WORK IN PROGRESS: Guy and Reason

Chapter 6 (Eden/Reason): Be Safe

I was ready to scream when Guy said he wasn't leaving quite yet, but it never actually got to scream level. More like shouting.

"No! No! You promised, Guy. You promised you'd leave without opening your mouth -- although I'm not sure why I thought you'd actually keep this promise since you broke every other one you ever made to me. This is my fault -- fool me once and all that. I really need to stop being taken in by your faux sincerity."

He came two steps closer to me but didn't invade my personal bubble.

"What is it with people in college getting so close? I don't want anyone closer than arm's length to me," I complained to Guy when I went to visit him that first weekend we were away at different colleges. The separation had been brutal.

I extended my arms in front of me and waved them back and forth to illustrate my no-go zone. 

"I mean seriously, I feel like putting up signs that say Stop! Don't come any closer! Respect the bubble." 

Guy had come right up to me, pressing his front to mine. 

"Not even me? Can't I be the exception to your rule?" he'd asked, grinning, wiggling his eyebrows at me with such exaggeration, I had to laugh as my arms snaked around his neck and pulled him closer.

"Only my Guy can get this close to me," I said, giving him a cheesy grin like I always did when I referred to him like that. Then I pulled his head down to mine and he gave me a kiss that would always ensure admittance to my personal space.

"I can't stand you thinking that Ingrid and I ever...that we were ever together. We weren't. And I don't have a type, unless it's you and only you. There hasn't been any variety of any type in my life in three years. You may think I've been living it up, but I haven't been with another woman since the night I destroyed our lives."

"You didn't destroy my life, Guy; all you did was temporarily detour it," I said scathingly, focusing on that rather than the wholly unbelievable claim of celibacy he'd just made to me. "But I'm back on the road now, not a pot hole -- much less four -- in sight."

Then, old habit leftover from childhood, I pretended to scratch my nose to see if it had grown like Pinocchio's when I told that huge lie.

"It's still the same size," Guy said with a brief, faint smile, knowing what I was doing.

"Now you need to leave. You've overstayed your welcome."

"I'm sorry, Reason."

"Eden!" I corrected sharply.

"Eden, then. I'll leave, but I want you to know that I still love you. Never stopped. Never will."

Before I could throw something at him, he walked out of my rental house. 

With an angry swipe of my arm, I pushed the horrible pictures of Guy's betrayals off the coffee table, where they fluttered to the floor. I still remembered the afternoon they'd appeared in my email. Stupidly, I'd opened the message from an unknown sender, thinking it was someone from one of my classes sending me their class notes since I'd missed two lectures the previous week. When I saw what the attachments were, I thought I was going to be sick. The email itself was simple:

It was never going to be you.

Faced with the evidence of his cheating, that had immediately sent me into another body-shaking crying jag, and left me wondering how I could cry this much and not be dehydrated. I'd missed another two classes that week, surprised I was able to sit through any of my lectures since I was such a hot mess. At one point, I'd almost allowed those pictures to derail me from finishing my nursing degree. My mother had alternately bullied, cajoled, demanded and pleaded with me not to drop out, to pull myself together and not let go of my dream of being a nurse.