I pulled the pillow over my head and groaned as I heard Richard start laughing on the patio. I guess Frank had told him about how big of an ass I’d made of myself.

The smell of him, of that musk that had surrounded me while I was briefly in his arms, seemed to pervade my senses again and overwhelm me. I sniffled back tears, thanking whatever was good and holy in the universe that my nose suddenly stuffed up, killing the smell of Frank.

Outside, Richard giggled again.

The sour feeling of shame and embarrassment mixed with the salty anger already in my gut.

God, why had I been so freaking stupid? I couldn’t believe I’d thrown myself at the guy like that. And for what? Just so I could be shot down? I should have known I wasn’t good enough for him. Should have known he was just being kind and comforting to me because he was getting paid to do it, because it was his duty.

I lay there, thoughts racing through my head of the multiple different versions of my future. I could be a waitress or a barista. They always seemed to have fun. Maybe I could meet some real, genuine people for once in my life. People like Frank. Or, rather, what I’d imagined Frank to be like before ten minutes ago.

Or I could be a bartender at one of those shitty Coyote Ugly bars?

I shook my head against the pillow. No, that definitely wasn’t my style.

One thing was for sure: I could never go back to dating the guys I’d been dating. They’d never want me now. Even if I had all the money in the world, their families would never allow the stain of my father on their own houses. Even the accusations and the public condemnation would be too much. At least for a few years, until the public’s memory dissolved into a blip in history.

It didn’t matter that I’d had nothing to do with the crimes of money laundering. I was still as unclean as the money my father had been dealing with.

As I sat there nearly crying, Frank came in alone from the balcony. At least I thought it was him. His heavy footfalls echoed through the den, pausing somewhere in the middle of the floor.

What was he doing?

Still nothing.

Oh, what did I care anyways? I pulled the pillow tighter over my face, tears spilling from my eyes, wetting the pillowcase.

He started to move again, his footfalls receding as he crossed over to his roommate’s bedroom and opened the door.

I just didn’t understand. Why was this hurting so much? Why did it feel like an ice-cold butcher’s knife was stabbed right into my heart? I pulled the pillow from my face, curled up on my side with it, and hugged it close against me as I lay in a fetal position.

The door across the living room shut with some sort of horrible finality. Like the guards clanging the prison cell door shut on a woman starting her life sentence.

The tears really started to come now. The last time I’d felt this torn up over a guy was probably back in middle school. Middle school of all times! Of course, it hadn’t been anything but puppy love back then, and I’d hardly batted an eye at the other breakups I had in life. And then there was the fact that, normally, I was the one doing the breaking off of a relationship.

But, still, why? Why did it pain me so much?

I sobbed into my pillow.

And that was when it hit me like the realization that one of your friends has been hiding a drug addiction for years. How had I not seen the signs? Had I been subconsciously ignoring them the whole time? And how did it happen so quickly?

It wasn’t drugs, of course. No, it was worse. Far, far worse.

Even more life-altering. Sometimes even more destructive.

I was in love with the asshole.

Dammit, Ashley. I shook my head as I hugged his pillow closer to my chest like a pathetic stand-in for a stuffed teddy bear. I breathed deeply, smelling the residual pine and cedar scent of his body.

I stared into the darkness, tears still trickling down my cheek. I shook my head in the blackness of the room, trying to convince myself I was wrong.

No, it couldn’t be love. I’d just met Frank that morning. It had been so fast. Way too fast. I hardly even knew the man. I only knew that he was good kisser, even when it turned out his feelings weren’t in it. It wasn’t love, it was just the shock of being turned down, of being implicitly told I wasn’t good enough for a man I normally would have thought wasn’t good enough for me.

Why, then, did I feel this way? Why was my stomach fluttering the way it was? Why was my heart racing as if it was on the last stretch of a marathon, hurt and sore, but still pounding away?

This wasn’t just dejection at rejection, was it? Was it?

Crap. No. I wasn’t just imagining it. I was in love with the man who’d just rejected me, pushed me away with a look in his eyes that was so hurt and shocked at the fact that I’d even attempt to do something like that. I suddenly wanted to kick and flail my arms, to throw the world’s biggest, worst tantrum at how stupid my feelings were, how stupid my fucking heart was for letting itself slip into this awful situation. I took a deep, catching breath, and nearly sobbed.

Fuck me.

I loved Frank O’Dwyer.

But he didn’t love me back.