Back to You

This Is Not How Our Story Ends

Authors Note: Good news and some not-so-good news. I am giving you yet another chapter, but I will be working for the next five days straight, so this may be it until the weekend unless I can manage to squeeze another in. 

Thank you always for your kind responses and support.

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After aimlessly walking around for a while, I found myself down by the water at the same rock wall Belly, and I had stopped at earlier that same morning. 

What a difference a few hours could make. 

I had been so content holding her in my arms, walking hand in hand with her, and kissing her as if she would always be mine. Like no one or nothing could ever come between us. 

What a crock of s*** that thought turned out to be. 

Right now, I was so mentally exhausted, my heart so worn down by all the pain it was feeling. I felt myself going to that dark place that I used to, that place where my worth had seemed useless if I couldn't change things or fix things for my mom. 

I knew I couldn't change things for Belly and me, what had happened tonight was etched in stone, but I desperately wondered if fixing things was a workable idea or just wishful thinking.

We were broken in a way right now that seemed insurmountable. There was just one thing I wouldn't tolerate, and Belly knew it - infidelity was my one hard no. And it hurt what Belly had done because she knew that. 

To be fair... I don't think Belly would have kissed Theo, not even with that much alcohol in her system. Maybe that was me being naive, but I truly felt in my heart that when push came to shove, she would have said no and left the game, and that was the one saving grace I was hanging on to. 

My biggest fear was that she had allowed herself to be put into that situation at all. 

I knew it wasn't all Belly's fault that things had gone so sideways. I could have changed the outcome of the night just as easily by leaving the conversation with Jessie and May when she did, but I hadn't wanted her to feel like she had to babysit me all night, either. 

I'd forgotten how broken her trust meter was because of Jere. How easily a situation like a party filled with willing girls could play on her insecurities. I even imagine that maybe tonight's scenario had been a little too familiar for Belly to deal with maturely. 

Don't get me wrong. I'm not holding her blameless - she f***ed up for sure. I'm just trying to find my way through a messy situation so I can come out the other side with a way forward for both of us. 

Whether that forward is together or apart is my quandary right now between my head and my heart.

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"How are you doing?" I asked Theo as I came to stand beside him at the bathroom sink where he was washing blood off his face.

"Jesus, Gia, how do you think I'm doing?!" he said angrily as he touched his nose tenderly and winched in pain. " I think Bella's boyfriend broke my f****** nose, thanks to you!" 

"Don't blame me for your f*** up. You were supposed to kiss Bella somewhere private so she would feel guilty enough about it to confess to Conrad, not right in front of him so that he would kick your ass," I said, annoyed at how much Theo had ruined my plan for the happy couple. 

I knew what Conrad's hot button would be because Bella had told me so much about him—her fault - not mine.

"He did not kick my ass," Theo spat, and some more blood came out of his mouth.