Melissa was quiet on the other end. I could hear her breathing as she considered her next words. She was a thoughtful person, never saying anything she didn’t mean, having poised control over herself. It was a skill I wished I had. Maybe I wouldn’t have blown it with Steven. I would have been honest with him years ago.
Finally, Melissa started talking again.
“Allie, the wound is fresh right now. You can’t be so hard on yourself. You know Steven better than you know anyone. He’ll come around. He cares for you as much as you care for him. He always has. The problem is, he hasn’t ever been good at accepting his feelings. I know how empty this sounds, but you have to keep your chin up. You did the right thing. That’s why this is so hard.”
I chewed my bottom lip as I fought with myself not to succumb to tears again. “I shouldn’t have told him.”
I could practically hear Melissa rolling her eyes on the other end. “Well, you did, and it’s done.”
“I know. And I hurt him. I never wanted to hurt him. And this is all over something that happened ten years ago. And it meant nothing! I should have kept my mouth shut like Andrew and I agreed. Now Steven thinks it’s a way bigger deal than what it is. I can’t believe I was so stupid.”
“You weren’t stupid, Allie. Telling him was right. If you love him, which you claim to, you can’t lie to him. Don’t you see how flawed that is?”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s flawed,” I snapped. “What matters is that the person I care about most won’t even talk to me because of something stupid I did when I was sixteen.”
“Well, unfortunately, you can’t control that.”
She wasn’t making me feel any better. Deep down I knew she was right, but I wasn’t ready to hear any of it. It was too fresh. “I have to go,” I said. “I’ll call you tomorrow. I can’t talk about this right now.”
“Okay, Allie. It will all be alright. Hang in there. I love you.”
“I love you too,” I said before hanging up the phone and putting it on my nightstand. I sighed and rolled onto my back, clasping my hands behind my head. I stared up at the white speckled ceiling and thought about Steven.
I wondered what he was doing right now. Chances were high that he was at work. But a little part of me hoped he was lying on his own bed thinking about me; aching the same way I was.
Instantly, I hated myself for hoping he was hurting. I had done this to him. This was my fault. I had earned this heartache all on my own. Well, sort of on my own. Andrew had helped.
I glanced at my diary. The yellow spine was sticking out like it wanted me to reach for it. So I did. I pulled it free and rolled onto my stomach. After grabbing a pen from the drawer of the nightstand, I flipped through the pages to the next blank one. Then I sat, pen poised over the paper, and started writing.
Sunday, October 8th
Steven knows about Andrew. I messed up. I let him read the entries I wrote surrounding when I thought I was pregnant. He had no idea, and now he’s furious with me.
I can’t blame him. He was blindsided. It was his brother, after all, and his best friend who did this to him. For two whole weeks, we were positive that we were going to be parents. And I never said a word to Steven. Of course, he’s hurt. And probably confused.
I’ll never be able to forget his face when he read the entry. He was staring down at it like someone had come out of the page and punched him in the gut. I saw all the confusion and bewilderment morph into betrayal. Anger. Fury.
Then he was leaving. I couldn’t do anything to stop him. He wouldn’t even look at me. He just left.
Andrew called me and told me Steven showed up at his house furious. Steven yelled at him. He said he never wanted to see Andrew or me again.
I can’t live with never seeing Steven again. I need him. I thought he needed me too. But maybe what I did was too much for him to forgive.
I don’t know what to do. If he never talks to me again, I don’t know how I’ll be able to move on. I love him.
I’ve always loved him.
By the time I finished writing, I was crying again. I had hoped the entry would be therapeutic, but it only brought up more pain.
I curled in on myself and let the sobs come. They shook me until my throat was raw and my ribs ached. My eyes were puffy and swollen, and all the pressure behind them and in my sinuses brought on a terrible headache. Despite the pain, I continued crying. I cried until there were no more tears left to shed, and I was nothing but a hollow body in the fetal position on my bed.
Then I fell into a restless sleep. I woke every hour or so, remembered everything that had happened, and cried myself to sleep again.
I had never been so broken.