Hold the Forevers

I went straight into the bathroom and turned on the shower as hot as the water would go. The tiny bathroom steamed up within minutes. Then I peeled off the remnants of my dirty little secret and stepped inside. The blistering heat hit me full-on, but I didn’t back away from it. I pushed myself under the water and let it pour over my face and hair and down my body.

I grabbed the bar of soap and scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. Every inch of my body was lathered and washed three times until I couldn’t wash anymore. There was nothing left to remove, no traces of what I’d done.

My knees hit the bathtub as the first sob racked my body.

I had to live with what had happened. And right now, I couldn’t live with it. I couldn’t live with myself. Tears ran down my cheeks, hitting the bathtub and melding the salt with the shower water. My chest heaved as sobs that I’d somehow managed to hold in yesterday finally came hard and fast.

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. My eyes burned. Everything felt so small and distant and yet so close and oppressive. As if time itself were stopping to inspect the moment.

Cole had broken up with me.

I wrapped my arms around my chest and bent over, touching my forehead to the bottom of the shower. He’d broken up with me. We’d been together two and a half years, and the whole thing had gone up in flames over some Facebook pictures and a drunken weekend with my friends. I couldn’t fathom it.

He’d been mad, sure. But I hadn’t thought that he’d be that mad.

But I should have seen it. I should have seen his anger for what it was. He was so chill, but he had a slow burn temper that exploded when it was activated. And he hated Ash. It was his trigger. It was why he’d gotten so mad that night after the Bama game. I could see it, but I hadn’t been expecting it. I hadn’t seen it burn this hot in so long.

I’d only been three weeks away from seeing him. I was going to skip out on Thanksgiving with my family to fly to San Francisco for a week. And now, that was canceled. Everything was canceled. Like the end of a TV show in the middle of a season.

And then I’d gone and proven him right.

Did the exact thing that he’d worried would happen.

Cole had been right. Ash was our Achilles’ heel. He was the boy I had never completely left behind despite all the horrors of our past. And I didn’t know how to let him go or turn him away. I didn’t know how to say no to him any more than he did to me.

Even though I wanted Cole, I knew now that it couldn’t happen. That it wouldn’t happen. Not after last night.

When the water ran cold, I shut the thing off and stumbled wearily out of the shower. I dried off and wrapped my long blonde hair into a second towel. I’d stopped crying somewhere during my inner tirade, but now, I felt wrung out. I couldn’t imagine going to the game today and pretending like everything was okay. I couldn’t imagine doing anything.

Somehow, my roommates were still asleep, even after my long-ass shower. I put on fresh clothes and left them a note that I’d gone to the beach.

I set my toes into the sand, looking on in dismay at the state of the beach from all the trash left behind from the parties, when my phone rang. Besides a few texts from Marley and Josie about the pictures online last night, I hadn’t heard from anyone, and I wasn’t in the mood to respond.

But when I checked the screen, Cole’s name appeared.

I took a deep breath and slowly released it before putting the phone to my ear. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he said, his voice as thick and raw as mine.

Silence stretched between us like it never had before. The weight of his betrayal … and mine heavy like molasses.

“Cole—”

“No, let me go first,” he said quickly.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“I don’t know what happened last night.” I could practically see him running a hand through his hair, trying to get himself together. “I said all the wrong things. I saw you with Ash and freaked out. I lost my mind. And I’m so sorry.”

“Cole, stop.”

“Lila, please, I shouldn’t have lost my cool like that. It’s not fair to you when you weren’t doing anything wrong. I might hate Ash, but I should have trusted that nothing would happen.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. But something had happened. It had happened. But I couldn’t say the words.

“I know that I can’t say that I’m sorry enough. I don’t know how else to apologize for how I acted.”