He looks a little stunned, but I don’t care. My soul aches with emptiness, and my face is hot with the stress of holding back tears that desperately need to fall.
I start walking again, but I hear his footsteps on the pavement behind me. “Nikki…”
“Please leave me alone. Just walk away, Derek. You’re good at that.”
Chapter Fifteen
He follows me all the way home. For the first few minutes, he begs me to get in the car, but eventually he gives up and drives beside me with his blinkers on. It’s ridiculous and I keep snapping at him to just go home, but he won’t.
I walk the whole way home just so he can pull into my driveway after.
I hear the latch on his door, hear it slam shut, so I know he’s following me, but I’m too drained to care. I fish my keys out of my purse and push open the door. The house feels empty again. This time if feels like it lacks Henry, even though he didn’t live here. I glance at the corner where he wanted to put a TV. Why didn’t I just let him put a TV in the damn corner? It didn’t matter. No, I would have never used it, but it wouldn’t have hurt me to let him put the fucking thing in my living room.
I bend down and drop my purse beneath my desk, then drop my keys on top of the Dreamcatcher rough draft I had printed out to go through when I got back home from the movie. I made time to go on the date since Henry insisted, but I was planning to get right back to work as soon as I got home.
I don’t have the emotional capacity to read a romance right now, so instead of doing that—or dealing with the man I know followed me into my house—I walk silently to my bedroom, peel off my dress, kick off my shoes, and climb into my bed.
I’m dead empty, not for the first time, but I hope to God for the last. It probably will be. I’ll never meet someone else with Henry’s patience or Derek’s ability to burrow into my heart.
Thank God.
I just have to get through tonight, then tomorrow everything will be fine.
Derek darkens my doorway, leaning against the frame and looking at me lying in bed. It’s hard to believe he has only been back in my life for seven days, and he has already wrecked all of it. The whole damn thing. Maybe he’ll set my house on fire before he leaves. He needs a grand finale, after all.
“Remember when you hated me so much you wanted to ruin my life?” I ask him.
His gaze drops and he nods his head.
“Now you’ve ruined it twice. Congratulations on your accomplishment.”
“I don’t want to be your villain, Nikki.”
“You should have stayed gone,” I tell him. “I missed you, but I shouldn’t have. I can’t believe I let myself forget what this feels like. I worked so hard to remember, but… I forgot.”
Pushing off the doorframe, Derek takes a few slow steps forward. “I’m sorry it hurts right now. It won’t hurt forever. This won’t hurt forever. He wasn’t right for you, Nikki. I’m not saying that to be a dick. He wasn’t. He doesn’t deserve any trophies for waiting around on you. He waited around because he knew you were worth waiting for. Because you were something he wanted. He wasn’t doing you any favors. You’d have been just fine without him there waiting around, wouldn’t you?”
Yeah, I guess that’s true.
Squatting down beside the bed so he can look me in the eye, Derek tells me, “You’re the strongest person I have ever met in my whole life, Nikki. Everyone else I’ve ever known combined can’t hold a candle to you.”
“Stop,” I mutter, turning my face into the pillow.
“I’m not bullshitting you. You’re a fucking warrior, and if he really thinks you’re cold, he’s an idiot. You’re not cold, Nikki. You run hot. You and I both know that. You’re like a fucking volcano, and only someone who hasn’t seen you in all your glory could ever think you’re in any way lacking. He wanted to hurt you, so he said shit he knew would hit home. He was pissed because you wouldn’t let him in. He knew you’d never be his, and he wanted you to be. He’s jealous, that’s all. Don’t listen to any of that bullshit. Never listen to the words someone flings when they’re breaking up with you. They’re saying what they need to believe, that’s all.”
His words are nice, but I can’t hear them right now. I need him to leave me here to mourn, to just bow out of my life so I can return to safety. I thought I was keeping Henry at a safe distance, and clearly even that wasn’t far enough. It’s a joke that six nights ago Henry was here with me, and I was opening up to him more than I ever have, telling him things I want. Things I realize now I’ll never have. Not ever. Having any of the things I told him I wanted would require letting someone closer than I let him, and losing Henry still hurts. There is no way to have relationships from a safe distance, and I am not going to do this again. No more hurt. No more loss.
I have my work. It’s fulfilling enough. I’m glad I got that rough draft out, because the mood I’m in right now, I feel wilted, like I’ll never use the keyboard as my paintbrush again, never fill another empty canvas with lovers I’ve dreamed up. Why would I dream up something like that for people I like, even if they only live in my imagination? Love is for suckers. I hate love. Love is the worst thing in the world.
“Look, I’m not trying to be a bitch, I’m really not. But I’m drained and I really just need to sleep. Will you please…?”
Derek sighs, looks at the ground, then nods his head and stands. “All right.”
I have nothing else to say, so I pull the blanket up over my face and don’t lower it to peek back out until I hear my bedroom door click shut.
I feel heavier, but relieved at the same time. I can’t properly process tonight with Derek in my space. I need to be alone. For the rest of my life, I need to be alone.
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