Alex

Chapter Twelve

Rosie

Alex Grayson warned me about who he was, and I told him that he didn't need to change, yet there was a tiny part of me that couldn't accept a man could be so cruel.

He paid my father's bills, he held me in my arms when I cried, he looks at me like I could mean something to him, and he killed that man for attempting to hurt me.

He also tore down the school and tried to scare me during my interview, but he also visited my father at the hospital and shared a meatball sub with him.

I told myself I wouldn't cry, but my tears were bitches, betraying me, backstabbing me as they fell down my face. I was being pathetic, but the pain of rejection and every other word he spoke was tearing me right in half.

I don't think I cried this much when Daniel left me. I still remember coming home to see his side of the closet and drawers empty and a note with two fucking sentences on it.

The rough patch we were going through had broken us, destroyed us, and after one too many fights our engagement became an inconvenience. Our relationship had become a blur of fights, screaming, tears, and arguments that always circled back to one thing.

My inability of having a child. Daniel would say it wasn't that stemmed our arguments, but he was a liar. I knew it was because of that. The first time it happened, I was home, making lunch for us to have when I felt that stabbing pain in my stomach.

And when I looked down I could still feel the blood trickling down my thigh and splattering on the ground. Drip. Drip. Drip. The sound had me screaming and panicking, crying and sobbing as I tried to call Daniel to come home.

The ambulance showed up, but it was too late. I could see it on their faces as they took me to the hospital. I could see this look on their face that was a mixture of pity and sadness. I hated hospitals, but I couldn't do anything about it.

After my last miscarriage, my father had gotten sick a week after. I was barely recovering, my hormones still out of whack, and the pain and hurt still inside me yet I didn't have anyone in my life. It was me.

I was the one that picked myself up off the ground and took care of my father. I was the one that worked hard to pay the hospital and house bills, and I was the one that mended my broken heart.

Daniel wasn't in my life, and I didn't have a mother to hold me in her arms as I licked my wounds. I was alone. It felt like I'd been alone my whole life and sometimes I wondered if Daniel ever made me feel like I wasn't alone.

I'm strong because of who I am, because of what I've been through, and I'm strong because I have to be. I was the only person I could ever rely on.

Just like how I pushed myself through every heartbreak, through every miscarriage, and even through my father's sickness, I knew getting over a man like Alex Grayson would be nothing.

It hurt, yes, because he knew the deepest parts of me because I bared myself to him and he still walked away, but I didn't need him. As long as I had myself, my strength, I didn't need anybody else in my life.

Especially, ill-tempered, cowardly, arrogant men like Alex. Sometimes I wish I could let go, to breathe, and not worry about tomorrow but I didn't have that luxury. The one time I actually felt that freshness, that breath of fresh air was when I was on the motorcycle with him.

I remember it all and thought about it too much. I remember the electrifying pulse that vibrated throughout my entire body and how I felt free at that moment.

The wind in my hair, the chilling breeze that nipped at my face through the helmet, how tightly I held onto him, how our bodies moved over the bike as he turned, or how loud he was when he saw another biker past us.