Promise Me, page 22
"Every time I hear or see you cry it kills me just a little bit more because I know it's me who's to blame for it. I know I'll never be good enough for you... I knew it back then, and I fucking know it for sure now. I know I don't have any right to ask, but if you give me another chance, I swear I will spend the rest of my life trying to put that beautiful smile back on your face. Because what I came here to tell you is that I need you... I need you like I need the fucking air to breathe."
Tyler drops his head to rest on my lap and his arms encircle me. I can't say anything back to him. My vocal chords temporarily robbed by the emotions I'm feeling. The pain in the pit of my stomach appeased only slightly by his words that I want to believe so badly. I pull my arms out of his embrace and put them just over his dampened hair. They hover there while I struggle with wanting to soothe him and wanting to hurt him. In the end, they fall to my sides, careful not to touch the bare skin of his arms.
"Please just go."
He lifts his head slowly and brings his lips to my forehead to press a soft kiss there. I close my eyes at the contact, not wanting to look into his when he backs away and goes to stand up. Hearing his feet walk the few steps to my door, I keep my head down and my eyes tightly shut so I won't even be tempted to stop him.
I can tell he's opened the door and is about to walk out when he faintly says, "Whether you want to believe it or not, I do love you, Sabrina."
The heartache of wanting to hear those words for so long from him brings a new wave of tears and I go to bury my face in my hands, but not before I manage to say one last thing to him before he leaves.
"I love you too... but right now, it's just not enough."
I wake up to the sound of rain outside my bedroom window. So much for a day at the beach. It's just as well. I couldn't lift a limb if I tried. All my energy is drained and I'm so uncomfortable from falling asleep in my clothes. I roll onto my back and stare blankly at the ceiling hoping to find some answers there to the questions in my mind.
I never made it out of my room even after Tyler left last night. I heard some murmuring, which I assumed to be Julia and Alex for a few minutes, but didn't want to face either of them after what happened. I locked my door and just buried myself in a cocoon in my bed and cried myself to sleep.
The sound of footsteps approaching and stopping outside my bedroom door makes me abandon the staring contest I'm having with my ceiling. I look over to the clock on my nightstand to see that it's past ten in the morning and know that Julia must be busting at the seams to talk.
I sigh and push my hair out of my face before I find my voice and say, "You can come in."
She immediately goes to open the door but it's still locked which forces me to throw the covers aside and unlock it for her. I crawl back into bed as she opens it and stays in the doorframe with her arms wrapped around herself assessing the damage.
"I'm sorry, sweetie," she says sympathetically. "Can I get you anything?"
I shake my head no when she starts to take a few steps closer until she's sitting on the side of the bed and smiles weakly at me.
"Did he say anything to you when he left?"
She tilts her head thinking of something then says, "No, not really."
"So he said something to you. Tell me."
"I don't know if that's a good idea, Sabrina."
I sit up in the bed intrigued by whatever information she's choosing not to share and wish that I didn't want to know so badly, but at the same time needing to hear it.
"Fine," she says giving in to my request. "He apologized to me and said that I was an amazing best friend for looking out for you and that if you changed your mind that he'd be staying at the..."
"Stop! Don't tell me. I don't want to know."
"I hate to admit this, but I kind of felt sorry for the guy when he came sulking out of here looking like his dog died. He deserves it and all, but seriously he looked pitiful. What did you tell him?"
Thinking back to the moment he wrapped me in his arms and I was so close to giving in but couldn't, my eyes water. Ugh! Jesus Christ! This constant crying at the drop of a hat is even annoying me. I groan out loud, utterly frustrated with the knowledge that my heart is in complete control of me right now and has been since the second he stepped onto that gazebo a month ago.
Julia sounds confused when she asks, "What? What does that groan mean?"
"I'm so tired of all of this, Julia. I'm tired of feeling like a wet mop all the goddamn time. I'm tired of crying all day and night. I'm tired of trying to pretend that I'm okay when I'm not. I'm tired of not wanting to admit to myself that I should have seen this coming. But most of all, I'm so fucking tired of loving him with everything that I am when I know I shouldn't after what he did."
"This is the last time we'll talk about this, so whatever you choose to do, I'll support you regardless, okay," she says.
"Last time ever or just today?" I ask sarcastically.
She grins and I know she's dying to say something equally biting, if not worse, in return but she keeps it in check.
"You have every right to feel everything you are feeling right now. Because what he did... no bullshit... I'd want to go Lorena Bobbitt on him too. But..."
"But what?" I ask while propping myself up on my elbows.
"But, it took a lot of balls to come here. I've never felt like that for someone that deeply where you fly across the country and..."
"It isn't across the country," I say quickly correcting her.
"Fine," and she rolls her eyes at me before she continues. "Fly across the eastern seaboard and want to apologize to them in person."
"He already had the airline ticket."
"True, he did, but he could have easily kept his unwanted ass at home too. But he chose to come here and fight for you. That says a lot."
"This coming from the person who wanted to kill him last night when he showed up here," I say reminding her of the scene last night.
She lets out a dry laugh then says, "Well, as the best friend, that is part of my job description. Don't get me wrong, he's still on my shit list. But maybe, just maybe, he fell to the number two slot."
I fall back onto the bed which such force that the pillows give a big "poof" sound and I put my arm across my eyes. As soon as I do, I see Ava and Tyler wrapped in each other's arms like pretzels. His mouth kissing and nipping at her neck as her head falls back in ecstasy while her hands grip onto his hair roughly.
"Every time I close my eyes, Julia, I see them together. It's like it's on constant rewind and I can't make it stop long enough to listen to what he has to say."
"I'm sorry, sweetie. I don't know how to fix that."
And that's it in a nutshell. Nobody can fix it.
I tear my arm off my face and let out a big breath. "I don't want to talk about it anymore if you don't mind."
She turns the imaginary lock closed over her lips, trying to get me to smile, and it works for a half a second before I notice my crumpled clothes.
"I need to get out of these and shower."
Julia goes to stand and starts to walk out of my room. "I'll have some coffee ready for you when you get out."
"Julia?"
Her hand on the doorframe stops her progress and she turns her head around to look over at me.
"Yeah?"
"Thank you, for everything."
She winks and says, "What kind of best friend would I be if I don't take care of you?"
Her long blonde hair goes flying behind her when she leaves my room and heads down the hall towards the kitchen to make that cup of joe. I kick the blanket off of me and make my way to the shower, staying under the hot stream of water until I realize my fingers look like prunes. Throwing on a pair of yoga pants and a tank top, I pull my wet hair into a messy bun on the top of my head and stalk to the kitchen to join Julia. Waiting for me is my already filled X-Files coffee mug with steam flowing from the top as promised.
I hop up to sit on the kitchen island and Julia goes to grab a refill when something occurs to me. "Oh my God! Alex!"
With her back to me, Julia snickers then says, "Yeah, I was wondering when you'd ask about that."
"I can't believe he saw all that drama." I put my hand to my head in disbelief and embarrassment. "What did he say when he left?"
"Nothing much," she says with a little grin. "He hung around for a few minutes after Tyler left then went home to his batcave or wherever the hell he lives. I think I freaked him out a bit, to be honest."
"You kind of freaked me out too. I thought you were going to slice and dice Tyler right in our living room and I was going to have to start collecting bail money for you."
As she breezes past me and starts walking down the hall she says, "Well, bros before hos and all that jazz."
I yell out to her, "I think you mean sistahs before mistahs."
"Semantics," she yells back.
I finish my coffee while thinking of things to do to occupy myself today. When my bare feet hit the hardwood floor after sliding off the counter, I decide to take on a huge undertaking that I've been putting off forever. With renewed vigor, I set off down the hall to tackle the task of cleaning out my closet. This ought to keep me busy for a while. It's packed so tightly that it's busting at the seams and screaming for a good reorganizing.
Several hours later I'm staring at an empty closet and piles of clothes, shoes, and handbags scattered all over my room. I've somehow managed to move the mess from a contained mess to a nuclear bomb mess. What the hell was I thinking? I'm never going to get this crap straightened up and in semi-decent order then back into a tiny closet to boot. I see myself sleeping on a pile of clothes later tonight because this has got to be the stupidest idea I've ever had.
The sun already set, I've made a minor dent in just the shoes when Julia pops her head in and lets out a long whistle.
"Holy crap, girlie," she says chuckling, "Bored much?"
"At least I've got some of the shoes organized," I say a little happy at my progress. "You should have seen it when I started hours ago."
"I'll take your word for it. I was going to heat up some leftover pasta, do you want some?"
"No thanks, I'm really making some headway here and it's helping to keep me mind off of..."
She cuts me off, keeping me from breaking my own rule while turning on her heel and walking down the hall. "La la la la la. Sabrina is talking but I'm not listening to Sabrina."
I laugh and walk over to sit down on the one bare spot on the floor, but before my ass touches the ground, I curse myself for not thinking of something sooner. I grab my iPhone off the nightstand, which has no messages, thankfully, and dock it into the alarm clock to listen to some music.
Those seven dwarfs were onto something with that whole "whistle while you work" thing, because the music helps to motivate me to get even more floor spaced cleared in a matter of hours.
Now all that's left is a small pile of handbags that I've transferred from the floor to my bed. I grab a couple of them and go to put them on the top shelf in my closet when that goddamn box of "old stuff" from high school gets in the way. I look up to the ceiling hoping that some divine intervention will happen that will keep me from having to touch it, but no such thing. As if it had the cooties, I pull the corner of the box to the edge and take it down without glancing inside of it, bringing it to the furthest corner of my bedroom instead. Out of sight, out of mind.
At just after midnight, I look over my now spotless and reorganized closet with pride. I walk backwards out of it until I fall onto my bed exhausted. I sit back up just as quickly though, not wanting to fall victim again of sleeping with my clothes on. In doing so, I notice that box in the corner. And just like that, all the work of keeping myself busy was for nothing because Tyler is all I can think about now.
I sit and stare at it for too long for it to be normal. All it does is bring more questions. Why? Why, if you love me so much that you need me like the air to breathe, would you sleep with someone else? It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. He's like an enigma that I never can seem to figure out when he does one thing but says something else. I want to kick myself for sitting here and trying to decipher it all; all the pieces that make up Tyler. There's too many to count and nothing seems to fit. I grow increasingly agitated with every thought while I stare at that goddamn box that feels like it's taunting me. Pulling my eyes away from it, I look down at my hands that are clenched in fists. I know there are no answers in the box just like I know that none will magically appear in my head. Only one person can give me the answers I'm looking for.
Like a bat out of hell, I snatch my phone from the dock and slip on my Converse sneakers before bolting out of my room. I reach the front door after bending down to pick up my purse and keys before it dawns on me that I have no clue where I'm supposed to be going and my car is still parked by the bar from last night. Running back down the hallway, I stop just outside Julia's bedroom door and tap my knuckles softly against it. I'm surprised when I hear her voice clear and alert when she says to come in.
She tears her eyes away from her laptop, takes one look at me and says, "The Delano, room 1408 and my keys are in my purse."
"Thanks."
She shouts a "you're welcome" that I can barely hear because I'm already in full sprint towards the front door.
The drive to The Delano Hotel takes me less than twenty minutes, but to find a parking spot in South Beach on a hopping Saturday night takes another fifteen. It's not until I'm in the elevator and the door closes that I see my reflection. Shit, I should have thought this out a little better. I don't even have time to fix the messy bun on the top of my head before the doors open again on the fourteenth floor.
Of course his has to be the very last door and the whole walk there it feels like a death march. I stand there as if I was wearing a pair of boots made out of cinder blocks until I lift my hand up to knock. Adrenaline is racing through me, making a dull pounding sound in my ears that barely drowns out the clink of the lock being undone on the other side.
Tyler opens the door wearing a black tank top and black pajama bottoms. His thick brown hair is a perfect mess. But what catches my attention more than anything are the old school Ray-Ban eyeglasses on his face. Lord, help me. No one should look this good in the middle of night, especially with a pair of glasses on.
"I didn't know you needed glasses," I say sounding like a complete idiot.
"I wear them for reading," he answers with a small smirk and goes to take them off. "Do you want to come in?"
He swings the door wider for me to walk by him, closing the door before he goes to stand at a small desk to my left. Putting his glasses on a pile of papers there, he leans against the desk and watches me closely while I put Julia's keys in my purse and drop it to the floor. I walk to the windows to stare at the ocean view, choosing to keep my back to him when I blurt out the reason I came here.
"I need to know exactly what happened with Ava."
"I'm sorry, but I can't do that."
"Why not?"
"Because I know anything I say is going to hurt you more and that's the last thing I want."
I drop my head against the cool glass, still locked in a trance with the ocean waves hitting the sand down below.
"Tyler, I know it's crazy, but please... I need to know how and why it happened."
He stays silent for so long that I'm forced to turn around and look at him still leaning against the desk with his arms wrapped around himself. I walk over to stand in front of him and try not to let my heart take in his pained expression as he struggles to find the right words to explain himself.
"A few of us were hanging out at the bar in the restaurant after we closed for the night. Little by little there was only the two of us left. That's when she told me about Alex, and how she saw some text you got from him that day you dropped me off. Which I didn't believe at first since you never mentioned to me that you had spoken to Ava at all to begin with. Why didn't you ever tell me about that?"
I quickly say to him through clenched teeth, "So this is my fault because I never told you about Alex?"
"No, that's not what I meant."
"Why then? It wouldn't have made any difference," I say matter of fact.
His jaw flexes when he answers me back. "For starters, I would have fired her back then instead of having to wait three weeks to do it."
I feel a small sense of happiness and relief at that piece of information but it doesn't take away from the path of destruction that's been left in her wake. He pulls himself off the desk slowly to come closer to me but with every small step he takes forward, I take one backwards. I swing around him and put my palms on the desk, keeping my back to him when I take a deep breath and exhale, remembering the reason I came here.
"Go on. Tell me the rest."
He lets out a string of curses under his breath before he finally goes on with the blanks I need filled.
"One drink led to another, I was pretty drunk and she offered to give me a ride. The part of me that still thinks I don't deserve you and lets me fuck everything up in my life without a second thought… yeah, that part let her convince me that you were still with Alex. So, when she drove to her place instead, I didn't say no." He pauses then continues. "I kind of passed out... after. When I woke up in the morning she filled in the blanks for me. She told me about the phone call and what I had said to you."
I feel him coming to stand right behind me. So close that I can feel his warm breath on the back of my neck when he starts to talk again.
"Baby, I knew in that very moment that I had seriously messed everything up. I'm so fucking stupid for ever doubting you even a single second. I should have gone home, called you and asked you myself. But I didn't and I can't take it back. I want to more than anything, but I can't."
The hurt in his voice cuts through to me somehow. I want to hate myself for it but I can't control the feelings I have for him. They have been in the driver's seat since I came knocking on his door a little while ago and I know if I turn around to look in his eyes, I'll be a goner. Keeping my attention trained on the papers on the desk, I barely notice his movement behind me. It's not until I feel his right hand lightly rest on my hip that I snap out of the trance I've talked myself into.
