“Good pain,” he said. “Remember? We agreed on that. We both knew this would end up hurting us and we decided to do it, anyway. I knew you were using me as your rebound guy. You knew I was in love with you in high school. We’ve been together day and night for almost two weeks. You can’t be surprised by this, can you? Are you?”
“You’re hurting me, Chris.”
“I’m loving you. Right now. This second. I love you. And I’m sorry it hurts you but guess what? It hurts me, too.”
“You don’t look hurt.” No, he didn’t look hurt at all. He looked fine. Just fucking fine. Meanwhile she wanted to scream or cry or kiss him or slap him and she hated that he could be calm in a moment like this when she couldn’t.
“What does hurt look like?”
“Like this.” She turned her back on him and walked out of the cabin, slamming the beautiful red door behind her.
She should have known.
She should have known this would hap
pen.
In fact, she had known it would happen. That’s why she told Chris a week ago at the lodge they were playing with fire. That’s why she’d made him swear he wouldn’t make it harder for her. How stupid was he to think telling her he loved her wouldn’t make it harder?
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be great sex and friendship and then she’d leave and they’d sigh a little wistfully and they’d both get on with their lives. Chris was one of those guys who always seemed okay. Anything that happened to him was just water off a duck’s back. Quiet, strong, hardworking, resilient. Fine. Chris was fine. He was always fine. He’d fought off high school bullies without breaking a sweat. When mocked at school for being best friends with the supposedly only gay kid in school, he’d shrugged it off without a word. She trusted Chris, which is why it had been so easy to let herself believe she could sleep with him for a couple weeks and walk away with no permanent damage to either of them. A few tears, a few regrets, sure. But Chris was in love with her and he told her that knowing it would make her the bad guy when she walked away.
Fine, then. She’d be the bad guy.
She trudged down the path back toward the cabin. The muddy path wanted to slow her down but she wouldn’t let it.
Men. Fucking men. They were allowed to be married to their jobs, married to their careers, but God forbid a woman picked her job over the man in her life. God forbid she says, “Nope, my job’s more important than you are.” Oh, no. That’s not what women were allowed to do. A guy tells her he loves her and she’s supposed to drop everything, run into his arms and say, “Thank you for making my life worth living with your love. I was just over here doing nothing but running the marketing department of a successful airline while living in a tropical paradise, but now that I know you love me, I can stop wasting my time with that whole stupid life and career thing. By the way, how many babies can I have for you and how do you want your eggs cooked every morning, Master?”
And how dare Chris accuse her of being scared. Her? Scared? She was the one who went to college across a fucking ocean. He lived with his parents after high school graduation. She wasn’t afraid of anything except maybe killing Chris the next time she saw him, which would hopefully be never. Chris was supposed to be her date for Dillon’s wedding.
Well, forget that. She’d rather skip the wedding than see him again.
Afraid?
Her?
He didn’t know the meaning of the word if he thought that. Just because he’d said he loved her? Why would she be afraid of him loving her? Oh, maybe because the man she’d been in love with for the past two years had lied to her the entire time they were together, had betrayed her so deeply she wasn’t sure she’d ever find the bottom of the wound he’d left in her pride and her heart. Maybe because Chris was everything she’d ever wanted and never realized it until she came back here and if she were going to have what she’d wanted she’d have to give up everything she had.
Joey stopped and leaned against a tree. She’d been walking so fast and so hard she was out of breath. One second, that’s all she needed. Maybe a minute. She was fine. Only needed to breathe. Joey breathed and breathed.
And then she cried. No. Not this. She didn’t want to start crying again. If she started crying again she might not stop. But she couldn’t stop. It all came out. Big heavy sobs. Deep belly weeping. Gasping for air. Holding her stomach. Pain in her ribs. A stitch in her side. Fat tears by turns hot and cold on her face. A terrible bitter taste in her mouth.
Fucking men... Was she not even a human being to them? Was she just a toy for Ben to play with while in Hawaii? Was she still fourteen to Chris? Where did they get off kicking her heart around like a soccer ball? She didn’t do that to them. She didn’t make Ben choose between LA and Hawaii. She didn’t rat him out to his wife. She didn’t tell Chris if he really loved her he’d move to Hawaii to be with her. And how dare he even pretend he would if she asked him to? He didn’t get to do that. Chris didn’t get to play Mr. Wonderful while she was forced into the role of The One Who Got Away just because he decided to dump a declaration of love on her ten days after a breakup and three days before she left town. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. And it wasn’t like Chris.
Now, Ben would do something like that. And he had, too. He’d forced her into being The Other Woman without her knowledge or permission. She’d be the butt of awful office gossip at work if and when it got out that a) she and Ben had dated, and b) he was married. She hadn’t chosen that, either.
Joey pushed away from the tree and headed down the path again. She wasn’t going to spend the entire day weeping in the forest like some kind of Disney princess waiting on woodland creatures to gather around her. With her luck she’d end up being “comforted” by a black bear or a mountain lion.
As she walked up the path she made a decision. No more playing house with Chris. They were fools to think they could sleep together, hang out together, work together, play together and then just say “Later!” at the airport and go their separate ways without it hurting the both of them. Joey couldn’t even rip off a Band-Aid without losing a little skin. To say goodbye to Chris would take off more than one layer of her heart and it was an open wound already.
So...it was over. Completely over. She could spend today and tomorrow miserable, then she’d put on a happy face for the wedding, leave on Sunday and that was that. The next few months would be hellish, of course, but she’d known that before leaving LA. When she got to work Monday morning, there was a very good chance Ben would be there, in her office, waiting to hash it out with her. And she would simply hand him a box of the stuff he’d left at her apartment and say goodbye. If he tried anything, anything at all, she would call HR and tell them everything. This would, of course, get her and Ben fired but that wouldn’t be the end of the world. Her boyfriend of two years was married. She’d discovered this by coming face-to-face with his wife. She’d met the greatest guy in the world while on the rebound and she had to leave him on Sunday. Why shouldn’t she also get fired? When it rains it pours and nobody knew that better than somebody born and raised in the Pacific Northwest.
But staying here was out of the question.
Staying meant Ben won. And the sort of man who would cheat on his wife and lie to his girlfriend didn’t get to win. There had to be consequences even if they were just seeing her at work every day and knowing she had the power to get him fired anytime she wanted. That’s what a man like Ben deserved. A cheater. A liar. A coward. And if he were here she’d tell him that to his face.
Joey left the main path and strode up the cobblestone walkway to the cabin. She went in the back door and kicked off her muddy shoes. They hit the wall with a thud. Another thud followed, but it hadn’t come from her shoes.
Someone knocked on the door, paused and knocked again.