Pieces of You

Chapter Four: Worth it

*Three Months Later*

I open the door and trudge up the stairs, hoping Kay is actually home.

"Good afternoon, love!" She squeals at me as I turn the corner into the living area. She's sitting on the couch with some reality tv show playing on the tv.

She doesn't ask about the appointments anymore. At first she'd always ask, and I'd tell her I'd run out of tears again. These days my tear ducts ran dry more often than not. If I wasn't awoken by a screaming, sobbing nightmare, I was crying at therapy, and if I wasn't crying at therapy, I was listening to Taylor Swift and crying over Luke.

I hadn't realized I'd started to think about him until my hands started fidgeting again. It's a habit I picked up to cope with the anxiety, and Sara, my therapist says it's normal. She said I'm making good progress, but I've never felt so distinctly, and horribly stagnant in my life.

"We're going out tonight."

I looked up from my hands and blinked at her in confusion. I don't go out, not anymore.

"Ash has a fight, it'll be fun!"

"No."

The word flew out of my mouth before I could comprehend what she really said.

"I think it'll be good for you, hun. Cal, and Mike will be there and they'll keep you safe."

My throat started to hurt, my chest was tight already, and my palms were sweating. The familiar anxiety looming over me as I actually considered it. I'm going to feel like shit, and I'm going to hate it, and I'm so fucking scared to see him. There's no doubt he'll be there.

How could he do it? It never made any sense after that night.

He walked me up to the door, because it was dark already. He smiled at me in the dim hall lighting that flickered overhead.
I can still hear the last words he said to me. I hear it in my dreams, or in my head when there's no other sounds in the room. It's the most agonizing broken record but it won't stop. The way he held my face, to make me look up at him before he said,

"Everything's going to be okay, princess, I promise."

But nothing was okay. Because he disappeared. I know the guys still see him, and Kay does too. He trains with Ashton all of the time, but they all stopped bringing him up around me. I tried, I asked them all, I cornered Cal with my biggest, saddest eyes and begged for him to tell me anything.

They always said they didn't know why, but he didn't want to see me. I don't know what I did, because... he promised, he promised me and he fucking lied.

I blinked my dry eyes, and swallowed the lump in my throat.

"Fine, I'll go."

She threw herself at me, hugging me and jumping around. I didn't share the same excitement, I only felt sick.

Our usual ritual began, each of us going to our own bathrooms for a shower and then congregating in her larger bathroom with all of our makeup.

"I said look hot, not like a schoolgirl Cam. Although to some guys I guess that is hot, but that's gross and so not what we're going for." She shudders, and I laugh at her and swallow the icky feeling it gave me when she said it.