guilt. And the worst, heartbreak.
Winnie and Remy.
When Nick had texted me—happy, innocent texts about a chance at all life had to offer, starting with the details for a fun evening with his daughter—my poor, tattered heart had dropped to the floor.
I knew those names.
Hell, at one point in my life, those names had been synonymous with my family.
Remy had been the man I was going to marry and spend the rest of my life with, and his sister Winnie had been one of my very best friends.
Fresh tears pricked my eyes as it all hit me all over again.
The shock of reading the names. The hopeful, desperate clamor to see if the text had, in fact, come from Nick’s phone or some ghost of love lives past. The harsh reality of what I didn’t want to face.
I'd panicked, the complication of it all nearly knocking me off my feet, and then, like a total asshole, made up some lame excuse about feeling ill to avoid meeting his daughter.
It had been a shitty thing to do.
Cowardly? Yeah, that too.
I knew it had been both, but it had also been a split-second decision made out of fear.
So, I'd spent the majority of my Friday night internally questioning everything and arguing with myself.
Had I overreacted? Was it a mere coincidence that Lexi's mother’s name was Winnie and she just so happened to have a brother with the same name as my ex-fiancé?
Maybe they just had the same first names? That kind of thing happened, right?
It had been that thought process that led me toward stalking. Social media stalking, that is.
God, it had been years since I’d even attempted to look up Remy on Facebook, but this giant clusterfuck of a situation had been my breaking point.
Remy Winslow. I'd typed his name into the search browser, and like a hammer to the last nail in my coffin, his profile picture sealed my misery.
Him and a little girl.
And the little girl? Lexi. I’d known the instant I'd seen her big, blue eyes and smiling cheeks. I’d seen that same expression and adorable face before, in a photo of her and Nick that sat framed in his living room.
Like a masochist, I'd clicked Remy's profile to scour it for every wretched detail I could find. More pictures of him and Lexi, her name even mentioned in the status of each one. More conversations and traded barbs with his other three brothers. More of the life I walked away from.
From there, I’d been sucked into an unforgiving vortex unsafe for travel by heartbroken humans.
Remy’s profile had led me to Winnie's, which had led me to Nick's. And one photo in particular, shared between both profiles, was a picture of Lexi standing between Winnie and Nick, with a trophy from her Mathletes competition clutched in her little hands.
I’d been able to deny it before, but I’d never be able to again. All of my fears had been confirmed.
Winnie, someone who so many years ago had been one of my best friends, was Lexi's mom, and her brother was the man I’d left at the altar over twelve years ago.
And the kicker? The man I was in love with was connected to them both, through a little girl that was literally the apple of his eye.
I honestly wasn’t sure where we could go after that. The future looked dismal at best.
How could Nick be in a long-term relationship with a woman who most likely had zero fans within the Winslow family?
I knew it’d been a struggle for him when it came to Lexi. That he’d made mistakes in the past, putting his career before his daughter, and it was just over the last few years that he’d really stepped up and become a strong father figure in her life.
With the way Remy and I had ended, I had a hard time believing his sister would even want me in her daughter’s life. Honestly, I thought she’d probably have a really hard fucking time with it.
And if I was being truly honest with myself, I wasn’t all that thrilled over the idea of having to see Remy on a more than never basis. Over the years, I’d found closure from that relationship, but it still didn’t take away the scars from the way he’d lashed out at me, the awful things he’d said to me when everything had ended.
Sure, his feelings had been valid. But it still didn’t change the fact that his bitter words had left a pretty nasty slash in my heart.
God, this was a fucking mess.
I startled out of my incessant, warring thoughts when my phone vibrated in my hands.
Nick: Char? Are you there?
Another text. Shit. I had to answer him at some point or else he’d end up at my apartment. And honestly, I wasn’t so sure I was ready for that conversation.
I walked into the living room and sat down on the sofa. My teeth worried along my lip as I contemplated what was the best route of message response.
Me: I’m here. Sorry. I was in the bathroom. I have diarrhea.
That’s a bit gross, Char, I thought to myself, and instead of hitting send, I deleted it and tried again.
Me: I know your ex. And her brother. Remy was the man I left at the altar. Everything is completely fucked and doomed, isn’t it?
Jesus. Even the diarrhea text was better than that rambling diatribe of nonsense.
I deleted that one too and settled on something a little less crazy.
Me: Sorry, my phone was on silent. I’m still on the mend, but doing okay.
Technically, I wasn’t lying. My phone was on silent, and I had rewatched the entire first season of GoT. Well, yesterday, but that’s just minor details, right?
Nick: I’m glad you’re feeling better. I was starting to worry.
Nick: I miss you. When can I see you?
I miss you. Tears swallowed my eyes, and my heart ached at his words.
Fuck, I missed him, too.
I dropped my phone onto the empty cushion beside me and buried my head in my hands.
I couldn’t stop the tears after that. Like a faucet, the liquid emotion rolled down my cheeks in a big, fat stream. I was a mess, and worst of all, I had a feeling that soon, I’d always be missing him.