Dear Heart, I Hate You

“What are you doing here?” I asked, my tone as annoyed as I could muster through my surprise as I shoved the papers into a rough stack.

“I came for you,” he said matter-of-factly, as if that simple declaration would wipe away the last several weeks of emotional hell I’d been through and make it all better.

His response was such a shock, I couldn’t hold myself up. Stunned, I dropped to the concrete and pulled my knees up to my chest as his words repeated inside my head.

I came for you. I came for you. I came for you.

“Why?” My emotions warred within me, contradictory, conflicting, and almost too much for me to bear.

Cal sat down across from me, mirroring my position but not touching. “Because I messed up, Jules. I messed up so bad.”

I tried to swallow but my throat felt thick, and my heart thumped loudly against my chest as if it couldn’t fit in there a second longer.

My mind warned me not to trust him so easily, no matter how hard my heart battered against its cage. We believed all of his pretty words before, my mind said, and look where it got us—heartbroken, discarded, and ignored.

Staring unseeing at the papers I’d dropped a second time, I said flatly, “Yeah, you did. Why are you here?”

It took everything in me to hold on to my resolve and not jump into his arms. Seeing him in front of me, I was still so very attracted to this man. But I’d finally gotten angry at him, and I’d been grateful for that emotion at the time. But now that he was sitting across from me, I felt anything but anger.

And that pissed me right off. I shouldn’t melt at the mere sight of him. Not after what he’d done. I shouldn’t even warm in his presence.

But I did.

He ran his fingers through his messy brown hair before he pinned me with his gaze. “I’m here to tell you I’m sorry, to make things right. To fight for you.”

When he reached out to touch my leg, I jerked it away. I couldn’t let him touch me. Not yet. My anger simmered just below the surface, and I held on to it like a lifeline. Being mad made me feel strong and powerful. It was all I had.

“To fight for me?” I said with a choked laugh. “What a joke. You threw me away, wouldn’t even respond to my messages. Hell, you wouldn’t even read them on Facebook. What kind of an asshole—”

“This asshole,” he said, cutting me off. “Me. I know; I fucking know, Jules. I was wrong. I was an idiot. Please let me explain. Hear me out.”

Glancing down at my cell phone and noting the time, I shook my head. “I have to go. I’m late for an appointment.”

I pushed off of the ground and wiped the seat of my pants off with my hands

before I scooped up my papers and headed for my car.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Cal yelled at my retreating back.

“Sure you’re not,” I shouted over my shoulder without looking at him, unsure of what I’d do if I had to face him again.

Only once I was in the privacy of my car did I allow the few tears that had formed to fall. I refused to let him see me cry. I’d cried enough over Cal in the last several weeks; I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he still affected me.

He didn’t deserve my tears.

Didn’t Go Well

Cal

I watched as Jules got into her car and wiped at her face with the back of her hand. Before that moment, I hadn’t thought that I could feel any worse, but knowing that I made her cry proved me wrong. I sank even lower, feeling more like an asshole than I had five minutes ago.

Then her window rolled down and my heart flipped inside my chest as she turned to look at me.

“How could you go all that time without saying a single word to me? You ignored me.” Her voice shook as she continued. “Your silence was a thousand times worse than anything you could have said to me. It was your indifference that gutted me the most.”

Had I completely ruined her, ruined any chance of there being an us ever again?

I jogged over to her car, not wanting her to leave, desperate for her to hear me out. I should have brought flowers. But here I was, running toward her car emptyhanded like the insensitive jerk I was.