Loving a Man Who Forgot Me Novel Chapter 78
Just when you think you know how much a human heart can take, when you think it can’t possibly hurt any more, that you’ve reached the capacity for pain, you find out you’re wrong.
It can always hurt more. It can always get worse. And when I saw that ring I realized just how much. I’d say it felt a lot like having my heart ripped brutally from my chest, but that would be preferable to what I felt. That would be a mercy.
Having my heart yanked out would hurt far less than it remaining inside my chest cavity. No, what I felt was more like a hand punching a hole in my chest, grabbing hold of the small beating organ and squeezing it.
It felt like dying slowly but knowing that you’d never actually be put out of your misery. Five days later, and it hadn’t lessened even a fraction. I’d never known a devastation like this. I was Destroyed? Decimated? Demolished? My brain wouldn’t stop.
Words were everything and the pen in my hand scribbled every word my brain could spit out trying to find the right one to describe this, but sometimes you could exhaust the entire English language and never quite find the right one.
Sometimes words were lacking. Sometimes what you felt on the inside couldn’t be expressed or conveyed by simple words on a page.
So you had to set them to music, scream them, cry them out, break stuff, paint them on a canvas, shoot them in a photograph, anything to release them, to make someone else, even if it was just one someone else, understand.
I wrote, and I scratched it out, tore pages from the binding, drank some whiskey, and I wrote some more, but nothing was adequate. Everything I tried to write felt as hollow as I did. Is this what it was to lose the last shred of hope you held onto?
The ring on her finger was the final confirmation. I wasn’t getting her back. Not now. Not ever. “Dude,” the abused notebook was ripped from my hands and the pen went flying. “What the hell!” I shouted at Jesse.
He stood over me, eyeing me laid out on his couch like I was the most pathetic thing he’d seen. “Get off the couch. You’ve been there for three days and I’m going to have to throw it out if you don’t find your way to a shower.” “Fuck off,” I growled.
“No.” He tossed the notebook to the coffee table, then grabbed my legs and swung them off the couch, forcing me to sit up. He dropped down beside me. Nash came around the couch next and lowered himself onto the coffee table.
“I think this is what they call an intervention, bro.” “Intervention? For what?” “This pathetic, self-pitying thing. You’ve been in that same spot pretty much since we got back from Oregon.” “Sorry,” I gritted. “Katya isn’t out of my place yet.”
“It’s not about you crashing here,” Jesse said. “But I can’t take any more of the moping and writing sad songs.” I scowled. “He’s right. It’s depressing as shit, man.” “Fine,” I said tightly. “I’ll just get a hotel room and get out of your hair.” I stood, and they stood with me.
“We’re not kicking you out,” Jesse said. “Well, we kinda are,” Nash countered. “But not so you can go drown in your sorrows in a hotel room.” “This isn’t you, man. It’s like you’ve given up,” Nash’s face wrinkled like it left a bitter taste in his mouth.
I let out a derisive laugh. “I think that when the girl you love gets engaged to another man, it’s the appropriate time to give up.” “No way,” Nash said.
“Haven’t you seen any romantic movie ever? You don’t give up until she says I do, even if it means riding a horse into the middle of the ceremony.” “He’s right.” Jesse cocked his brow. “And you know it. You need to get your ass back to Boston and tell Abbi not to marry him.”
“I am going to go back to Boston. On Saturday. For the engagement party.” “Fuuuuck that,” Nash dragged out. “You need to go now. Break that shit up so there is no engagement party.” “I can’t do that.” Nash folded his massive arms across his bulky chest.
“Why the hell not? You love her.” “Exactly. Which is why I’m not going to do shit. For once in my damn life I’m not going to be selfish with her. All I want, all I have ever wanted is for her to be happy.
I was arrogant enough to believe it was always going to be me that made her happy, but it’s time I accept that’s not the case. She’s happier with him. She chose him. She wants to marry him.
So I’m going to go to that engagement party, tell her congratulations and that I’m happy for her, and I’m going to try my damnedest to mean it, or at the very least pretend my ass off.” “Noo!” an angry cry sounded from the doorway of the apartment.
I spun around, oblivious to when my sister had joined us. She was always popping up when I least wanted her to. She shoved the front door closed and shot a glare at Jesse. “Why did you start without me?”
He shrugged. “You were late, and he looked like he was about to start crying on my couch. I couldn’t take another second of it.” “Dick,” I muttered under my breath. He ignored me, and Addie came stomping over, tossing her purse down on the counter, and gave me a pleading look.
“You can’t give up.” “You’re wrong. I think it’s time I finally did. I need to let her go and stop standing in her way.”
“AGH!!!” she let out the most frustrated groan-growl-scream I’d ever heard. “This isn’t right. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.
When you love someone the way you do, you don’t ever let go. Not. Ever.” “Addie, I appreciate what you’re trying to do. I really do, but it’s because of how much I love her that I have to stop doing this to both of us. If I keep fighting this, it’s only going to hurt us both more.”
Addie’s face fell. “But you two are meant to be.” “Or maybe we had our time,” I said softly. Every molecule of my being revolted against the veracity of it, but maybe it was true nonetheless. “I don’t believe that,” she said weakly. “And you shouldn’t either.” “Add, I have to.”