Those Damn Butterflies

Chapter Seventeen

I was startled awake by keys jingling in the lock of my door. As I sat up a wave of nausea hit me as a cloud of just horrible feelings rolled over my head. My mind immediately wandered to Alex. I had hurt her badly. I made her cry. I was horrible.

Pedro already stood guard at the door as it opened and revealed my fiancée. When Mel's eyes noticed me sitting on the floor, she frowned.

"What's up?"

I sighed. A lot was up but I could never talk to Mel about it. She would hate me if I told her I felt bad for rejecting another person... and that I had doubts if I made the right decision. Fuck. "Nothing, I was just playing with Pedro."

"In a fancy dress?"

A look down my body made me realize I was still in my clothes from yesterday. "Wanted to try it on." I remembered how Alex complimented me yesterday when she first saw me. "How does it look?" Standing up, I quickly did a little twirl, a careful smile on my lips. I knew I looked good and it would be great to hear it from Mel.

She frowned. "Meh. It's alright."

My smile dropped. That... wasn't nice of her and I was disappointed. If Alex was here, she would make me feel better.

"Anyway, I thought we could go grab lunch and go over the guest list. There are some people we, uhm..." She placed her handbag down on a dresser. "We should talk about."

I nodded, biting my lip. So that was how it was going to go. "Sure. Let me get ready quickly."

Having lunch with Mel had been... exhausting. Very exhausting. She was always so demanding and I felt like I never got to say what I really meant. Everytime a word left my mouth that wasn't exactly what she wanted to hear, she rolled her eyes and talked down on me till I agreed with whatever she was saying. It was honestly very frustrating.

Adding to that, the people on our guest list she wanted to talk about were my friends. She tried placing seeds of doubt in my mind that they were a bad influence and that they would ruin our big day. And I had to say, I almost let her convince me, but then I stood my ground. Which she, of course, didn't like, so our lunch ended in a screaming match and Mel left, pissed.

So I walked alone back to my apartment and grabbed a bottle of cheap wine on my way home. Then I texted Emma to ask if she can come over, that I needed to talk to her. She was already waiting at my door when I came.

She hugged me before saying anything and I appreciated it.

"Ry, what's wrong?"

Nodding, I lifted the bottle of wine. "First I need to get into some comfy clothes and then wine. After that we talk."

"Alright, boss. I like."

I told Emma what happened, how Alex admitted her feelings and how I rejected her. How bad it hurt to see Alex crying. I told her about lunch with Mel and all the things that went wrong there.

"Damn..." Emma started and puffed out a breath. "I think we need something stronger than wine for what I'm about to tell you, Ry."

With that she got up and marched over to my liquor cupboard while I snorted. She felt so at home here, it was ridiculous. She returned to the couch and poured us both a glass of straight Vodka.

"Drink up, baby." Holding out a glass to me, she raised an eyebrow, daring me to refuse.

"Em... really? Last time I checked alcohol was what got me into this whole mess."

"No." She shook her head vehemently. "Shut up. Now is not the time for logic, now is Vodka time."

"You're unbelievable." But I took the glass from her anyway and sipped a bit of the alcohol, regretting it the second it hit the back of my throat and burnt its way down. "So what do you have to say?"