Moving In With The Enemy

Chapter 49 ~ "Tell Me You Missed Me"

☆ Mature Themes Ahead! ☆ 

I haven't felt this empty in a long time.

I didn't even feel this empty when he used to pick on me and roll his eyes at me. Now I just feel this.....absence. He's missing from my life.

I did this to myself though, and I did it for the right reasons. I do care about him and I feel this pull in my chest whenever he walks into a room, I've had it for months. But I will always be firm about my boundaries, there's no way my head's in the game for this research opportunity when Walker and I have just come out of another fight.

I need to be smart about what I'm doing if I want to do a master's program after this year. Walker can come once I have time to sort out my feelings a little better.

I've chipped away at most of my packing. They've set me up with a dorm room at Northwestern for this, definitely cheaper than trying to rent something for a month, so I only really needed to bring my clothes and personal items with me.

Today was the day that I had to go to the apartment to get the rest of it. I didn't text Walker, I assumed he'd still be in New York anyway. It had been three days since that massive blow up on New Year's Eve. 

He's texted me a bit and I've been answering them.

Maybe that's not a great idea, but it's easier than seeing him. Seeing him would make me shatter into millions of pieces.

I look at my pile of things in the corner of my childhood room, I need to go back to my apartment to get everything else today, that's where all of my stuff is.

I leave tomorrow for Evanston, not until almost five p.m but tomorrow nonetheless. I keep replaying my decision over and over again and I keep feeling nagged that maybe I'd made a big mistake.

But, I don't regret getting space. I think that was a good decision even if it feels like my heart's being ripped out.

"Honey." I hear mom sigh, looking in on me from the hallway. "You need to get up."

"I know." I admit.

Staying here seemed like the best move, I felt safest at home. Plus there was always the chance Walker would be in the apartment.

"Are you ever going to talk about what happened in New York?" She whispers. "You've been sulking around and crying for days."

"I just......I asked him to take a break." I admit honestly and she frowns, coming to sit down with me on my bed.

"Why? You seemed so happy before you left." She asks, tucking a piece of my hair behind my ear.

"He dropped a big thing on me that he'd kept secret, it was something I'd asked him before." I mumble. "Mom, he's always like that. I'll ask him something twenty times and he won't tell me anything about it or he'll deny it, or worse, he'll make me feel like an idiot for asking. Then I find out the truth weeks later, it's frustrating."

"That is frustrating." She sighs, looking like she understands my feelings. "Men are stupid sometimes."

"Amen." I sigh, putting my head on her shoulder. "I think he doesn't tell me what he feels or thinks all the time because the thinking takes.....more thinking. Does that make sense?"

"Yes." She chuckles. "Boys are like hotdogs, delicious and great but wondering about what's inside makes your stomach turn." I laugh a bit at that and she squeezes my shoulders.

"He's had a tough upbringing without a lot of friends, I know when he tells me something he means it. He wants me to know, but it shouldn't feel like a reward that I get to know something about him."