The Carrero Heart - Happy Ever Afters (Book 3 of Heart Trilogy)

Chapter 5

I throw the bags down on the couch in complete rage and scrub my fingers through my hair. It's been a bad day at school, a day I should never have endured and just stayed home with Arry again. He insisted I don't miss any more days for him, and he promised to have dinner ready for my coming home. All day everything has just gone wrong and my partner Yvette was driving me insane with her veiled bitchiness and the constant asshole glances from my peers.

I get it! None of them like the annoying yank on a scholarship placement, it's not exactly fucking new. I understand the jealousy, but why do they have to constantly make me feel like they do? I'm not one for being bullied by stupid girls but this is done in such a snide low way, never to my face, never anything coming back to me, so I know what they are saying. Just looks, smirks and whispers. I can't stand any of them and I miss my real friends back home. I'm deflated, angry, upset and just so over this whole fucking situation. They know how to make me feel worthless and miserable, despite my internal pep talks.

I don't normally let it get to me as much as today has done but I am tired with everything. Arry is leaving so soon, it's been on my mind all day and it's put a dampener on absolutely everything. I endured this for months and in the beginning, it was never this bad. It never got to me as much as it does now, and I am starting to come undone. I need him here; I need him for longer than snatched days and then endless weeks of separation. Sex was a quick fix and now I am back to feeling like I just want to scream and go home.

It's sad that Janetta the housekeeper is the only other person apart from Arry that gives a shit about me in this city. There's no one in this building who acknowledges me, even when I say "Hi" in passing, because no one speaks English and I failed to pick up any French, even now. I've never felt so lonely in my life, even back when I was always alone as a kid.

I miss Christian and Jenny! We call and text but it's not the same and even the lack of our extended circle of friends gets to me too. I miss our little crew and our bowling and cinema outings. I miss my life back home. I'm so detached from all of it, like it's no longer within my reach and not out there waiting for me anymore.

The only upside to the lack of people I can call friend is also the lack of distraction and the ability it has given me to focus on working harder. That is all I do with my life and my free time; work hard, sew and design. The better I do, the more I'm disliked, but I would never tell Arry that. He is fiercely protective and if I told him that most of the girls in my class hate me, he would go kick up shit quicker than I could blink. It would make everything so much worse for me.

He doesn't know that no one here likes me. I could never tell him, because it's embarrassing, and I've left it too long to casually drop it in after not telling him from day one. I hoped it would change, and now I feel stupid for not telling my best friend when I should have. I used to tell him everything, but it's built up so much that I don't even know how to anymore.

We had dinner a few times with people he met here; he's good at that, meeting, socializing with people and making new acquaintances wherever he goes, but none of them became long term friends with him being absent so often.

Everyone always likes him, because he's easy to like and he seems to attract new friends effortlessly. He never probes or asks why I never invite people over. It's not like he would notice anyway as the last few months he is home so rarely that I guess he just assumes I would rather spend the time with him, the two of us when he's here. I'm good at batting off the conversations, telling him about what I've been doing in his absence. He never pries much anymore, and I am so good at vague because our time is about being together so that he has never clicked that I literally have no one here at all.

He is it for me.

I stop when he wanders through from the hall, the direction of our room rather than the kitchen and immediately notice how he's dressed, stopping me mid garment removal. Casual yet not lounging at home casual. He's in jeans and a t-shirt with sneakers, there's a jacket in his hand and my heart immediately drops to my feet like a boulder. We have no plans to go anywhere and he isn't one to spring impromptu on me with zero warning very often. The look on his face says it all; this is not a surprise date night.