Delaney James seems to have it all-a successful husband, a stylish Manhattan townhouse, and a thriving career in fashion journalism-until it all falls apart. Her husband leaves her, shattering the perfect life she once knew. Heartbroken and desperat...
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Tears stream down my cheeks and drip off my jaw at a pace I can't slow down. I can feel the muscles in my chin trembling, like a child who's been scolded, and I look up to the cloudless sky, as if the brightness of the day will soothe me. My stomach turns – growing more nauseous by the second – as the anguish in me continues to grow. I moan around an unreleased sob that's causing my throat to ache, and my chest feels heavy as I force myself to hold it in until I have some privacy.
Thankfully my parents aren't home, so I put the roast beef in the fridge and run up to my bedroom. I slam the door behind me and press my forehead against the cool wood. As much as I'm trying to convince myself anger and confusion are the reasons I'm crying, I can't fight the intrusive thoughts and crippling sadness that's consuming me at the idea that maybe Greyson isn't keeping anything from me. Maybe he's not going through something. Maybe he really can't ever trust me again, and he's simply changed his mind about me. About us.
Can I really be upset with him though, if that's the way he feels? I'd like to think I'd be able to trust Greyson if he'd kept a huge secret from me for as long as I did from him, but I can't say for sure I would.
I slap the palm of my hand against the door as a scream builds in my throat, but when I open my mouth to release it, guttural, strangled sobs erupt out of me and echo through my quiet bedroom.
What happened? Why is he acting like the last couple of months have meant nothing? Like we mean nothing? His hurtful words today and the sweet and supportive things he's said to me over the last few weeks contradict themselves. Not to mention the ways he's kissed me and held me, looked into my eyes, and touched me in ways no man has, well...ever. He stood up to Will when he demanded I go back to New York with him, telling him there was no way I was leaving with him, or anyone. He risked assault charges by getting in a fist fight on my front yard – where he broke Will's nose, might I add – for Christs Sake! He protected me. He promised he'd never hurt me, but he has.
I flop onto the bed and clutch my pillow against my chest, squeezing my eyes shut as another wave of sadness hits me. Tears fill my eyes and blur my vision, and I try to blink them away, but when I do my thick, mascara coated lashes stick together. My chest feels like it's being crushed by a one-hundred-pound boulder. My lungs are on fire, and I keep trying to take deep breaths, desperate to fill them with air. Snot seeps from my nose and runs over my top lip, and I roughly wipe it away with the back of my hand.
I can't stop crying. Why can't I stop crying? And I'd hate to see myself right now. All swollen-eyed, snotty-nosed, and red in the cheeks. I don't cry pretty like they do in movies and television shows. My skin gets blotchy and the tip of my nose turns bright red. I sob long after the tears have stopped, leaving me with tearless sniffles and violent gasps of air – almost to the point of hyperventilation.
But despite the pain, and the sadness, and the heartbreak I'm feeling right now, I'm grateful, because the tears pouring from my eyes are proof that I'm alive. In the last two months I've been numb. I've been vacant. I've been completely empty. I've been close – too close – to the familiarity of wanting to die, and I never want to go back there. Tears mean I'm feeling, and feeling means I'm living, so perhaps I should thank my tears for reminding me that I'm still here, still fighting, and at the end of the day, I'm lucky, because I have something that hurts to lose.
I'm still in my room long after the sun goes down. Long after I hear my father walk through the front door, home from work, and long after my mother announces dinner is ready from the bottom of the stairs. I thought making some social media posts and working on my first article for my blog would take my mind off everything, but it didn't. It actually made me feel worse, seeing as how Greyson helped me choose the subjects of my next two posts and what outfits I was going to wear.
