Can This Be Real?

Chapter 20: Over You

Bethany POV

Over, I’m so over you

The way that you held me, like nobody else would

Maybe if I tell myself enough

Maybe if I do

I’ll get over you

The lyrics of this song just sum up everything that I have been feeling lately or at least trying to feel as of late. I can’t even hide the fact that I am hurting. So naturally, I had to record an Instagram video singing this song and post it. Of course no one would really know what the meaning behind the song or they would make assumptions of knowing. I, however, would vehemently deny that it pertains to anything in particular. Just recording and posting it, is therapeutic. I knew that he would come across the clip somehow and hopefully he would get the message.

I just haven’t been able to pick up his calls or answer his texts. Honestly, when I think about him lately, I don’t see the guy I fell in love with. I don’t see that amazing night during the blizzard in NYC or our amazing trip to Big Sur… all I can see is her. I know he had no intention of hurting me in this way. To be honest, I don’t even really have the right to be this upset because we weren’t even technically together. But it still hurts.

I want to believe the lyrics of this song. I want to keep telling myself that I am over him to the point where I will believe it and it becomes true. But I can’t.

The truth is… as much as I would want to get over him and move on, I am still so completely in love with him. I still believe, deep down, that he is the one. I still believe with all of my heart, that it is us in the end. But right now, I just can’t erase the fact that I now associate him with her. I can’t erase that I associate that amazing night I spent with him in New York with the disgust I felt the next morning.Uhhh, that morning….

Flashback

I stood there staring at his phone, feeling every inch of my heart breaking. All of a sudden, I couldn’t stop the stream of tears from falling down my face. How is this possible? How is it possible to go from the amazing bliss of sharing an incredible night with him, finally having the courage to completely open my heart and myself to him all to just have it fall apart so quickly?

Hearing his voice come up from behind me, I hear, “Babe, I’ve been calling out for you for the last minute or so.” He wraps his arms around me and my initial reaction was to cringe at the slightest bit of his touch. Now noticing the tears on my face, he says, “What happened? What’s wrong?”

I close my eyes carefully thinking what I was going to say next, “I have to get going, I need to get out of here,” I answer.

Firmly, he states, “No, what is going on? Don’t you dare shut me out. Talk to me, babe.” Now worried, he turns my body to face him.

I wince at the sound of his voice calling me ‘babe.’ The only thing I could mutter out was, “your phone.”

With a confused look on his face, he hit the home button on his phone and it lit up revealing that picture and text. He closes his eyes and lowers his head knowing exactly the pain that I was feeling because he looked as if he was feeling it too. After a moment, he starts, “Babe…”

I interrupt and calmly say, “What? You could explain? Save it, there’s no need for any explanation.” I walk towards the bedroom to start gathering my clothes off the floor.

As I start to button up my shirt, he says, “Baby, please let me try to fix this…”

“Derek, what could you possibly say that’s not going to make me feel like the pathetic, naïve little fool that I am right now for thinking that we could’ve actually work? That this, with us, could actually be real.”