Southern Player (Charleston Heat 2)

If he wanted me, he could come to me.

Clearly he doesn’t.

I know he said he wasn’t good enough for me. Still, I can’t help but feel that I’m the one who fucked up. Fell short.

Maybe if I had just tried harder. Made him feel more comfortable. Took him to a few more events. Or a few less—

Ugh, old shitty thought patterns die hard I guess.

I loved how Luke made me feel like I didn’t have to try much at all to be adored. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that’s what made me fall so hard and so fast for him.

But what if that was bullshit? Him accepting me for who I was? Because if he truly adored me for me, we’d still be together, wouldn’t we?

I want nothing more than to lie very still in bed and let tears leak out of my eyes as I process everything that went down. I feel hollow and hurt and dazed, like I’ve been in a car accident or something.

But businesses don’t run themselves. I need to capitalize on the momentum the grand re-opening gave us at Holy City Roasters. We’re all over blogs and news outlets. Never mind social media—the posts and tags and follows have gotten so out of hand I’m going to have to hire someone just to manage our social media accounts. Good problem to have. Just means more work for me in the meantime.

So I show up. I wash my face and blame my puffy eyes on allergies and get through the day, one hour at a time.

It’s the only time I feel like I can breathe—when I’m behind the counter with Dylan, or greeting regular customers by name, or running a meeting with my staff while we munch on Marie’s latest confections.

I find myself saying little prayers of gratitude throughout my time at the shop. Thank God I have this, I’ll think as I walk into the kitchen to see trays upon trays of freshly baked cream cheese brownies and petit fours and these gorgeous mini muffins. Thank God I have these people who love me and know me and contribute so much to this cool little community we’ve built together.

Makes me think of a few lines from My Deal With the Duke I listened to on my walk into work. Jane is really hurting after she breaks it off with Max the Duke and is thinking about how grateful she is to have a rich inner life to help her get through her heartbreak.

The inner dialogue that had seemed like such a nuisance before—nagging Jane, making her second guess herself, making her wish for a reprieve from the constant barrage of thoughts and doubts—suddenly seemed like a gift. She realized that if she didn’t have the inner life that she and Max had talked so much about, then she’d have nothing right now. Nothing to comfort herself with. Nothing to come back to when everything went sideways.

Because her world as she knew it was upside-down. She’d never been in love before. Not like this. She’d had no way of knowing it would leave her feeling so desolate.

So alone.

Alone, except for the light inside her and her books. Which, thankfully, seemed to feed each other.

And they say romance is mindless fluff.

I swear to God, if anything is going to get me through this week, it’s Max and Jane’s happily ever after. Maybe if I keep exposing myself to hope, fictional or otherwise, it will start to rub off on me.

I’ll stop thinking I don’t deserve a happy ending of my own. Because that’s the thought that keeps haunting me. When I try to sleep, try to eat. Try to walk through those last few moments with Luke.

Whatever happened, I was not enough to keep Luke around.

I was not fucking enough. And that haunts me.

Somewhere in the flurry of my misery the idea stands that I am enough, and that this break up is on him, not me. I just—

I can’t help blaming myself.

I thought I was past this. The second guessing. The self-flagellating. I want so badly to move on from it, and I thought I had.

I’m in my office on the second day, staring at my laptop as I’m assaulted by my grief, when there’s a knock on my door.

I look up to see Dylan and Julia.

“We’re taking you out for a drink,” Julia says.

“Nothing crazy,” Dylan adds. “But we think it might help if you get out a little bit.”

“Take some shots from plastic shot glasses.”

“Blow off some steam.”

“Flirt with a few guys. Or tell them to fuck off. Whatever you want.”

I manage a smile, even as my eyes burn at their kindness. Aside from my brother, they were the first people I told about the break up. My allergy story might have fooled my other employees and customers, but not these two—my best friends.