Broken Juliet(87)

I close my eyes and grip the bed, trying to keep my emotions from ruining me. I’m successful for a while. He makes me come, and I’m fine. He kisses up my body, and I’m okay. He settles between my legs, and I’m wavering. He looks into my eyes as he enters me, and a giant fault line cracks down the middle of my resolve. He slows everything down so much, it seems like he doesn’t want it to end, and I’m cleaved in two. One part is vibrant and pulsing with pleasure. The other is withering and dying. The trusting part. The loving part.

He thinks I can go back to being the person I was after this? It’s impossible. The damage is done. He’s poisoned the woman I used to be. Long after he’s gone, I’ll still be toxic.

I don’t orgasm again. My body is too busy mourning his loss even while he’s still inside me.

When he comes, his face is buried in my neck, and even though I’ve banned myself from crying, it happens anyway. My tears are silent, but I know he can tell. Just like I can tell why he stays so still afterward. Why his arms are so tight around me, his breathing so uneven.

Why he wipes his face on my pillow before he climbs off.

He rolls onto his back. Throws his arm over his eyes. I don’t move. I can’t.

If I do, I’ll shatter like glass.

“Cassie—”

“Nothing you say is going to make you leaving me okay. Nothing. Ever.”

He takes in a shaky breath. “If there was another way—”

I turn my back on him and face the wall. It’s too hard having him here now. It just makes me want to beg him to stay, and that’s something my pride won’t allow.

“You need to leave.”

He doesn’t move.

“Now, Ethan.” I try to sound strong, but my voice cracks. It’s no wonder. Right now, all I am is a giant collection of broken pieces being held together by the sheer determination to not let him see me crumble.

The bed moves as he stands, and I just stare at the wall while he collects his clothes and gets dressed. I don’t know how I thought we’d end, but it certainly wasn’t like this.

I think in my most stupid, optimistic daydreams, we didn’t ever end.

What a joke.

I can feel him hovering in the doorway. Watching me. Hoping I’m all right.

I’m not. Right now, I can’t even comprehend a time when I will be.

“Cassie—”

“Get out.”

“Maybe one day … we can—”

“Get the f*ck out!”

My throat tightens when I hear his sigh of resignation. It closes up completely when he whispers, “I’m going to miss you,” before he leaves.

When I hear the front door close, a sob rips out of me. It’s followed by another, and another, until I’m drowning and gasping for air.

Eventually I calm down enough to breathe, and head into the shower. I wash away every remnant of him. As I do, I vow that I’ll never let another man affect me this way.

Never again.

I also vow that for the rest of my life, I will never hate anyone as much as I hate Ethan Holt.



Present Day

New York City, New York

The Apartment of Cassandra Taylor

Ethan is due to leave tomorrow, and “restless” doesn’t even cover how I’m feeling tonight. “Climbing the walls” is closer but still not frantic enough. I feel unhinged.

All I’ve done since Ethan walked me home is check my watch and count down to the time until his flight leaves. It’s now ten hours and forty-two minutes. I look at my bed and consider trying to sleep, but even though it’s two o’clock in the morning, I know it won’t be possible.

Tristan’s resonant snoring echoes down the hallway, and it’s enough to make me want to scream. I have to get out.

I pull off my robe and get dressed. When I head down to the lobby, I tell myself I’m going for a walk. Just a walk. When I reach the street and hail the first cab that passes, I tell myself I’m just going for a ride. And when I pull up in front of Ethan’s apartment building, I tell myself I’m a filthy, dirty liar for not admitting where I was going and what I was planning on doing.

More specifically, who I was planning on doing.

I punch in his security code and open the door. His building is quiet. When the elevator opens on his floor, I almost lose my nerve and leave. He’s probably sleeping. He’s definitely trying to avoid what I’m going to ask him to do. This is such a bad idea on so many levels, and yet, right now, it seems like the most imperative action I’ve ever taken.

I stride down the hallway and knock on his door. I expect to have to wait minutes before he opens it, bleary eyed and half asleep. Instead, it opens within seconds, and he looks even more wired than I feel.

“Fuck, no,” he says, and for a second I think he’s going to shut the door in my face. “What the hell, Cassie?”

“What?”

“You’re here.”

“I know.”

He rakes his fingers through his hair. “You’re supposed to be at your place. Far away from me and sleeping. Preferably in an ugly flannel nightie.”

“Ethan—”

“Do you understand how hard I’ve fought to stay away from you tonight? I’ve been pacing around my living room for hours, trying to resist temptation. And now you show up here, looking like that?”