Because of You (Because of You 1)

He said nothing, just stared at a spot past my shoulder with a sad expression on his face.

"So, what do you think, Derek? Last chance. You want to turn your back on everything else and be with me?"

"I can't," he whispered.

I hadn't expected him to, but I think there was a small part of me locked away deep inside that wished against all reason that he would say yes, that he would tell me to go put as much in my car as I could fit and we would just run away together.

Completely unrealistic.

Most dreams seemed to be.

I nodded. "I didn't think so."

I wanted to give him one last kiss goodbye, just one more memory to hold onto, but I sensed that it would leave me feeling even more despair if I did, so instead I took one last look, squared my shoulders, and turned away, hoping he wouldn't come after me—and at the same time wishing he would.

He didn't.

Chapter Eighteen -

As the months went by, it got easier.

Not letting go of Derek. There was a part of me—the part that had witnessed my mother's pain, probably—that expected it would never really get easier to let him go.

Covering it up got easier.

Derek tried to call me once after we broke up, but I was with Alex and I didn't answer. Derek left no message, and I never found out why he called.

Derek and I didn't speak. I avoided even looking at him when he could see me, although when I was out of his line of sight I would drink in as many glimpses of him as I could. I had already memorized every curve of his face and lock of his hair, every muscle in his body and even the way he wore his clothes. But I wanted to lock it all away somewhere in my memory where I would never lose it.

Secretly, I feared I would always love Derek.

But nobody needed to know that but me.

I knew I would never love like that again. It had been by accident that I stumbled into it with him, but losing my mother and my own heart to Love’s vicious grasp was enough.

As Kayla began to show, I was newly aware of the pain. It was like someone was painfully branding my insides every single time that I saw her, smiling and apparently happy as she let people touch her belly and she tugged on Derek's arm to tell him something or other. Imagining their child growing inside of her hurt so badly that the first time I really noticed the bump, it literally took my breath from me.

Once Kayla was showing, I stopped going to lunch. I couldn't eat in the lunchroom anyway, because the sight of them made my stomach physically sick. When possible, I would take the long way to my classes to avoid even passing her, and before long I had managed to eliminate most of the Kayla-sightings from my life.

When I did happen across her though, I forced myself to look regardless of the pain. Even though it hurt like hell, I felt that I needed those reminders. Months had gone by and I would still find myself crying as I tried to sleep on those nights when I would give in to a moment of weakness. On those nights, I would miss him. I would think about what it used to feel like to have Derek's arms around me, and I would lie in bed for hours replaying the good memories.

It probably wasn’t a good idea, but it was what I did anyway. I was only hurting myself, and nobody else knew. Besides, I didn't do it very often.

When I did, I thought of my mother, of those times when I was little and I would hear the same noise coming from the next room over.

As a child, it scared me.

As a young adult, it still scared me.

I got my college acceptance letter in the spring, so Alex and I began officially planning out our new life. Alex was an adventurous type anyway, and he swore that he had no problem scrapping the life he had made and starting fresh somewhere new. I didn't know if it was true, but I figured he must not mind too much because he was pretty enthusiastic about it.

We were going east, and Alex didn't seem the least bit concerned that we didn't know anyone there. Honestly, even though I was excited, I was also really nervous. I wondered what would happen to me.

As graduation drew closer, I tried to imagine myself actually leaving my hometown?

?going somewhere nobody knew my story, no one knew about my mother, nobody had slept with my father at any point in their life, and there was no Derek Noble.

If the last part hurt to think about, I never admitted it, even to my journals.