Loving a Man Who Forgot Me Novel Chapter 89
I set the notebook down carefully and twisted the ring on my finger with my thumb as a pang of remorse shot through me.
“It changes things, doesn’t it?” He let out a bitter laugh. “Who am I kidding? Things changed the moment he showed up. I saw it. Felt it. I’ve just been in denial this whole time.”
Acute pain etched itself across my face and I closed my eyes, wishing . . . wishing that I didn’t have to do this.
“Maybe you were in denial too,” he said. I opened my eyes and forced them to meet his. “It wasn’t denial, Jason. I love you.”
“But . . .” he supplied. “But, if we’re both going to be honest about what we’ve been feeling since Abel showed up, did you buy the ring because you knew without a shadow of a doubt you were ready to spend the rest of your life with me, or because you were afraid to lose me?”
His eyes flickered with the truth. “What’s the difference, Abbi?” he asked desperately. “The difference is everything,” I said through the ache in my chest.
“So what if I didn’t want to lose you! I still don’t. I want to marry you and have a life with you . . . but that’s not what you want, is it?”
I walked slowly to him, smiling sadly as I took his hand. “Loving you Jason, is the easiest thing in the world. It’s safe and warm and I know that if I married you, we would have a good and happy life.” “Then why isn’t that enough?” he choked.
“Because loving him, it consumes me. With every single breath I take, and with every beat of my heart, I feel it, like it’s what I was made to do.”
“But he’s hurt you. I could see that hurt when I first met you and I still see it. I would never hurt you, Abbi.”
I lifted my hand to cup his cheek. “I know that. And you’re right. He has hurt me.” I skimmed my hand along his jaw and let it fall away. “In more ways and deeper than anyone else ever could, because he can touch parts of me no one else can reach.
But he also heals me. And he challenges me. Makes me question everything. I’ve never known anyone who lives as passionately as he does or makes me feel that kind of passion. I know it’s dangerous, that kind of love. Nothing about it is easy or safe, but I don’t think love is supposed to be.
The only thing I know for certain is that the only time I feel whole is when I’m with him, and when he’s gone a piece of me is gone too.”
I slid the ring from my finger and reached for his hand again. “I’m sorry.” I placed the ring into his hand and pressed his fingers closed around it. “I’m so sorry for doing this to you. I know it’s screwed up what I’ve put you through, but I don’t know how to not be in love with him, and I only hurt everyone by trying.”
I leaned up on my tip-toes to lay a kiss on his cheek. “I never deserved you, because I always belonged to someone else, but you will find a girl good enough for you, and she’ll give you everything I never could.”
My feet flat on the floor again, I looked into his eyes, wishing I could take the hurt from them. He never deserved to be anyone’s second choice. Ever.
But that would be too easy though, wishing his pain away to make myself feel less horrible and guilty. The least I owed him was to feel this. And I would for a long time. Defeated, shoulders sunk, and face drawn, Jason walked out of my house.
I closed the door behind him and pressed my forehead against it, giving in to the misery for a few minutes, letting what I’d just done sink in. And then I blew out a shaky breath and pulled myself up. I turned and eyed that damn notebook on the little stand.
Almost like I was afraid it was going to bite me, I walked over slowly and picked it up. I opened to the first page and that song about a red door, hungrily skimming my eyes over the words.
There were so many markings, scribbles, words crossed out, and new ones written in, but as I flipped through the pages, the song came together. My heart thrummed and punched against my chest. My breaths were shaky and shallow as I tried to suck them in through the tightness in my throat.
I flipped another page and found another song. One equally as heartbreaking and full of anguish and love. And then another, and as I flipped through the pages there was song after song, maybe half a dozen or more. All about me and this consuming love between us.
His regrets, his wishes, his hopes and dreams, his willingness to let me go and set me free so I could find peace. A drop of water splashed onto the page followed by a second, and that’s when I realized I was crying.
I slammed the notebook closed and grabbed my keys. I told myself I knew what I was doing. At least I hoped I did. Because I wasn’t turning around. I was all in. Feet first. Sink or swim. There was no other way when it came to us.
I pulled up to the McCabe’s trembling, my heart racing erratically inside its cage. Was I scared? More like terrified. But I imagined it was the kind of terrified you were before you jumped out of an airplane, or off a cliff into the ocean, or off a bridge attached to a bungee cord.
It might kill you. But it also might be the biggest rush of your life. I bypassed the front door, going around the side of the multi-level house, until I came to the covered patio beside the pool deck. God, I hadn’t done this since I was a teenager.
“Don’t fall, Abbi,” I whispered to myself as I stepped up onto the rock wall that ran from the edge of the patio along the side of the house, encasing all the beautiful and exotic plants and flowers. On tip toes I reached up and grabbed the flat roof over the patio.
Pressing one foot against the side of the house for leverage, I pulled myself up onto my belly, and wiggled the rest of my body onto the roof.
Breathing a little harder, I climbed to my feet and quietly padded across the low roof and then climbed up and over the glass railing of the balcony on the second story. My foot caught on the railing and I nearly went face first but managed to catch myself and get my leg all the way over.
A relieved breath whooshed out of me and then I crept closer to the big glass doors that led right into Abel’s room. A light shone from within through the cracks in the heavy drapes. “You should’ve just wrung the bell instead of climbing up here like a psycho,” I muttered to myself.
Too late for that now. I’d gone through the effort of getting up here, so I raised my hand and lightly rapped my knuckles against the glass. What if he’s not even in there? You could be waiting up here a while.